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self_improvement Self Improvement @hexbear.net
moonlake [he/him] @hexbear.net

Weekly Improvement Thread - Oct 13th

Hello comrades and welcome to the second improvement megathread of October!

As usual, some discussion ideas:

  • Do you want to share something you've done in the previous week? Everything counts, nothing is too small.
  • Do you have any goals or plans for next week?
  • Do you have any streaks? For example, "sober for one day." Feel free to post your streak every day in this thread.
  • If you don't have a continuous streak, did you manage to abstain from something for a day or more?
  • Did you come across some useful information or resource that might help others?

Poster caption: "Have you signed up as a volunteer?"

Good luck with your goals!

19 comments

  • This week I went jogging for 2km every day from Monday to Thursday. I do it in the morning during my work break. I think it's a good way to start the day. I'd like to make it a permanent habit and go at least 2 or 3 times per week.

  • Ordered cute lights to make my room comfy and incentivize myself to tidy up and redecorate

    Making an appointment at the bank to move my meager savings into a less unethical mutual fund and am thinking of treating myself to a new amp and/or a new PC

    Need to repair my shitty car and not looking forward to making my achy ass crawl under it in the driveway

    Have a job opportunity that I might be able to get that's kinda good, I don't think I'd enjoy the job itself that much but the starting wage is decent and the location is convenient and it has health insurance which is huge for me

    Need to get new clothes but I want to slim down first idk

    Have a goal weight and diet/fitness plan in mind but I have an ankle sprain and jammed thumb that are bugging me and keeping me from running or lifting for a bit

  • At the end of May, I decided I wanted to start going for daily walks. It's something I've tried to do many times before, but I would always give up after about a week.

    I have not missed a single day since then. Rain or shine, depressed as hell, or 2AM...there's not been a day that I went to bed without going on a ~30 minute walk. I don't think it's made some incredible improvement in my life or anything--fitness-wise, I really ought to be doing some high-intensity exercise as well because my cardio is still terrible--but it means I can always point to at least one good thing that I've done to take care of myself every single day. It's also evidence I can use to challenge the negative self-perception that I never stick to my goals. Small, but something I can build off of! And finally, as someone who has a tendency to be a shut-in, it's a way of reminding myself that, hey, I may feel like a worthless piece of shit a lot of the time, but I am part of this world and I deserve to live alongside everyone else.

    As for new goals: I've finally started to make my first foray into contributing actual code to an open source project. I've been making pretty good progress, and I need to make one final push before I submit my pull request for review. I think these are my main stumbling blocks, in order of seriousness:

    1. Frustration tolerance (difficulty sitting with and struggling with a problem that I don't have a clear way of solving)
    2. Fear of judgment (for writing incorrect/sloppy code or for not knowing things)
    3. Fear of being a burden (for taking up someone's time if I have to ask for help or if my submission requires a lot of TLC from the reviewer)

    I actually already dealt with #1 recently...partially because the desire to avoid #3 was a sufficient motivator to figure a difficult part out myself, although to give myself credit I made progress after setting myself a deadline after having not worked on it for weeks.

    I also don't think #2 is too bad. Realistically, as someone making their first contribution no one is going to expect me to get everything right, and as long as I put in an honest effort to follow the contribution guidelines I feel like I can convince myself of that fact rather than listen to cognitive distortions.

    #3, though...that's a doozy. I've saved the most difficult part of my code for last, and there's a good chance I simply won't be able to figure it out without asking for help. I hate asking for help more than almost anything in life. Pretty funny considering I strongly believe that everyone deserves to be able to live a life of basic dignity and get whatever help they need to do well, but I always make an exception for myself so that I can engage in some self-flagellation. But the reality of working on any large project, especially as a greenhorn, is that you will have to ask for help at some point and it's completely expected as part of the onboarding process. But...but...but I should be able to figure it out myself!

    In the end, I guess it's purely about ego. If I ask for help, that means I couldn't do it myself, and that means I'm weak. But we've only made it this far as a species (for better or for worse) because we were able to work together, so that's a pretty stupid way to think about things. Hopefully as I make my first contribution and continue to work on this project I'll begin accumulating evidence that asking for help is okay and even good, actually, because by asking for help those with experience can share their knowledge with me and make me able to contribute even better in the future. And finally, to remember that there's little I enjoy more than helping other people, so it stands to reason that many others would be thrilled to help someone discover more about their passion project.

    • Good post

      I struggle with the same stumbling blocks in a slightly different order but it sounds like you're making good progress. Going for walks is a really helpful habit too imo, even if it's not the most intense exercise, setting the time aside and sticking to it as a habit really helps me center myself mentally and unwind a bit.

  • It's been 120 days since I started giving a shit and the last month I've really started struggling more but I've been going with it at a slower pace, gone are the weeks of 3 pound losses and now it's more like 1 pound. I did hit a new low today crossing another pound marker now at 33 pounds lost. I wanted to start doing walks in the evenings with my mother as a way to just add some exercise in but getting motivated is difficult after a full day of work. I've started only using the elevators for my way into work which isn't a ton but it's something.

  • My weight has been on a slow upward trend, which isn't quite what I wanted, but I also don't feel too bad. My body is different from the last time I was at this weight. Still progressing and becoming stronger. Ideally I'd keep the weight off, but the cold weather is coming and I'm inevitably going to lost my motivation for walking. Still doing just enough intense exercise at home though so it shouldn't be too bad.

    Want to see if I can hang out with someone I had been meaning to for a while. I'm not the type to invite people out all that often and its something I still struggle with.

    • Cardio remains on point. Hitting at least 3 miles a day. Running is slowly getting better/easier, just need to keep focusing maintaining consistent performance.
    • Reading keeping me sane. Reading more and more sci-fi classics. I'm gonna try and tap into the modern stuff but I feel like you should read the stuff that has influenced you like
    • Failed an exam in my master's program. Didn't study. That was 420% my fault. Won't happen again.
    • Programming/Game Development streak is only three days, but if I do it today it'll be four and if I do it again it'll be five. I keep reminding myself that 1 is infinitely closer to 100 than 0. I am focusing on building the habit and skills, rather than trying to "build my dream game".

  • Today is day one of not drinking again. I drank something like 3 liters in a week or so and my insides started hurting. I drank so much that in the maybe week and a half that I was drinking again I put on 9-10 lbs. I really need to figure out why I drink so hard when I do drink because if it's not alcohol it's something else. Or, as my 6 months of sobriety showed, eventually the same reason I drank to begin with reared it's ugly head again and I'm into another bender.

    The only thing I've managed to be consistent with is not missing a day riding my motorcycle. Through rain and shine, hot and now cold I keep riding. There's something weirdly appealing about riding in shitty conditions. And now that it's getting cold out, I've been getting a lot of cold rides in.

    • Hell yeah, I'm glad to hear that you're already back on the horse so quickly. Good luck with your sobriety and keep us posted in the thread about your progress!

      Btw I recommend writing a journal, it's good when you are trying to figure out what is triggering your behavior. If you get a craving, you can write down where you were, what you were doing, how you feel, what you were thinking about and so on. Eventually you start noticing patterns and then you can predict what situation triggers a craving in order to avoid it.

19 comments