(Part 3) Best products from r/getdisciplined

Fellow speed freak checking in. I relate to this issue so much! I've developed many different methods for dealing with this, I'm not sure which will help you the most, so I'll just leave them here, for your review.


1.) Wake up early. This is key for me, because if I sleep until the world is awake, I get dragged along with the frantic momentum of a city full of people trying to get things done. This, in turn, makes me more frantic and rushed. Waking up early is an art, not a science. You have to be tired enough to go to sleep early, and you have to eat light, or not at all after sunset to release the energy drain from digestion. Ask anyone who's into fasting or intermittent fasting, they'll tell you: if you have 4-6 hours of not eating before you get in bed, your need for sleep will be practically cut in half. YMMV, but I just got back from a trip to Japan, I started eating a sushi meal in the late afternoon, and nothing afterwards. I started waking up at 3 or 4AM, totally clear.


2.) Crush a super hard workout first thing in the morning. A lot of people who are "fast" have untapped energy reserves. Literally you get frustrated because you can't express your energy completely, everywhere things are stopping you, or slowing you down. Not in the gym. You can go as hard as you want. Not at a hot yoga class. That will take the piss out of anyone, believe me. If it's your first time you'll be close to blacking out. But AFTERWARDS: you will be chill. I bet you $100 USD if you crush a hot yoga class before 8AM, you will be zen as fuck afterwards. You have to burn through your energy reserves first thing in the morning. It sets up a victory mindset in your subconscious - you've already crushed a major goal, so you don't need to rush toward accomplishing something more vague - and you've actually used your body and gone close to your limit (hopefully) so you get the satisfaction of having used your full power.


3.) Gratitude. I keep a gratitude journal, called the five minute journal which is a very minimalist approach to doing morning journaling. You write 3 things you're grateful for, and hopefully you truly feel that gratitude in your body. You write 3 things that would make today great, and you write 3 affirmations. That's it. You can do it in less than 5 minutes. Then, in the evening, you do the process in reverse. 3 great things that happened (hopefully you feel grateful for these), and a spot to write how today could've been better. It's really awesome for setting an emotional tone for the day - it actually conditions you to appreciate little details in your day, which will help when something stresses you out - you'll be able to find the flip side or the upside in anything. Somebody cuts you off? Now you feel grateful he didn't clip your car and take your mirror off. Drop your groceries? Now you feel grateful that cute person helped you pick them up. Etc. Having a gratitude practice is really important for learning to master your emotions, and a gratitude journal actually helps you track how you're doing across days, weeks and months, to see if you're making incremental progress.


Listen closely: Gratitude can actually make you invincible. If you can feel gratitude at will, literally nothing can take you out. You might receive a glancing blow, but as soon as you activate the gratitude, you're back on your game. This is why I practice Gratitude more consistently than anything else in my life.



and finally, the overall mindset of gradual progress:


THE ULTIMATE MODE I got this from James Altoucher's 1% Rule for Creating Habits. You have to take a view of your life that you're getting better 1% every day. This is so, so important. It's very difficult to make positive progress rapidly. Elite people understand this principle. You can do something Destructive rapidly - you can end relationships, ruin your reputation, shave your head, blow up your car - destruction is fast. But creation takes time. Look at nature, the way plants grow. It's gradual, incremental progress that eventually begins to spiral into exponential growth. Finance people call this compound interest.


If you make 1% progress every day, that doubles every 72 days. That seems like a lot of days until you're actually doing it. My workout routine, for example: I hit the gym at 4:30AM every morning and I bring my tiny pocket journal with me. I write down my workout that morning, usually only about 30-45 minutes. But then, the next day I have to beat my previous workout. I alternate parts of my body, so if I do abs and chest on Monday, then on Wednesday I flip back, see what I did, and I have to beat that, even by 1%. It doesn't seem like much. If I do 100 pushups on Monday, I have to do 101 pushups Wednesday. But it's not really that slow. I go for 200 pushups, even if I have to take breaks and grind them out, because again, I'm like you, I'm a hyper creative person, so I'm going for full burn first thing in my day. I love the feeling of totally destroying my previous record.


