It has been 365 days since my last P, M or O. I’ve been on NoFap in Hard Mode (no sex whatsoever and the only release is noctornal) since 15th of June 2015. For reference, I’m a 27 year old male from Australia. I tried NoFap once before but underestimated it and relapsed almost straight away. After that I vowed never again.
How has NoFap impacted my life I hear everyone asking? Well its definitely positive, however the premise that everything in your life will sort its self out because you no longer masturbate is absurd. Life is largely the same however you feel a lot more stable and well equiped to deal with daily challenges. My moods are more in control, I have a lot more focus and energy in what I do and to be honest, it stopped being difficult not to masturbate after about 6 weeks.
I’ll now break down the different areas I see posted a lot about around here:
Focus and Energy I got a much better job and started learning new things in my NoFap year. I did research about topics that helped my in my career rather than PMOing. Probably the biggest benefit to NoFap is that you get so much more of your day back. PMOing is literally the biggest waste of time you could be doing, short of injecting heroin — even if all you watch tv or play computer games, its better than PMO. The ironic thing is though, the longer you go without PMO the less attractive the usual lifestyle of lethargy and laziness become. I stopped playing games completely, I only watched a few shows and I exercised much more frequently. Its not an enormous difference to my normal life, but definitely noticeable.
As NoFap went on I started to slowly adjust to get back to my old lazy ways. I wish I could say that I was exercising everyday and had unlimited energy to go to the gym. The truth is, I’m not that much more motivated than I was a year ago, I just don’t need PMO anymore to cope.
Don’t expect the motivation of NoFap to stick around forever. Don’t tie in your success at the gym, work or study with NoFap otherwise you risk relapse. Just put energy into finding a balance not perpetually putting energy into ways to fight off urges.
Girls As I mentioned in my intro, I’ve been on hard mode which means zero sex. I have gone a few dates but it did not lead to sex. I felt more comfortable around girls in general and was confident enough to show myself a bit more openly. I was not as nervous to go on first dates as previously as I felt a lot more adult having just not masturbated moments before.
However, girls did not flock to me. Girls honestly don’t give a shit of you masturbate or not (especially single ones) they care that you are emotionally available and mature enough provide them with what they want, be that sex, relationship, friendship or marriage. I didn’t have an aura of pure confidence and swag, nothing about my outwards appearance change markedly. My internal perception of myself was a lot more calm and stable but my personality was largely unchanged.
I’m still on the look out for a girlfriend but I don’t couple my feelings of self worth or motivation with this search. I would have at least 2 opportunities to lie to myself and a girl in order to feign interest and sleep with her — but I did not. It isn’t healthy for either party unless you are able to totally upfront that you are only interested in sex and the other party reciprocate. I wasn’t, she wasn’t so it was left at that.
Confidence Despite not having massive success with the ladies, I am naturally quite a confident person especially when dealing about topics I am passionate about. This hobbies and passions really improved during my year of NoFap. I’m a keen amateur physicist and technology enthusiast and I’m lucky enough to work in that industry. I managed to promote myself to such a degree that I got a new job with a 50% payrise and now travel around the world speaking at events about certain niche topics that I know a lot about.
This level of self efficacy to a) go for a bigger job and b) talk to rooms full of people are definitely thanks to NoFap and my much more even mental state. I don’t have super powers but my natural talent is no longer obscured by things like brain fog and spikes in self esteem.
This is probably the part of my life I am most happy with and NoFap was integral. Again however, I still put in a lot of hard work. NoFap didn’t do it for me, NoFap gave me the mental and emotional tools necessary to do it myself.
I intend to continue on this NoFap journey as long as it takes. Will I never masturbate again? Maybe. I really don’t know at this point, but what is for certain is that I am no where near the level I want to be in multiple aspects of my life and masturbating certainly isn’t going to help get my any closer!
LINK – 365 days of NoFap — My experience
By maskedgunman
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