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tldr: about psychology/mental stamina
I keep forgetting what I really want
1.5-2 weeks ago I said I was gonna do a "perfect week", where I schedule everything perfectly, go to bed, wake up right, eat right, study, study something else, workout, and have a consistent and happy demeanour.
But my constant and ridiculous lethargy and lack of energy meant that, even from that deciding point, things just got worse and worse.
+ Show Spoiler +
wednesday
11pm bed
thursday 1/3/12
10.30am awake
10.50am eating frozen fish, colliflower, cheese, leek
11.10am want to go back to sleep, try to imagine things to do today
11.20am taking vitamins (magnesium, D, multi, zinc)
15.45pm been to gym, food shopping, etc, now cooking frozen fish, broccoli, roast potatoes
16.35pm finished eating huge meal
17.00pm try to sleep
18.45pm couldnt sleep, back up again
19.05pm got some food/milk to eat
21.00pm finishing 2.2 litres of milk, going to sleep
22.00pm sleep...
friday 2/3/12
8.00am alarm goes off. had woken up 4+ times in the night
8.15am get up, put frozen fish and veg in steamer, shower, eat meal
9am at work
14.15pm back from work, put colliflower cheese in oven. went to shops..
15.20pm back from shops (rent, etc), colliflower cheese back on oven, watching weightlifting livestream. later had some crisps, minced beef, 2.2 litre milk
22.20pm cooking frozen fish, frozen green beans, eggs
23.30pm sleep
saturday 3/3/12
8.30am wake up
9am rice on stove. taking vitamin pills. faster to put rice on before internets
9.25am eating, pills, music
10.20am shower
11am leave for gym
13.30pm back from gym, eating minced beef and rice
sunday
10am wake up
2pm work
8.30pm phone dad
9pm make food minced beef , green beans, milk
wednesday
1pm shower
All of the gaps in there, including the innumerous days that I didn't write anything, were me sitting or lying here doing nothing except watching anime, livestreams, browsing crap, and being late or incompleting everything. I didn't study once (maybe once).
I have felt completely devoid of energy, yawning when getting to the gym (late) and starting again after I have had one, or two, weeks of not smoking after a HUGE ordeal to quit.
Just massive lack of energy, and with that comes apathy and not caring.
So the question is really, is it majorly a physical thing wrong with me, or a "mental" thing wrong?
Just now I was sitting on the toilet wondering whether I should run for 25 minutes or try powercleans in the 40 minutes I have left to get to the gym before work. Coz I went to sleep 4am last night, the latest I have in a long time.
And I thought about Cloud from FF7, kinda a role model. But I didn't just think "I want to be like Cloud (training hard for longterm results)". I imagined myself as him, as that person, and it invoked the emotions in me that brightened me up and gave me resolve once again.
Have I tried getting into the mindset specifically before in the last few weeks? Yes, of course. I even wrote a post-it note saying "Dont be stupid, Cloud" and stuck it to the top of my monitor. But I guess that little note and my lack of energy didn't push me to invoke the emotions using my imagination. So there was no affect/effect.
What is the answer? I've written it before, and obviously seem to forget to utilise it properly. The answer is to invoke these emotions. To eat properly, to sleep properly, to avoid a lethargic snowballing lifestyle of inactivity (eg watching streams for 5 hours straight which leaves me apathetic the next day), and to remember to INVOKE emotion (inspiration) in myself, to invoke a mindset with my imagination - not just assume it will be there automatically, but know that I have to DIG it out before I can feel the effects.
The snowball/vicious cycle of lethargy/apathy is very real I think. Invoking emotions is like pumping up a balloon; you have to keep pumping or air escapes through the leaks, and when the balloon is empty you don't have the energy to start pumping again; you're stuck.
What do I need to do now? I think I'm gonna PRINT OUT a photo of Zack/Cloud to be a more effective reminder. I'm going to go shower and have a run quick before work. And then when I come home I'm going to remember ...not just what I want to be ... but remember to INVOKE the emotions associated with that thing. You need emotional POWER to be able to do something, and that doesn't just come from sitting here browsing TLnet and looking at the clock.
PS if you think im dillusional and barking up the wrong tree please let me know LOL
 
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oh dude we are in the same fucking boat, and it sucks so bad. It is just so hard, but we are almost there. We can see what it takes to be the person we want to be, and we do it sometimes, but then there are weeks like this where it falls apart
we are so close..........yet so far
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this is why day9 is so effective - he doesnt just say how and why we should be happy or to look on the bright side. he is able to INVOKE emotion. to summon it up, to get us to imagine it and then FEEL it.
this is why (girls) can be very "moody". because they are better at invoking emotions in themselves. my girl friend would ask me a question and i would have to think for a while about it, because i was inexperienced and needed to try to somehow invoke an emotion in myself before i could respond. but many girls have a strong and rapid emotional imagination - they dont logically process information and form a decision, but instead have a rapid emotional response/invocation.
this is why , when we try to encourage someone to do something they havent done before, it doesnt help so much to simply list benefits/advantages. it doesnt help because there is no emotional power in that. you need to get them to imagine and invoke the positive emotions , and get them to STOP invoking the negative ones. my friend wanted to start her own business, but she could only focus on the negative fearful emotions, because thats all she knew. i tried to get her to first acknowledge and then INVOKE/imagine the positive emotions , to change her opinion on he matter.
its no use just writing a list of "THINGS I MUST DO" and then reading from that list. without taking a moment to imagine and invoke the appropriate emotions (by thinking longterm/imagining the benefits) then there is NO POWER to this. consequently in my last blog i probably wrote something like "JUST DO IT!" but now i see this is the wrong, incomplete attitude to take.
