The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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Goals for last month didn't go particularly well. Got about 1/4: I was very social and even hosted a tapas dinner party with 12 guests at my house! I continued to scroll too much, masturbate/use porn and multitask at work. I think the social goal clicked for me (while the others didn't) because I had an actionable system to follow (go to this activity on this night, make plans with these friends this weekend), while the others didn't because I didn't have a system in place to keep me accountable and/or make the goals actionable. For this month I want to focus on systems:
Reducing scrolling. I have cold turkey on my computer and a lock box for my phone. I can pre-decide what sites/apps are allowed during what times on my computer using cold turkey and don't have to use willpower to stick to it. Same with the phone, although I have to exercise my willpower to put the thing in the box at the set time. This isn't nothing, but is much easier than constantly trying to resist the siren call of the device.
Scheduling free time and lab time. This is a Cal Newport suggestion. I found my reading habit wasn't as consistent as I would have liked, and am now trying to juggle Spanish, Italian, and English reading, as well as books for various book clubs (Marx, Kant, Spanish book club, etc.). The same applies for my lab work: when I need to do bench experiments they need to be planned out in advance. I can't just decide to a dissection Thursday afternoon because I need to prep, dissections+staining take 5-6 hours, and there's circadian rhythm effects that I have to keep track of between experiments. Of course the schedule doesn't need to be a prison, which I think Jordan Peterson has said, but it can be a guide. Spontaneity is heavily overrated.
Making sure I sleep enough 5/7 nights a week (preferably 6/7). I'm running about 80 miles/a week these days, and I need to sleep well to recover. Plus everything (willpower, intelligence, emotional regulation, social IQ) seems to get better when I sleep more. Aiming for between 8.5-9 hours in bed 6/7 nights of the week, with one night a little more flexible for late social events. This does mean saying no to a few things, but it mainly means not procrastinating with scrolling and eating properly so I don't wake up in the middle of the night.
Impressive. That's a lot. I'm at half that, and with a lifting schedule too, I go to bed feeling beat up most days.
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Feeling positively overwhelmed at my new job.
My team is 'cracked' (as the kids call it) and I'm going in with a combination of excitement and nervousness. I've prided myself on being a clinger, hanging on for dear life. Today, I'm once again the stupidest guy in a room. I'm looking forward to it.
In my experience, surviving is an stronger motivator than thriving. I've jumped into the deep end of the pool, goal for the next 1 year is to survive. (Gotta hit that 1 year cliff)
Are you working in tech? Are your coworkers the same age as you or older? It must be fun though, to work with really good, competent people.
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You've an interesting post and edit history. I only write this as it's hard for me to comment or interact in any genuine way (in this type of encouragement thread) with post-ers who appear to redact / obfuscate everything they post.
Anyway, yes, survival is a good first goal.
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How do you get up to speed in a situation like this?
I often find myself, well, maybe not the stupidest, but far from the smartest in the room. I don't want to interrupt the smart people when they're going a mile a minute doing something important every time I lose the thread, but if I never ask questions I never get better at keeping the thread. What do?
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I posted a while back about how practicing driving was tiring to me in a way few activities are. I'm happy to report that I now have my license and a car. Even though I live in the city so parking is less convenient, just feeling of being able to go anywhere without having to check public transport is very freeing.
The reason I only bothered so late in life is that I have been living in the city for all my adult life so it was never a necessity, and my province imposes taking expensive classes (around a 1000$) for one year before you're able to get your license, so the cost and delay killed my motivation to get it for recreational purposes. But now I'm thinking to move out of the city so having a license is a prerequisite.
It's still tiring and stressful to me in the kind of road environment I have practiced less in (highways, on-ramps, service roads) but busy city roads are getting to be second nature now.
It does get much easier with practice. I started a zipcar membership this year after having not really driven much since I was 17 and time on the road seems to make the most difference to my subjective feeling of how hard the driving was.
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It gets easier as you go. I remember when I was learning how to drive, the first time I merged from an on-ramp was super stressful. And that wasn't even a highway, that was a city road where traffic was going 35-40 mph! But now after years of practice, it's second nature to me. Keep it up, brother!
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