I'm struggling with my life.

[toasterwater]

My current standing in life is quite unbalanced. I'm having alot of troubles at work (in my special circumstance, this also ties in with the law...). I'm at the cusp of something either very good (with low chances of happening...), very bad (with relatively high chances of happnening), or slightly neutral... but more bad than good (much more likely to happen than the good thing, but the bad thing still looks like it is most likely). I appologize for the vaguity, but I don't feel like writing (nor do most of you probably feel like reading) the entire explanation for my problems at work.

Either way, something profound is about to happen in my work life.

In another realm, I believe that I am actually getting over a long bout of depression (along with generally not so PD inspired habits).

A little more than a year ago, I was probably at the peak of my personal PD career, if you will . I had put in alot of work, and alot of things paid off. Just for example's sake, I was a vegetarian (which started as a 30 day trial, and lasted 6 months), I didn't drink, I was an early riser, I was managing a hefty college load on top of my full time job, and I'm sure there are many other things that I can't quite think of right now.

Now I feel I'm in a valley, just coming out of a year+ long slump of not only a lack of progress, but actually digression... and I want to pull myself out of this hole.

Some initial things that MUST change in order for me to successfully start my treck back up the mountain of PD...

HABITS!!!!
I sleep way too much, squandering my days after work. Often this is probably for no other reason than to stop worrying about my constantly stressful "impending doom" situation at work. I am throwing away precious, valuable hours of my life, and this is not acceptable! ADDITIONALLY---> I snooze in the morning until my morning "routine" has to be crunched into a barely manageable lenght of time.

I don't have proper eating or exercising habits either. Quite frequently I skip breakfast.... or lunch, or dinner, or any combination of the 3, and I wouldn't say I have the best quizine (although it's probably not nearly the worst either). And my exercise routine is actually not a routine at all... I am in good physical shape, but I don't exercise frequently or regularly.

Motivation toward scholarly endevours... Im am just barely finished with an accounting class that I passed, but struggled dearly with (not to pass, but just to actually DO anything...) and I have an extension on my writing class until 2 months from now... this extension is very long considering I only have 1 assignment... one of the smallest assigned in the class... I could probably do a good job on it in a day or two (if i can first find the paper i need to read in regards to it)

Mental attitude... I think I am turning this around, but I have had this nasty habit of pesimism about most everything in my life for quite some time now (interestingly enough, at the climax of my pessimism, it seems my real life reprecussions have climbed to an all-time high as well-- which would be a great example of how life may actually be subjective! )



Now, there are some good things going for me as well, things that I believe are inspiring me to get back on track.

I have been dabbling a little in more positive activities lateley (i.e. watching educational video clips [mostly from www.ted.com], reading a little bit for pleasure, and a little bit of guitar action now and then)

Also, I have this sometimes overwhelming drive to get back on track, and I think that is the most important thing going for me... I ACTUALLY WANT IT!

Okay, so this is a rediculously long post, and most will probably be turned off by it's length, thereby capping my audience... so I will wrap up now..

Basically, I want to apply my wavering (yet very existant) drive for PD to a couple of GREAT techniques to help me get my life back together.

Please comment with ideas that may help me break these bad habbits and form new, good ones.

THANKS!!!

[simonsta]

ToasterWater - I might be the first to respond to your post because I guess its hard to know what to say.... but you have the support of everyone here I am sure!

Maybe the answer is in this forum, such as creating your July goals and really, really sticking to them, no matter how hard they seem. Early progress will give you confidence and I know for sure that building a sense of achievement will help your depression. Get the feel-good-factor by doing something great for yourself.

If you want to contact me directly (for whatever help I can give you) my contact details are on my blog.

[karinalynn]

Start. Small. Start Small.

Your life will not change in one day, one week, or one month. You must realize this before you will have any chance at success.

Next you must pick a small thing to work on. I highly, highly, highly suggest writing that paper. Don't worry about the rest. Just write the paper. This will accomplish a few things for you:

1. You will no longer have the stress of "oh yea, that paper I still have to write" cluttering up your positive thoughts.

2. Focusing on one thing makes it easier to accomplish (instead of thinking I have 10,000 things to do today...that often will make you shut down and get nothing done).

3. You will feel AMAZING when you get that one little thing done. Especially if it has caused you stress. This is a motivator to move on to the next thing you need to fix.