so you can see how, months from now, I'll be crushing 500 pushups before 5AM, that's nasty by anyone's standards. But I don't start by forcing myself to torture myself in the gym for hours going for those 500 pushups. I just take the 1% mentality, that I'm gradually upgrading everything, and down the road a ways, I'll be totally killing it. It's the same way a bamboo plant grows. You have to water bamboo sometimes for a year or two, and meanwhile you see no growth whatsoever. But you can't dig the plant up because it's not apparently doing anything. It's building an intricate network of roots down there. And then overnight it grows 60 feet. Did it really grow 60 feet in one night? No. It had to build that steady, incremental foundation first.


hope this helps.


tl;dr, wake early to establish yourself in a chill vibe. practice gratitude. go hard on a workout first thing in the morning to set up a victory mindset, and make incremental progress every day knowing that weeks and months down the road you'll be crushing whatever you've come here to do. stay on the ball.

I would recommend that you read the book Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It (link to Amazon).



I read this book two years ago with not much belief in the knowledge shared here. I didn't fully believe or apply the principles, so it wasn't really helpful.



A few months ago, I came across this book again. Difference? I was desperate for change. I felt like my life was unravelling at the seams. I kind of had a similar background as you but with my father. He would literally laugh at my dreams and tell me I would "be overshined by my siblings," and told me I was "always lacking in everything." He is the reason I often fall into patterns of completely disregarding any achievement of mine. A few months ago, this was my typical day: I relived my worst memories once every few hours in attempt to "understand myself" (now I see it was a form of self-sabotage) and I kept telling myself I was strong for getting through these situations, but it didn't change the fact that I felt like a failure every day. I can't say I know exactly what you feel like now, but I can relate.


Okay, so back to the book. I read this with desperation. By then I was already aware of the importance of your mindset and what you tell yourself, but I didn't really know how to translate this knowledge into practice. And then came this book. Simply put, the idea is to tell yourself this one thing over and over again. "I love myself." It doesn't matter if you believe it or not right now. Just do it. Because you will get to a point where you actually value yourself through this seemingly stupid exercise. I have to say I feel better than ever about who I am. I'm just more secure about the person I am. My flaws, my interests, and all. I was socially awkward because I wanted people to like me so badly. Now, I'm not charming anyone by any extent of the word, but I don't feel that pressure to impress someone or make sure they like me anymore. (It's not completely gone, but eight to nine times out of ten, I don't think "what if they don't like me" anymore.) This is one the most effective CBT techniques I have experienced.



Also, a key idea here was to stop any negative thought process from unfolding by saying the words "not important" in your mind. This has been surprisingly helpful, and I don't go the on crazy negative tangents in my mind much anymore.

​

I also recommend you read the book Mindset. It became much easier to make progress and accept that I was making progress in different areas of my life with a growth mindset.

​

Best of luck! I hope you do well. I know you can get over this. I'm saying this as someone who has gone through clinical depression, anxiety, and self-sabotage over the past four years. I'm now thankfully completely recovered from depression and anxiety, and am working to get into university with a scholarship while freelancing. I get depressed and anxious, but it's not the magnitude of mental illness anymore.

​

Remember progress isn't instant. I don't know how negative your thought processes are, but the "instant change" I outline above is just to show you an example of where you might be. You might be mentally somewhere closer to me three years ago when it took a good year and a half to rid myself of my worst thought processes.

​

Good luck!

I spent most of my high school years playing video games, jacking off, and reading. None of my time ever went towards anything productive and as a result, I became severely depressed to the point where suicide was my only option. I hit 20, and things didn't seem to get any better. I tried going to the gym, and would kill it for about two-three weeks only to get hit with a wave of depression and sink back to old habits. At some point, my girlfriend decided to break up with me. She couldn't grow with me and I was holding her back because of my negativity and lack of discipline. Every day I would wake up, barely eat, not do anything but play video games or smoke weed and after two years she was sick of it.

Eventually I found this book and picked up some small habits explained such as:

1. Drink WATER, lots of water as soon as you wake up and right before bed
   
   
   
2. Create a simple, easy, MORNING ROUTINE: Here's Mine:
   
   Wake up (no alarm)
   
   Drink water (A LOT, it wakes you right up)
   
   Play music (upbeat pump up jams)
   
   Stretch (GET THAT BLOOD PUMPIN)
   
   Pullups/Pushups (bought this pull up bar)
   
   Clean room in between pullup sets
   
   MORNING SHAKE (recipe bellow)
   
   Morning walk/listen to ebook (so many great apps with free books about motivation/success)
   
   get home, meditate
   
   breakfast (usually oatmeal with almonds, fiber one bar, soy milk, and two bananas)
   
   Then I do whatever is on my todo list...usually this starts around 930.
   
