What's up guys,
Intro: My name is Jake, I'm 28 years old, and I have a seriously bad work ethic/self-discipline. A lot of times I feel like I have no executive control over myself and I struggle to figure out how much of that is due to my biochemistry (brain chemicals and such) and how much of it is due to being mentally weak. I came from a household where I never had to do anything hard, and I would just play video games for 10 hours a day without real consequence. I've always been an extreme procrastinator, and as much as it pains me to admit, I'm an entitled little shit.
I also feel like a manchild at 28 years old.
I realize I'm making myself seem pathetic, but I do believe there are a lot of people in my generation who are like this, and I'd like to relate to them if they're here. I've been telling myself that if I come out of this and can help other people make the kind of transformation I'm attempting to make, I will have found my life's work. So no shame.
Short backstory: Graduated college in 2014, tried to make things work on my own as an entrepreneur. Over 4 years, I worked up 40k in debt struggling with depression.
In June of last year, I traveled the country in a converted campervan for 9 months and ended up finally building a successful online business (copywriting) during that time. By September, I was making $10k/mo net income for myself and hired someone to do about 80% of the work for me. (I live in an apartment again as of 2 months ago)
I'm now still making between $8k-$12k/mo net (12k-16k revenue) depending on how well I can control my mental state during any given month.
I still have my main employee who has been with me for 8 months now. I work maybe 2 hours a day on average (it's been extremes... periods of high productivity followed by periods with almost none).
I just paid off the last of my 40k debt 2 days ago which felt really good for about 12 hours, but I still struggle very much mentally and it feels like every day I'm just trying to tread water and not have everything collapse.
I'm hoping this thread can help me change that.
My goal for this thread: To keep myself accountable with daily updates on how I spent my time the day before.
Currently I...
- Spend way too much time watching Youtube
- Spend way too much time following the NBA
- Spend way too much time browsing Reddit
- Spend way too much time researching health stuff
- Have a hard time keeping a consistent diet (extremes once again... about 70% of the time I'm on a great streak of eating healthy and then 30% of the time I try to soothe my emotions with food and go on 7-14 day junk food binges)
How I'm trying to improve my health: I debated whether or not to include this section because what I think I have is highly controversial. I believe I have mercury poisoning from dental amalgams (the silver fillings are 50% mercury).
If anyone cares or relates to what I'm going through and has those fillings, here's a link:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health...cutler-protocol-to-address-mercury-poisoning/
I'd like to not make this thread about discussing the legitimacy of that because I do realize it's quite "out there" and generally unheard of. You can come to your own conclusions on it. I do acknowledge that there's some chance I'm a hypochondriac, which would be another mental issue in itself I suppose.
So what I'm doing is:
1. Following the detox protocol for getting the mercury out of my body (I had my silver fillings replaced early 2018). Coincidentally or not, I started to get my shit together shortly afterwards. I still go through very tough mental spells though so it's hard to determine whether I'm truly getting better because of it.
2. I work with a therapist on Betterhelp.com (online therapy service where you have video calls with a counselor). I really like my counselor, but honestly, I haven't felt like I've gotten much value from this yet, but I'm still trying to give it a fair shot.
Daily Tracking of Self-Discipline: My simple goal here is to spend more hours being productive on a monthly basis. Daily or weekly I'm not going to pay much attention to. I just want to see my hours of productivity go up month to month, even if it's just tiny improvements.
So I guess I'll just start for yesterday. I've been struggling mentally again lately, so it's not looking pretty at the moment.
Youtube: 5 hours
Reddit: 1 hour
NBA: 2 hours
Health Stuff: 2 hours
Diet: Bad (I couldn't control my impulse to get a whole box of choc chip cookies, which I also had for breakfast today)
Hours worked: 0
I am in very good physical shape (at least on the exterior) because I have an athletic body type and play sports semi-often. The issue is that strenuous exercise really saps my mental energy instead of rejuvenating me, so I do better with walks and less strenuous exercise like yoga.
I was a weightlifter for a decade until May of last year. I haven't lifted since then, and I believe it has helped me focus more energy on my business. I was worried I'd be letting go of a major piece of my identity and would be sad to lose a large chunk of the muscle I worked for. Though I have lost a good bit of muscle, I'm still happy with how I look and I care a lot less than I thought I would.
Couple other things I want to do:
Quit smoking weed (I use it as a sleep aid only): Smoked last night
(I started doing this in August of last year after never smoking in my life... was in CO and tried it out and it really helped me to fall asleep... but I do believe there's no such thing as a free lunch and I don't want to become dependent on it to sleep).
Be in bed at 9pm: 10pm last night
Wake up at 5am: Woke up at 8am today
Meditate 15 mins: No
Yoga 15 mins: No
I'm also going to grade my mental state to have a log of that and start making some correlations.
Mental state today: 3/10
Notes: My urge is to sit here and wait for replies to my thread, but I'm going to fight that and get some work done and check later.
I also have a Saturday tradition with my sister and her BF where we go to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and then to an ale house after. It's always very hard for me to get work done when I have something exciting planned. I tend to just give myself an easy day of watching Youtube and wait for the time to come. I'm going to try and fight that as well today.
I also re-read this entire thing I wrote 3x now (anyone else do that?) which reminds me that I'm a perfectionist. I consider it a blessing and a curse. It helps me provide a better overall service in my business, but it also hurts/stunts me in a lot of ways as well.
