Sounds to me like you have learned some things. You’re just looking for encouragement, now, which is totally understandable and very very commendable.

Don’t ever let yourself question your progress as a static benchmark. You question your habits and wish to return to a more productive/happier state… do you see something wrong with that? It’s very human, and we all fall off the horse and have to recover, sometimes

Dust yourself off - take a breathe - keep going, when you can.

Follow your own drum beat and keep focus on those things you wrote about - improving yourself seemed to make you happy. Good luck - You don’t need it. ✌️

One other thing you can try is establishing triggers for your habbits. “When X happens, then I do Y.” That helps me keep to certain habits. “When I watch Dragon Ball, then I lift weights” and “When it is Sunday at 6:00pm, then I do the dishes.” It may not work for everyone, it may not work for you, but it has helped me. No more “Zero Days” also helps.

I think maybe you might get bored with things and that’s normal and ok, but you want to stick with good habits right so here is a fix. Take the weightlifting, you want to do it to be in shape, right? Well, there are many ways to get in shape you might also like. For me for example I go through phases of being interested in one thing or another, like weightlifting, cycling, swimming, archery, sailing.

I used to feel guilty about not being consistent with one enough, but then realized screw it, just do what I’m in the mood for and don’t be hard on myself - but to do something. So, I have a selection to choose from depending on mood and motivation. Motivation is at the lowest? Just go for a walk.

Same can be for studying: I can read, watch courses, or do hands-on work depending on mood, etc.

i have an account on Habitica. it’s a todo list with RPG mechanics (or an RPG game where you gain XP and level up by doing things in real life) and it’s really helped me keep on track. i’ll let my competitive instincts kick in and i’ll grind for gold or try and level up quickly or whatever, and i’ll get everything i need to do that day done within like the first two hours and i’ll be disappointed i have nothing else to do. never underestimate the power of gamification

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While some of it might be an attention deficit or mood disorder (or whatevs), there is nothing wrong with getting interested in something and then simply losing interest.

I am a musician, I love making music for my own personal enjoyment and then deleting the project to start something new.

This isn’t something I’ve done every day since I got interested, I started, stopped, did other music related things, stopped again, and so on.

The things I did get interested in but stopped and never got back to were mostly the things I did every day. They ended up feeling like work, nothing wrong with that but if work was fun we’d call it fun and not work.

IMO, going to the gym can be fun but that’s not my idea of a leisure activity and I’m a man of leisure. cough lazy cough

If I had the desire to go to the gym for something other than vanity I’d probably just bite the bullet though.

I need to force myself into better habits. Like, I have pretty terrible control over eating junk, but I can completely control this at the grocery store. It’s halfway guilting myself, and half treating all items in isles as prechewed baby food that consists of over processed chemistry experiments. I try to only buy stuff that looks like it grows, and never purchase things that have complex chemical names or flavoring of any kind. It is not that I’m wearing a tin foil hat here. The bias aligns with healthy foods and the precognitive bias lessens my susceptibility to marketing. I take it to the extreme though. Like carbonated beverages are using the opposing sensations of sweetness and an acidic gas to create a new type of sensation novel to evolutionary adaptations. So, to get away from that addiction I started calling it what it is, acidic gas infused poop colored corn oil. Artificial sweeteners are basically zero calories because they don’t burn in a standardized flame test. So I think of them as fire extinguisher media. Childish, I know. It gets worse. I’m a grow ass adult paying a game of the floor is lava in a in a grocery store. Just don’t tell anyone.

I tried doing all kinds of exercise junk for ages and it never stuck. Until I started riding a bicycle almost everywhere. It is probably a bit safer now (in the USA) than when I started because there are so many e-bikes going roadie speeds without the experience required to earn those speeds. Other than the hazards e-bikes create for other cyclists, they are paying a lot more of the blood tax that ultimately makes it safer for all cyclists. I’m partially disabled after 2 cars crashed into me in 2014, so weigh the risks. However in 2009 I was 350lbs, and by 2013 I was 190lbs. I got into racing and hardcore riding during that timeframe, but it all started by just being cheap and riding to work to save a few dollars. It may make your commute a bit longer, and it takes adapting but there are a ton of benefits and the quality of life improvement over car life is enormous. Driving on public roads is an unbelievably negative mental drag on life that you need to stop in order to really assess. The hard thing to overcome is preconceptions about road bikes and the clothing. Everyone has their hangups they overcome. The equipment is primarily functional not aesthetic. Wearing a proper road kit is nothing like regular clothes for many reasons, but for commuting the key is to cool down in the last couple of miles because the clothing is extremely efficient at evaporation. So long as you give yourself the time at the destination, you can be completely sweat free and presentable after a quick change of clothes. This makes your day better at work and lets you completely disconnect and unwind by the time you get home. It is the most positive lifestyle change I ever made. Exercise doesn’t need to be a chore you motivate yourself to do, it can be made into a part of basic life in general. I eventually collected the gear and commuted in all weather, except lightning and pounding rain. It really isn’t bad riding in the rain most of the time. It is like having an air conditioner really. If you’re riding hard, you can be just as wet either way. The only difference is watching out for painted pavement in any kind of turn to avoid going down.

