Can’t believe it’s been 90 days, this morning. I’m immensely proud of coming this far, but the beauty of new habits is you don’t have to think about it.
It used to take concerted effort and will for me not to fap, to cook my meals every week and eat well, to take the stairs at work, to hydrate properly, to make my bed every morning, to look people in the eye when I’m speaking, to address and maintain proper posture, to follow grooming and hygiene rituals on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, stretching in the morning and evening, etc.
These things are running in the background, now. So much so that I take them for granted and forget to pat myself on the back for how far I’ve come. It’s good to look back from this milestone and see how my daily living has changed in the past 3 months, and in the past 2 years (since I discovered NoFap).
I have a lot of new habits I’m in the process of installing, and I tend to be more focused on the things that remain than the things that are done. This morning I celebrate how far I have come. I would not be this far, and the things that are just on the horizon would not be at all possible if I was still fapping. Period.
If you’ve identified fapping as something that’s holding you back, you’ve probably already identified something it’s holding you back from…ie: your values.
Don’t try to fulfill all your values at once. You will fail. You’ve got to identify keystone habits that will help you be in a better position to succeed with your other ideal habits.
For example, I have an entire morning routine, now:
Dream journal
Weigh in and note weight in Body Mass Progress document
Dress (athletic shorts and undershirt from the day before)
Dynamic stretching
25 situps, 10 chinups (work negative-to-positive), 20 squats, 12 pushups (elbows out), 12 lunges, 10 pullups (work negative-to-positive), 10 dips, and 12 jump-ups on the stairs. All reps explosive during positive portion of rep, two seconds of controlled lowering during negative portion of rep.
Distance Run
Static Stretching
Glass of water
Massage out leg muscles and any areas of tightness
Morning hygiene
*Brush
*Listerine rinse
*Sonicare
*Shower (Soap and exfoliate face, neck, and ears)
*Clean ears
*Lip balm
*Deodorant
*Cologne
*Undershirt and underwear
Crew styling gel
Make bed
Dress for work – shirt, slacks, socks with shirt-stay, and preferably a tie and jacket
Read journal from the day before (to remind what was on my mind, what I was hoping to achieve in the next day)
Check in on Lift
Mist plants every day, and water every other.
Move frozen items into fridge that need to thaw. Move fruit from fridge that needs to ripen to the counter
Pack first meal and work materials in briefcase
Drive to work
If I had started on day 1 trying to do ALL of that, I’d have burned out in 2 days, max. And I probably go jerk off to feel better about failing.
Instead, I identified the keystone habit: waking up at 5:15 AM. I did that for a week, and got my circadian rhythm dialed in at that new time. Then, it was one piece of that routine at a time. Easier things to harder…making the bed was super easy, so I did that first. And I kept adding non-negotiable items to that routine until I was doing the whole thing.
Give yourself time and be smart about the hierarchy you build. Start with basics and then add to them. A lot of the time, the experience you have with the basics will change your ideas about the whole goal…you’ll realize you should actually do something differently, or at a different time, or maybe you don’t need to do that thing every day, or whatever.
Anyway, I’m gonna check in at some point in the next several months with a major summary of how far I’ve come. I’ve lost 100 pounds since discovering NoFap and really changed a lot in my life. NoFap is the keystone habit that gave me the awareness, time, and sense of self-efficacy and self-worth to push further in other areas.
Congrats to all of you for being here. It took me two years to reach this number. And today’s just another day and I have a long way to go. But consciousness of problems and a desire to address them are the first step. It took me this long to get here, but I got here, and I’m not stopping until I’m the man I envisioned, two years ago. That’ll happen in the next 6 months, I believe.
TL;DR – BITCH, PLEASE. YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO READ? FUCK YO COUCH.
LINK – The impossible has become mundane
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