Intro: My name is Jake, I'm 28 years old, and I have a seriously bad work ethic/self-discipline. A lot of times I feel like I have no executive control over myself and I struggle to figure out how much of that is due to my biochemistry (brain chemicals and such) and how much of it is due to being mentally weak. I came from a household where I never had to do anything hard, and I would just play video games for 10 hours a day without real consequence. I've always been an extreme procrastinator, and as much as it pains me to admit, I'm an entitled little shit.
I also feel like a manchild at 28 years old.
I realize I'm making myself seem pathetic, but I do believe there are a lot of people in my generation who are like this, and I'd like to relate to them if they're here. I've been telling myself that if I come out of this and can help other people make the kind of transformation I'm attempting to make, I will have found my life's work. So no shame.
Short backstory: Graduated college in 2014, tried to make things work on my own as an entrepreneur. Over 4 years, I worked up 40k in debt struggling with depression.
In June of last year, I traveled the country in a converted campervan for 9 months and ended up finally building a successful online business (copywriting) during that time. By September, I was making $10k/mo net income for myself and hired someone to do about 80% of the work for me. (I live in an apartment again as of 2 months ago)
I'm now still making between $8k-$12k/mo net (12k-16k revenue) depending on how well I can control my mental state during any given month.
I still have my main employee who has been with me for 8 months now. I work maybe 2 hours a day on average (it's been extremes... periods of high productivity followed by periods with almost none).
I just paid off the last of my 40k debt 2 days ago which felt really good for about 12 hours, but I still struggle very much mentally and it feels like every day I'm just trying to tread water and not have everything collapse.
I'm hoping this thread can help me change that.
My goal for this thread: To keep myself accountable with daily updates on how I spent my time the day before.
Currently I...
- Spend way too much time watching Youtube
- Spend way too much time following the NBA
- Spend way too much time browsing Reddit
- Spend way too much time researching health stuff
- Have a hard time keeping a consistent diet (extremes once again... about 70% of the time I'm on a great streak of eating healthy and then 30% of the time I try to soothe my emotions with food and go on 7-14 day junk food binges)
How I'm trying to improve my health: I debated whether or not to include this section because what I think I have is highly controversial. I believe I have mercury poisoning from dental amalgams (the silver fillings are 50% mercury).
If anyone cares or relates to what I'm going through and has those fillings, here's a link:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health...cutler-protocol-to-address-mercury-poisoning/
I'd like to not make this thread about discussing the legitimacy of that because I do realize it's quite "out there" and generally unheard of. You can come to your own conclusions on it. I do acknowledge that there's some chance I'm a hypochondriac, which would be another mental issue in itself I suppose.
So what I'm doing is:
1. Following the detox protocol for getting the mercury out of my body (I had my silver fillings replaced early 2018). Coincidentally or not, I started to get my shit together shortly afterwards. I still go through very tough mental spells though so it's hard to determine whether I'm truly getting better because of it.
2. I work with a therapist on Betterhelp.com (online therapy service where you have video calls with a counselor). I really like my counselor, but honestly, I haven't felt like I've gotten much value from this yet, but I'm still trying to give it a fair shot.
Daily Tracking of Self-Discipline: My simple goal here is to spend more hours being productive on a monthly basis. Daily or weekly I'm not going to pay much attention to. I just want to see my hours of productivity go up month to month, even if it's just tiny improvements.
So I guess I'll just start for yesterday. I've been struggling mentally again lately, so it's not looking pretty at the moment.
Youtube: 5 hours
Reddit: 1 hour
NBA: 2 hours
Health Stuff: 2 hours
Diet: Bad (I couldn't control my impulse to get a whole box of choc chip cookies, which I also had for breakfast today)
Hours worked: 0
I am in very good physical shape (at least on the exterior) because I have an athletic body type and play sports semi-often. The issue is that strenuous exercise really saps my mental energy instead of rejuvenating me, so I do better with walks and less strenuous exercise like yoga.
I was a weightlifter for a decade until May of last year. I haven't lifted since then, and I believe it has helped me focus more energy on my business. I was worried I'd be letting go of a major piece of my identity and would be sad to lose a large chunk of the muscle I worked for. Though I have lost a good bit of muscle, I'm still happy with how I look and I care a lot less than I thought I would.
Couple other things I want to do:
Quit smoking weed (I use it as a sleep aid only): Smoked last night
(I started doing this in August of last year after never smoking in my life... was in CO and tried it out and it really helped me to fall asleep... but I do believe there's no such thing as a free lunch and I don't want to become dependent on it to sleep).
Be in bed at 9pm: 10pm last night
Wake up at 5am: Woke up at 8am today
Meditate 15 mins: No
Yoga 15 mins: No
I'm also going to grade my mental state to have a log of that and start making some correlations.
Mental state today: 3/10
Notes: My urge is to sit here and wait for replies to my thread, but I'm going to fight that and get some work done and check later.
I also have a Saturday tradition with my sister and her BF where we go to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and then to an ale house after. It's always very hard for me to get work done when I have something exciting planned. I tend to just give myself an easy day of watching Youtube and wait for the time to come. I'm going to try and fight that as well today.
I also re-read this entire thing I wrote 3x now (anyone else do that?) which reminds me that I'm a perfectionist. I consider it a blessing and a curse. It helps me provide a better overall service in my business, but it also hurts/stunts me in a lot of ways as well.
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