   
   
3. DIET: I drink veggie shakes in the AM with chia seeds, flax seeds, kale, spinach, dates, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries first thing in the morning. I eat vegan except for the occasional fish at work when I'm underfed.
   
   
   
4. SLEEP, I began to take this Sleep aid which regulated my sleep pattern. I sleep at 10 every night and wake at 7, no alarm clock.
   
   
   
5. EXERCISEL: I created my own routine that has been working incredibly well and I finally feel confident enough to take off my shirt. I work out 6 days a week and ignore most bro-science shit out there and just listen to my body.
   
   
   
6. GOALS: I wrote out what I wanted to be in life: I chose, Bartender, Cook, Fit, MMA Fighter, DJ, Artist, Traveler, YouTube Star
   and work on these every day as much as possible.
   
   
   It's been about 2 months of steady discipline and things have been great. Almost at 700 subscribers on youtube (cooking channel), have released 5 mixes on soundcloud. My drawing skill has greatly improved. Gained about 8 pounds (recovering from anorexia) Sleep at least 8 hours every day now and have listened to many great ebooks.
   
   
   My advice is: start with small goals such as increasing water intake or eating more clean. The small steps will always get you closer to your goals as long as you don't stop
   
   heres a tip: download "audible" for a smartphone and sign up using an amazon account. You get a free trial where you can download 2 audiobooks. Use that to listen to Gorilla Mindset every night as you try to sleep. Pair that with the sleep aid, and you're on your way to a better sleep
   
   SLEEP AID INFO (copied from other comment)
   
   The sleep aid itself isn't a magical sleep pill. In fact, it has these ingredients: Melatonin, Gaba, L-Tryptophan, and Vitamin B-6
   
   Benefits of
   
   Melatonin
   
   Gaba
   
   L-Tryptophan
   
   B-6
   
   
   I started by taking 2 of the sleep aid pills which is 4mg of melatonin but that barely helped. It wasn't until I stumbled upon this thread suggesting I lower my dose and surely enough after I switched to 2mg I felt a great change. An hour after I take the sleep aid I'm sleepy and drowsy. Of course, you can stay up on it and it wont knock you out, but if you're genuinely trying to sleep it will make a huge difference. I recommend playing a positive audiobook outloud (GORILLA MINDSET) while you sleep and I promise you'll pass out either from boredom, or tiredness. Plus you get a book read to you? HELL YEA

My perception as a fellow 28 year old is that you might be a bit too hard on yourself for calling your life a mess when you can't stick to a diet/gym schedule. I do plenty of things my 13 year old self would be jealous of (weekly Halo with friends, ComicCon outings, visiting the heart of geeky Japan, and even occasionally eating a whole pizza solo), and I don't see any shame in that.

Also, be wary that even if you succeed in all those things, they won't necessarily make you feel like you're much less of a mess. They'll help, but I found that once I got myself on track a bit, I started to feel small and purposeless if my only goals were around me and my physical state.

That said, (and I only started this a year or two ago), I would recommend a two-fold approach for achieving what you said.

First, Tim Ferris' Four Hour Body for diet and exercise. It's relentlessly focused on the absolute minimum things you can do and still get results. The gym time is minimal, and the diet is mentally simple enough that I've stuck with it for a few years. If you've tried other things and lost motivation, simplicity is a great tool for making sure you don't fall too far off the wagon.

Second, I recommend some in-depth reading about habit formation. I've read a lot, but I think The Power of Habit is a decent overview along with this podcast episode. Basically habits are the hack you can perform to level up your routine with minimal effort. It can be tricky, but this is the method I've used to make sure I floss regularly, keep my apartment clean after meals, and do the minimal cook prep I need to do each week.

So... chill out and take a deep breath. There's plenty of time to improve, and I agree with the others that the best approach is to try one thing at a time.