On March 11 2012 21:50 firehand101 wrote:
oh dude we are in the same fucking boat, and it sucks so bad. It is just so hard, but we are almost there. We can see what it takes to be the person we want to be, and we do it sometimes, but then there are weeks like this where it falls apart
we are so close..........yet so far
if you wanna write anything about your endeavours/mindsets/etc itd be fun to read
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Honestly it's pretty much the opposite. You need to be able to do these things you want to do without the emotional reward, because it won't always be there. Work and boring things are work and boring things. You might feel satisfied that you did them and at the end of the day feel at ease, but you're not gonna be gung ho about uninteresting tasks all the time.
Why does your OP have 2 spaces between each paragraph?
Anyway, like I was saying... If you're gonna do something, you literally just have to do it. If it's something boring that you need long term results in, specify as exactly and numerically as possible what you want. Don't say "I'll wake up early" say "I'll wake up at 7" don't say "I'll do as much exercise as I have energy to" say "I'll x push ups, I'll run for x minutes at x speed." For writing, it's different because that's supposed to be interesting and if it's not interesting it'll often be bad. Getting started is often said by authors to require an exact time tho 
this is why (girls) can be very "moody". because they are better at invoking emotions in themselves.
Oh shut up haha.
Anyway, there's a lot of actual studies on the psychology of motivation that are pretty straight forward to apply to real life. Sadly they all make sense and there's no short cuts So if you're really interested buy a textbook about it. Your life ain't a Rocky montage (I like to say to people with long-term goals), so imagine yourself actually doing the daily grind, which will be tedious and not fun. Motivation posters, reminders, etc don't work. You can easily tune them out. I used to have a startup task which booted my book right away, and I'd just x it without even thinking about it for two years. I only ever got around to finishing that thing when I started setting specific times and stopped thinking about tricking myself into doing it.
without taking a moment to imagine and invoke the appropriate emotions (by thinking longterm/imagining the benefits)
Actually this is probably the worst thing you can do. Studies have shown (I can quote the text book if you REALLY want) that imagining success, victory, etc, lowers your actual results. Imagining doing the work, what you'll do to overcome laziness, what you'll do if you get distracted by something or there is something more fun to do, will help you more in achieving results. Don't think about who you want to be, think about how you integrate that person's work habits into your actual life. Think about problems you'll encounter (not lack of motivation itself, but things that decrease motivation) and how you will deal with them specifically. The answer probably isn't gonna be thinking about the end result, it's gonna be 'if I get a phone call in the middle of doing my goal, I will ignore it, or I will get back to work immediately after the call is finished and not muck about doing something else after it.'
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On March 11 2012 21:42 FFGenerations wrote:
Have I tried getting into the mindset specifically before in the last few weeks? Yes, of course. I even wrote a post-it note saying "Dont be stupid, Cloud" and stuck it to the top of my monitor. But I guess that little note and my lack of energy didn't push me to invoke the emotions using my imagination. So there was no affect/effect.
Pretty sure it's effect here.
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i put 2 spaces between some paragraphs coz they didnt link up to one another so fluidly and wanted a greater pause for people before they continued to the next otherwise itd be confusing. but i didnt realise i done it so many times
im not entirely sure you get what i said... what i was saying was that you should invoke an emotional state that will compel you to take action.
imagining "what you'll do if you get distracted" is really just troubleshooting. stuff like "i work better in the morning before gym" or "i sleep better with the computer off and before 10pm" or "steamed fish and veg is a great quick convenient breakfast".
i dont know why studies would show that imagining success would hamper results, unless that person did not understand the reason that one should imagine success - which is to take advantage of the emotional stimulation which causes them to wake up and jump into action..
you say "motivation posters, reminders, startup files dont work" , but that is missing the point of what i tried to convey. i agree that they wont work, UNLESS they are able to invoke an emotional response. this is why my post-it note failed - because i would look at it with my eyes and see a post-it note. what i should have been doing was meditating upon the message of the post-it note and invoking an emotional response within myself using my imagination. the post-it note should have been a reminder for me to start fantasising and searching for emotional inspiration, rather than a reminder that i should be doing X. it needs to be an emotional message, not just words on a paper.
i agree with everything else you say, such as "specify what and when and how you need to do something, and then do it". but this stuff is vital only after the emotional stimulation. first comes "invoke emotion", second comes "just do it", and a whole lot easier at that
hope i made sense.
tldr: looks like you thought that i put less value in certain things , when infact all i am adding is the importance of emotional invocation ontop of everything else.
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EPT
