[HomePhone]

I’ve learned about multiple self-improvement techniques and failed to implement all.

I don’t know why I’ve failed but I have a pet theory: I feel like a failure. I feel that I have capabilities that far exceed my current output - not just in work, but love, friendship, etc. The idea of changing that around (via self-improvement techniques) is incredibly appealing. Thus, I read about self-improvement as a way of escapism. Reading new techniques allows me to think that _this time_ I’m going to turn it around and live a life I’m proud of. But, ultimately, it’s not about reading. It’s about doing. But I can’t do because I have no self-esteem, I’m scared, I’m depressed, and I feel like I’m pretending to be an adult when really I don’t know what’s happening and I’m pathetic.

[SeanAnderson]

You're describing precisely the scenario I am interested in addressing.

Someone on another thread said it simply. "Winners keep winning. Losers keep losing. Are you winning or losing?" where a good number of people see themselves as losing and feel they are in a cycle that is compounding their losses.

I don't think calling attention to it is helpful. I think the person "in the driver's seat," so to speak, is more than aware of where they're at and obsessing over that deep awareness is preventing them from getting the ball rolling the other direction.

I don't know of a perfect solution, but, as best as I can tell, a solution is to "just start." Define a laughably small area you're going to "win" in, convince yourself you've won, then increase the difficulty and repeat. Upon failure, significantly step away from your current goal to avoid repeated failures building resentment. The rate in which you're able to iterate on this cycle is entwined with your emotional and physical vitality and people most often begin failing after having overleveraged self-determination at the cost of vitality. Self-determination is good, leaning into it heavily costs mental health, and it's easy to overlook mental health eroding while riding high on motivation and repeated successes. Eventually motivation dwindles, overexertion becomes apparent, and a tumble downward begins due to an unwillingness to accept the limitations of humanity. Eventually, acceptance and resignation occurs, a new area to win is defined, and the cycle repeats.

I'm building some gamification techniques around this cyclic pattern to provide long-term visual cues of where an individual is at, establish habituation around self-check-ins, and providing tools to help explicitly manage mental state.

Often times when I'm at my lowest I stop showing up for myself, but I'll still show up for others to not let them down. I'm hopeful giving people a virtual pet that they build endearment around, while surrounding them with positive mental health techniques and positive reinforcement, will keep people showing up for "themselves" more often.

Good luck with your mental health journey. If you'd like to talk about it more, or if you feel you need support, just reach out. Happy to talk.

[HomePhone]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I agree with what you said and it resonates with me deeply.

When you have a small win… how do you then tell yourself it’s powerful rather than “sure I did that, but it’s not a real win as it’s such a baby step”

[SeanAnderson]

A few thoughts here, but fair warning that I'm no psychologist. :)

I find it helpful to work towards accepting where I am at and judging myself from there. Relatively speaking, taking a small step is a huge step if I have not taken any steps lately. It's insufficient for absolute success, but for relative success it's great. I think it is surprisingly hard to know and accept where one is at and that it requires active reflection to get there. It's not hard to do, but it's easy for dissonance to seep in and not challenge it, like being surprised when you look yourself in the mirror, and it's difficult to build from an unstable foundation.

Sometimes I'll be running low, stop brushing my teeth, and then beat myself up over it. Later, I'll brush my teeth. After that, I'll go to be upset at myself for having not brushed, realize I did, and have a nice burst of happiness. I wasn't happy to have brushed my teeth because I considered that the bare minimum, but I sure was happy to not beat myself up over it again. The satisfaction was just a bit delayed.

In general, I think it's a lot more important to be concerned about direction and momentum than destination. Small wins correct your direction and increase your momentum. They keep you agile. What more to want? An energy/momentum cost/benefit analysis? Don't do small wins that take a lot of effort and clearly low effort wins are always great. Your desired destination is going to keep changing throughout life because you're an aging human. So don't sweat the destination too much - just focus on being robust.