I use an app that gamifies tasks to stay accountable. Habitica- you have a character (a mage or warrior etc) and you gain xp by ticking off the things on your list. You can join parties with other people and do quests, so if you don’t complete tasks on time it impacts the team.

I also force myself to do things in a way that I know will work for me. So for example I know that if I go home between work and an activity, I will definitely not go back out. So I will make myself stay outside, maybe treat myself to a coffee, so I make myself do the activity. 9 times out of 10 I’m glad I did.

I think it’s important not to beat yourself up too much though if you slip up and I know it’s much easier said than done. Everyone has off days, it’s ok if sometimes you don’t get everything done that you need to. Sometimes just getting to the next day is enough.

You are what you do.

I find some things I wanted to do just didn’t fit in the way I was doing them.

For example journaling and meditation, two things you mentioned, weren’t great for me to be consistent about; I don’t get something out of them every time and they don’t build up for me. I practice meditation enough that its there when I need it to calm things down but not religiously. Journaling was just about reflection to me, just find some quiet time and think, no need to bring writing into it, and finding that time/looking for it/wanting it, I think helps keep over-stimulation in check.

For weightlifting, why bother? Because I see the consequences in others, it only gets harder the older you get. I liked the idea of “earning” the day by doing something hard to commit to my future and sometimes the hard thing is working out with a migraine or illness, I’m lucky to still be able to.

What do these things mean to you; what do you want out of them.

For going to the gym it can help to have a gym buddy to go to the gym with because you can keep each other accountable and because going to the gym becomes a social obligation which can make it harder to flake out of than if you go alone. I have no problem disappointing myself I’ve done that plenty of times I’ll get over it, but I dont wanna leave my friends hanging. Perhaps a book club might help with reading as well?

Sometimes setting aside a time to do something can add structure and create routine. So if you have all week to go to the gym it might be easy to just not do it, but if you go to the gym every Weds or Saturday at time X then it can make things easier. If there is a book you want to read you can set time before bed to make sure you read at least one chapter(or half if the book does that annoying thing where they throw in a random chapter thats like 3 chapters long). For me the added structure gives me the priority of a deadline to make me have to do something, as well as the relief of knowing I can mess around or do something else after. Yes I HAVE to go to the gym before or after dinner on Wednesday, but then Im in the clear!

That said there is no magic bullet or special trick because at the end of the day the thing that makes you do or do not is you. If you want to go to the gym on your own then it’s up to you to keep going to the gym. If you want to read books it’s up to you to do it.

Everybody is built differently too which can be discouraging. I know for me I see people who are happy to work out and get into their routine while it’s all I can do to force myself to do some exercises at home using my pullup bar and some the dumbbells I have. Some people getting into exercising is easier there’s work to keep going and get started but once they build momentum they can keep coasting on their routine. Others it will be an uphill push the entire way. But you might have your own routines that keep easier. Like I enjoy cooking so it takes very little effort for me to go into the kitchen and make a meal.

For me it helps to consider these three things:

1.For some routine it will not always get easier so if I take my foot of the gas to coast through I will stop. I might build some momentum so that it’s easier to keep going, than it was to start from nothing, but its still work.

2.I might, and honestly probably will stop sometimes and that’s OK! If I break the routine and if I wind up falling back on my old habits then cool these things happen. It’s a continuous process and losing momentum is just a part of that.

3. Structure is good but it’s not a prison. You’re doing these things to make yourself or your life better not to punish yourself. I dont diet I calorie count and exercise and watch what I eat. I still enjoy beer and icecream and cake. It may not be great to eat these in excess but cutting out foods that you enjoy and living of steamed brocolli wont usually do the trick. The same goes for the structured time. Have a friend in town for the weekend? Maybe skip that gym session(unless they want to join). Is there something cool happening but it’s on the day that you do X? Then do the cool thing! Feeling genuinely under the weather and need a rest day? DO IT!

If you already have to force yourself to do certain things then it’s going to make you resent them and remove motivation to do them if they keep you from doing other things.

But yeah sorry for rambling there just my 2 cents and also my own form of procrastination/fast forwarding time while at work