Don’t laugh, but do yourself a favor and download the GOOP podcast with Dave Evans (sorry no link) about prototyping your life. It’s an interview about this exact issue—for all ages. Here’s a link to the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. The two have developed a system & class to help people as well as a book. But that podcast interview gives a great overview. As others have mentioned, you often don’t just “have passion”, passion comes after you’ve gotten really into something & become good at it. So right now, you’re looking to become brave and curious about stuff to try things out. Seriously though, podcast is like 45 minutes or so, will definitely help you out.

I do something I call 15/30. I have these cool timer blocks I set it to 30 minutes and I just play/do what I feel like, sometimes that is laying in bed feeling blah. Then when it goes off I do 15 minutes of "what I don't want to do but can't avoid." Repeat. The basic principal is reward yourself for doing what you can handle one bite at a time. It isn't a silver bullet. It doesn't make you feel like sunshine and butterflies, but at least some of the crap you have to do gets done and off your back. And that helps.

This is a good book if you are looking to explore the concept: Mini Habits (I think it is even free for prime members)

When you find yourself thinking that doing only one habit isn’t worth it, stop.

Ask yourself: how many new habits do you want to have six months from now? If the answer is more than zero, do one tiny habit now. If the answer is one or more, do one tiny habit now.

I would not try to add anything more than one tiny habit per week – even one per week might be a bit too fast. The important thing is to truly have the habit down before you add anything else. You have to change your “normal” very slowly and gradually.

This was so, so hard for me to learn, but once I did, things took off for me. You can change so much by adding one tiny habit every week or two weeks.

It feels so hard and unintuitive, but staying bite-sized is truly the trick.

I also recommend a chart on your wall.

Also, if you are ever working on a really hard task that is hard to even start because of perfectionistic procrastination paralysis, I highly recommend using Pomodoros – but really, really short ones (like even two minutes). I have completed some ridiculously hard tasks by using two minute Pomodoros with 15 minute breaks. If that’s what it takes, so much better than not doing the task at all!

One final piece of advice – we all have our own ways of getting past perfectionism. It is a seriously hard struggle, and it’s different for everyone. So please just be really kind and gentle with yourself as you walk this path, and celebrate each new piece of learning. James Joyce said that mistakes are the portals of discovery.

This book on perfectionism really helped me – if it resonates with you, maybe check it out


https://www.amazon.com/Present-Perfect-Mindfulness-Approach-Perfectionism/dp/1572247568

I also highly recommend this article
https://zenhabits.net/36lessons/

If I may make a recommendation for some reading, there are three very good books that may apply here.

• Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D Burns. It's a book that teaches you how to do cognitive behavioral therapy for yourself to deal with depression and anxiety, but it's useful pretty much any time you're feeling bad and having repeating negative thought patterns.
  
• No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A Glover about how to be more assertive and express you needs and desires properly.
  
• Daring Greatly by Brene Brown about the power of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and how it can improve how you feel about yourself and your relationship with other people.
  
  The three of those books together could do great things to aid your confidence and assertiveness, as well as help you cope with the negative thought patterns that seem to be overwhelming you right now.

Given your science background, I suggest you read Peak by Anders Ericsson. Ericsson’s research into expertise is what Malcolm Gladwell based his 10,000 hours idea upon (which totally misses Ericsson’s conclusions). It’s not at all a “self help” book, but it does an interesting job of explaining how very successful people get to be very successful.

The Power of Habit is a really interesting book that goes into the psychology of our habits, how they affect our daily lives, the best ways to change our own habits and make it stick, and how companies use our habits to market products, etc. I've been listening to it on tape while I clean my house and it's been fascinating so far.

These two books by Cal Newport, one of the best authors on productivity and discipline.

Deep Work

So Good They Can't Ignore You

And also, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Aaaand, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

For mindset, I also recommend The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. It'll teach you to choose your battles carefully, although you can find most of that content in his site.

This is a tough issue - as your story makes me feel you are telling me that you need to cut hours somewhere. I am not gonna psycho-analyze you because I am no near qualified for that; but you make me think of me. You want to do a lot of things but you can't, thats the basic problem. But why can't you? You don't imply to procrastinate at all. (atleast; it's not the main factor) So this is an issue that has to do with reassessing priorities. I am not gonna tell you to cut this of, or do Y instead of X. As these are for you and you alone to decide . But I will tell you there is a distinct difference between the relative and exact value of your time and effort. As you seem to be a person who works a lot of hours on payroll. To me this seems like this will be your challenge to define your happiness. This doesn't mean I only imply that you should cut hours one way or another. I would suggest the first thing you should do is to have a good think about these things. This might be a good book for you to read. As for the hobby part. Read.. always read more - especially when they are as related to your life as in this example.
Some insight or perspective can change your life forever, be open to it.