Pick something small for your next task. Maybe you vow that you will give yourself an extra 30 minutes in the morning for your routine. Be relentless in achieving this. Maybe you need to go to bed earlier to get in the habit of waking earlier. Eventually, you should have more energy and will not need the extra few minutes in the morning. During this time, don't focus on other problems. Just tackle this one. The rest will follow.

This method has a snowball effect. The more you get accomplished, the more you are inspired to accomplish. Eventually, you will be tackling major problems like they are nothing!

Sending positive energy your way,
Karina

[toasterwater]

Thank you Karina,

That sounds like very sound advice, and now that you point it out, I can the flaws in my failing plans.

Think small...

Hmm... it's 1:41AM and I have been up for quite some time reading long, trivial threads in this forum. Maybe I should go to sleep so that I have a decent chance at fixing tomorrow....

Thanks again,

Bryan

[toasterwater]

Karina,

I noticed you seem to have a thing for organization...

Are you a very organized person? I would like to become very organized...

A specific situation I would currently love organization for:

I am moving soon, and I would like all of my stuff to be easy to set up for transport... I don't like that I have random drawers with different kinds of stuff in them... It doesn't seem very easy to box up and move...

Any advice?

[Lauxa]

Start by working on self-love and acceptance.

Love yourself NOW, you do not need to achieve something first to prove you are worthy of love, just KNOW that you are worthy of love and give to yourself all your kindness and compassion. If you don't know how, try reading Louise Hay's books.

Accept your life NOW, life is what it is and if you are fighting it then it will fight you back. When you can accept and surrender, things will flow more easily. If you don't know how, try reading Eckhart Tolle's books.

Once you've got those down, you will find everything else to be much easier.

[Gambler]

Listen mate! If you sleep after work, that means you NEED sleep, your body NEEDS sleep. And you're fighting against it. That's good. If you wake up tired, you didn't have good sleep. Don't push your self, you cannot push your self, I mean, whole that "early riser" thing is great, but if you haven't had enough sleep, you will push your self through the day, you are not machine! Have a rest! I really feel for you because I am going through sleep issues myself, I always pushed myself to be productive, sleeping less that I actually needed to, and results are bad. Read "Sound Mind, Sound sleep", best book about sleeping, writer is founder of sleep clinic, and talks from the experience, he said that most people don't sleep enough(quality), and that causes lots of trouble, depression, low energy, tiredness....Read the book, I strongly recommend you, as a friend!

[toasterwater]

Originally Posted by Gambler

Listen mate! If you sleep after work, that means you NEED sleep, your body NEEDS sleep. And you're fighting against it. That's good. If you wake up tired, you didn't have good sleep. Don't push your self, you cannot push your self, I mean, whole that "early riser" thing is great, but if you haven't had enough sleep, you will push your self through the day, you are not machine! Have a rest! I really feel for you because I am going through sleep issues myself, I always pushed myself to be productive, sleeping less that I actually needed to, and results are bad. Read "Sound Mind, Sound sleep", best book about sleeping, writer is founder of sleep clinic, and talks from the experience, he said that most people don't sleep enough(quality), and that causes lots of trouble, depression, low energy, tiredness....Read the book, I strongly recommend you, as a friend!

I'm gonna have to disagree with you. I wake up tired after sleeping for very long periods of time more-so than short, planned periods. This week I started playing with biphasic sleeping. When I was following my schedule (4.5 hours at night, and a 90 minute nap in the evening) I felt great. At the end of the week, I slipped back into my old habbits of oversleeping and I started feeling like garbage again. Last night I decided to not set an alarm ( big mistake) and I stayed in bed for about 10 hours. I finally got out of bed, but felt groggy and slow.

I need to sleep less, not more.

[Alexjstrandberg]

The thing that a lot of PD people don't talk about (maybe steve not sure) is that falling into a slump is more than ok. It's the worrying that if you fall into a slump that you will go off a the deep end and never come back that is the most harmful. Since you are on this path you are far too wise to ever go back to who you used to be before you decided to make a change about your life-it's a huge fear that people have and avoid it any cost.

When you try and force yourself to get out of a slump is when you are going against the flow of life. You become anxious, paranoid about falling off completely and start in with ton's of frustration, doubt and self loathing. You fear that you aren't growing or advancing face enough and put ton's of pressure on yourself to be better and do good. This pressure will hurt you a lot more than if you went with the slump and actually began to enjoy it.

There are highs and lows in this type of path and the lows will go by much quicker if you stop expecting life to be ALL highs. The lows will go by quicker if you stop resisting them and just let them be.