Success is psychological. Redefine everything, always - evolve.

This one as well. It's a quick read, but pretty powerful.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Rhinoceros-Success-Secret-Charging-Opportunity/dp/1937077152/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549398756&sr=1-1&keywords=rhinosaurus+success+book

I recently read Daily Rituals, about the work habits of successful artists, writers, etc. There were folks in there like mathematician Paul Erdos, who lived out of a suitcase and only worked or slept (meals were work time).

But a significant number kept a steady schedule and averaged maybe 6 or 7 hours of work. It was more about maximizing focus and efficiency than squeezing every last second out of the day.

Per his book, he uses these methods to focus strictly on his business. He would take the energy used on consuming the media above to make his business run very efficiently.

For me, I plan on using that time and energy to focus on writing and creating my own business.

If you have a kindle, you can grab his book for $1.99 right now or order a hardbook copy. It is a highly recommended book in the online business world.

One book I am currently reading that I am enjoying is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck It is about what things you should care about in life, and has a funny approach to it.

I do not recall where, but I read an article that gave a good review of an app, HeadSpace. I read a book called How to Meditate by Prema Chodron, which might be useful to you and while this video isn't directly aimed at mediation, the concept presented at the end (surfing the urge) is meditative-esque, at least to me.

Studying 8-12 hours is NOT good. Start working out and I recommend these books:

https://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455509124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482042700&sr=8-1&keywords=so+good+they+can%27t+ignore+you

https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-New-Science-Expertise/dp/0544456238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482042708&sr=8-1&keywords=peak


https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482042776&sr=8-1&keywords=the+power+of+habit

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Penguin-Classics-Lucius-Annaeus/dp/0140442103/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482042852&sr=8-1&keywords=seneca


So, the idea is learn HOW to learn. Leisure is important and healthy for everyone.

If your serious about improving yourself this is a step in the right direction.

EDIT: www.calm.com go there and be.

It's also worth pointing you towards John Perry's IgNobel prize winning work on procrastination! http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Procrastination-Lollygagging-Postponing/dp/0761171673

I'm reading this book right now and I would HIGHLY recommend it: http://smile.amazon.com/The-Procrastination-Equation-Putting-Getting/dp/0061703621/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408047618&sr=8-1&keywords=procrastination+equation

It's not a self-help book, it's written by a PhD and analyzes the behavioral science behind procrastination. There are tips at the end of the book based on the research and findings, but I didn't even get that far; just learning how and why my brain is working against me was enough for me to make great strides toward overcoming it. I read most of this book last Friday and Saturday, and it has had a profound impact on how I have worked this week. I can't recommend this book strongly enough.

For starting Zen practice, or just for meditation in general?

If you are interested in Zen, check out this book from your local library: http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Path-Zen-Robert-Aitken/dp/0865470804/

For concentration/mindfulness meditation in general:

1. Find a quiet place to sit for 5-15 minutes. Use a timer so you don't have to worry about time.
   
2. Take up a stable sitting posture that will prevent you from falling asleep or getting too relaxed: http://www.bisbeelotussangha.org/sittingpostures.htm I recommend the burmese posture for beginners. Find a cushion 6-10inches in height. Firm.
   
3. Close your eyes, or keep them open with an unfocused gaze on the ground in fround of you, about 45 degrees. I recommend trying both to see what works at first.
   
4. Bring your concious awareness to your breath. Take a few deep breaths and then breath like normal.
   
5. Begin counting on the inhalation and exhalation of your breath.
   
6. When you arrive at a count of 10, start over.
   
7. When you get distracted, acknowledge what you are thinking about, maybe even label it and then bring yourself back to the breath gently setting aside the distraction.
   
8. Repeat until your timer dings.
   
   Sounds simple? You'll get distracted very quickly. Most beginners have a hard time getting to 10 even once without losing their concentration to a sound, a thought, an itch, etc.
   
   The longer and more frequently you practice the less you'll get distracted, and the faster you'll realize when your concentration falls to something other than what you intend to concentrate on.
   
   It bleeds over in day to day life. With various side-effects
   
   

• noticing details of day to day things that we overlook usually
  
• better memory
  
• calmer, less reactive
  
• less desire to constantly be "doing" something.
  
• comfort with ones own thoughts
  
• trust in your intent (i.e. i know i won't eat that donut because i told myself not to)
  
  It goes on and on. Essentially it appears that focus and awareness is a basic skill required for self-control and disicipline. Meditation is one method to improve it.
  
  If you feel frustrated with your inability to remain distraction free. Remember that the frustration is yet another distraction, identify it and set it aside. Beware of it all, but Let it all go when you are practicing.

I create an environment for productivity. For example, the cafe is for productivity and only that. I force myself to go there and get stuff done. Also, I created an area in my apartment for getting work done. I use a standing desk to keep myself from slouching back and being lazy, and also only use that desk for work related things to create that trigger to start the habit for myself.

All habits hace triggers, and for some people, arrive home is a trigger to get comfortable and lay back which is also a habit.

There is a whole book about habits: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055PGUYU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

>If you want something done quickly give the job to someone busy

Ell oh Ell. If I recall correctly, that is also a quote from a book called The Art of Procrastination

That book is hilarious. I highly recommend the read for anyone who considers themselves a procrastinator in any capacity.

Maybe the Five Minute Journal would help? It’s more focused on mindfulness. (Edited) Here’s a link to it https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206

Hey, guys! I've just read a book about morning routine and it helped a lot. It's short but has all the essential information to make the morning routine that really alleviates your lifestyle. Hope this will help you

https://www.amazon.com/Morning-Routine-Successful-Productivity-Stress-Free-ebook/dp/B07Y2VQZBJ/ref=sr_1_2?crid=31JKBWFLXLHPU&keywords=morning+routine&qid=1569209874&s=digital-text&sprefix=morning%2Caps%2C411&sr=1-2

Super normal

Get your hands on this book https://www.amazon.ca/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339

Mini Habits is the highest rated habit book on Amazon (4.7 stars) because it works and has changed thousands of lives. It's the ultimate discipline book: the premise is consistency in action over quantity. Discipline needs to eventually become a subconscious function, as otherwise we'll run out of willpower. Mini Habits gets you to habit with easy, daily targets (preserving willpower while forming a base habit to build from).

My story: I do full workouts every day now. I started by doing one push-up a day. I read and write every day too because of my mini habits.

Disclaimer: I'm the author (and first beneficiary!) of Mini Habits. I wrote the post in the FAQ about motivation not being the start, which is a key part of the Mini Habits strategy.

I'm really big on learning from others and also try to find the routines, habits, and tricks of those who I may be able to model myself after and have found a few helpful links like;

https://podio.com/site/creative-routines

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601/?tag=dailrout20

If you do any sort of knowledge work, Deep Work by Cal Newport is a fantastic read.

>https://www.amazon.com/Present-Perfect-Mindfulness-Approach-Perfectionism/dp/1572247568

I started reading this book after reading your comment and it really blew me away. I'm still working through it, but I had to come say thank you!

I would recommend the book Mini Habits, it does a great job of explaining why going cold turkey doesn't work, but incremental habits that are given time to become ingrained habits is the bets approach.

I'm very wary of self-help books, yet I must recommend "The Procrastination Equation" by Steel. It's the only work worth any damn about procrastination, and it's the whole package - scientifically-backed knowledge with real-life tips and solutions. buy it - you'll want to review and revise it every so often. If used correctly - it'll wash away all your procrastination, like tears in the rain.

Check out this book. You can borrow it for free if you have Kindle + Prime.

My thoughts:

• Meditate every day for at least 10 minutes (and build on this)
  
  
• Do something boring at night around bed time (napflix.tv is great)
  
  
• Exercise every day (not so much that you're super sore the next day)
  
  
• Long walks when you're feeling like shit
  
  
• Listen to your "inner voices/emotions" throughout the day — I think they get bottled up and are simply trying to speak at night after you've repressed them all day
  
  
• Start loving yourself more and address your inner critic (your post has strong negative wording "what the fuck is wrong with me?"). It may sound like woo-woo stuff, but loving every part of you is essential, even that part of you that is trying to keep you up there late at night. Trust that it's trying to keep you up for a real reason, and not merely to fuck with you. Maybe you haven't "listened" or felt your feelings throughout the day and this is your body's way of say, "dude, we're not addressing these issues"
  
  
• Stop trying to "do things" — if you feel like you're in a hole, the worst thing you can do is continue to struggle. Take some time and assess your mind, your body, and your environment. There is no rush, and rushing this process will only make things worse (in my experience)
  
  
• Read books and watch YouTubes — do your research. Mike Cernovich is a good place to start.
  
  Take care.

I've done similar things to get out of depression. See also Mini Habits by Stephen Guise, great book.

I think this works for several reasons:

1. It is so small it seems doable, even with zero willpower.
   
2. You are making the tasks concrete which helps get you into an action-oriented mindset and out of a deliberative (will I do it?), ruminating mindset.
   
3. You do what you say you will, which builds self-trust and confidence that you can follow through on larger tasks. Many people are depressed in part because they keep saying they will do X and don't do it, so after a while they stop believing in their ability to do anything.

Also, i can highly recommend The book / audiobook 'power of habit'.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Habit-What-Business/dp/1400069289

I've been reading Designing Your Life and highly recommend it. It talks about this problem.

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Your-Life-Well-Lived-Joyful/dp/1101875321

There are several books I've read that do a good job of helping me understand the problem, which is absolutely essential to learning how not to procrastinate.

The Now Habit - mentioned several times already

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel. A very objective look at the causes of procrastination.

You're not a special snowflake, none of us are. It's only through dedicatedly doing shit you don't want to that you can chisel yourself into something better. Improving oneself is difficult because you are both the mason and the block of marbel. its not easy.

You want to develop self control? Realise that you are completely normal and not entitled to anything. Go and read some books ont he science of self control and you would see the fact that you lack it shows that you most likely will not succeed in life no matter how "gifted" you were as a child. You can change this through constant hard fucking work which is essentially all that self control is but thats about it. There are no tricks. Self control is a muscle that is developed through use. Sit down for 4 hours a day and study. WHen you can do that start studying for 5 hours. ect.

it's not easy. Realise that you are nothing without developing yourself and then build yourself up. Anyone can do the work, you are not special, the dedication to work is what differentiates the wannabees from the true acheivers.

As for books on the topic

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/1400069289

http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Matters-ebook/dp/B005ERIRZE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368309907&sr=1-1&keywords=self+control

Good luck.

Mindfulness helps us being aware of our own thoughts, feelings, emotions and sensations. Each of our emotional state has a different set of feeling and sensations with it.

If you are aware you can literally feel the change in your sensations while the urge for watching porn is coming. If you can watch the urge coming, you can distract yourself by doing something else or confront it and watch how long the urge will stay. It dies out fast if you are watching.

If you don't see the urge coming and blindly react and start watching porn. After a while the practice of mindfulness kicks in. It watches how you are getting dopamine kicks. Again you get a choice of stopping that thing or continuing.

This cycles happens in all kinds of habits - there is an urge (also called the cue), then there is the actual habit, then there is a feeling of reward (or punishment).

There is this book for reference : The Power of Habit.

Mindfulness can actually reduce and eliminate the urges themselves. Being 100% mindful and destroying your life on any addiction just do not go together.

Mindfulness makes you equanimous. Basically you stop giving a damn about yourself and understand your responsibility for helping others.

There's a book I read that had a similar philosophy: Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HGKNBDK/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_d1cLwbNYG382E

It's an intriguing idea. I'm more of a "focus on one thing at a time" kind of person. I take one habit and try to inculcate that in my routine, and then after few months, try to move to next.

Mini habits
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HGKNBDK?cache=32e9d3eac77
17384660ca9c7225c9c57&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&qid=1409569361&sr=8-1#ref=mp_s_a_1_1

This book really resonated with me. The gist is that people often fail because they choose too big. If you choose a smaller version of a habit that you are can garantee to be able to do on your worst day, you will start piling up the victories instead of failures.

He uses "one pushup" as an example. If your goal is one pushup per day, it's almost impossible to fail. Most of the time you will do far more once you get started but even on your worst day you can do one and have a win.