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Self Improvement @hexbear.net
DragonBallZinn [he/him, they/them] @hexbear.net

How do I stay motivated to actually improve?

Hey c/self_improvement.

Right now I’m really hitting a bad part of my journey. I’m seriously doubting my reason to keep going. I put in all this work and I almost never see any reward for it. Can’t lose fat no matter how hard I work out. I’m totally unemployable and while I have a summer gig right now, I can’t live through another 9 months of unemployment and I know that’s what’s in my future because no employer wants to touch me with a ten foot pole.

Right now, I’m looking at taking some college courses. But what’s the point if I’m not top of my class? No employer would want to hire me if I’m not perfect in every conceivable way. I have nothing to offer the world that literally everyone else can’t. It’s like I am ontologically inferior to everyone.

EDIT: thank you so much for all these responses.

17 comments

  • What is the reward you are looking for? Telling yourself things like "no employer would want me" is not a fact and just discourages you, the language we speak to ourselves with affects our emotional state and perception.

    You aren't inferior to anyone, we are all judged by different and subjective standards and only your view of yourself and your progress is truly important. Try not to worry about being perfect for an employer, no employee is perfect, and it's more effective to make a connection to the people hiring or sell yourself as a person that they want to work with rather than having perfect credentials. And besides, you post on hexbear so that automatically makes you cooler than 99% of people

    College classes are a good idea, why is it crucial to be 'top of the class'? What helps motivation for me is not worrying so much about your distance from the ultimate goal, but the progress of each step. You can only take one step at a time.

    Sorry if this all just sounds cheesy and cliché, reminding myself this stuff helps me though.

    • I’ll be honest, I look at job seeking from an employer’s pov. This isn’t me being whiny, I would think from an employer’s standpoint that if I am getting all these excellent candidates, why bother settling for this less-than-exceptional guy when everyone else is so much better?

      And this is what gives me cold feet. I worry about “what if I don’t meet up to snuff? Then this all would be for nothing.” and if I were to get too personal, find out I hate something and then grow bored of it immediately.

      • I gave up on the prospect of a fancy career and accepted the blue-collar stuff. Oddly enough, my career has become surprisingly coherent and intertwined with my politics. Since 2019, the labor markets have been haywire and there definitely isn't the same predictable reserve army of labor that there used to be. Also, temp agencies exist; you can go to them and they'll place you at a job. It's certainly predatory, as they take a cut from the first several paychecks. But it's way better than nothing, and I worked manual labor jobs alongside lots of people whose biggest qualification was having a pulse.

        Most people aren't that super-wow-smart, and the economy employs 150 million people.

        Take a bunch of chances, try new/unfamiliar stuff, and in all likelihood you will stumble across something that you're very useful at.

      • Are you so sure there are that many excellent candidates? Just based on the odds it's pretty unlikely you're the worst, and people that hire look at more than just the stats, people I've known that interview say they would rather hire someone that is easy to get along with or fits the vibe of the environment than the person with the most perfect experience.

        If you start some where and it doesn't work out I think there is still good experience you can get, especially if you get trained for something new. If you hate it you can quit, I don't think it's as big a deal to have some short jobs on your resume as people fear, or you can just leave it off.

        Looking for jobs sucks though, I hope it gets easier comrade. To me it's impressive when anyone has motivation in the hellscape we are in, I don't think you should be so hard on yourself if you aren't where you'd want to be, none of us signed up for this bullshit!

  • First off, you don't need to improve. That whole framing is off. You personally have desires and achieving those desires is worthwhile because YOU are worthwhile. You deserve to pursue and achieve your desires. In that context, you may need additional power(s) and those are things you can specifically frame as improvements you want to achieve your desires.

    So for example, you want to lose weight. That's fine, but that's a very specific improvement towards one or more aims. Perhaps you want better long term health, or to participate in specific activities that your weight restricts you from, or perhaps you have a desired body image. You deserve your authentic desires and achieving them may require specific improvements. That framing is so important because YOU are not something that needs improvement, it's specific capabilities and properties that enable you to achieve your desires that you are choosing to improve.

    Practically speaking though, working out isn't really the path to weight loss. The adage goes: build muscle in the gym, lose weight in the kitchen. The fact that you're working out hard means you likely have a lot of muscle waiting to be exposed. Cutting fat requires you to improve your knowledge of human biology, metabolism, nutrition, and specifically your own body's behavior. It's time to be curious, not fearful or despondent. Yes, of COURSE you can lose fat - it's a standard function of the human body, of all mammalian bodies. The question becomes how does your body need to be activated for that to happen. There is an answer to that question and you are capable of finding it. When you find it, you'll be faced with the challenge of whether or not it's worth it, but you don't need to worry about that until after you've learned more about how your body responds to various behavioral changes on your part.

    Next up. Employers don't give a flying fuck about your GPA. The only companies that do are white supremacist consulting firms that only hire from elite institutions and the only reason they care about GPA is because it's a solid filter for keeping the poors out. Plenty of fail sons with shit GPAs get those jobs, so that tells you GPA is used for specific purposes. I can say this as hiring manager I have NEVER in the 100s of people I have hired EVER looked at someone's grades. I care about whether the person is capable of learning, capable of humility, capable of courage and curiosity, and has the minimum knowledge and experience required to succeed in the position. Whatever you believe about hiring, it's wrong. And you can hang your hat on that because you've never hired anyone and so your beliefs are all based on something other than reality. Give up those beliefs and acknowledge you have no idea how hiring works or what people look for and just get out there and do what you do.

    Trust me. You're enough.

  • Try to actively recognize and viciously beat back all negative thoughts telling you that you can't do this, that's all the dumb part of your brain telling you unhelpful bullshit that isn't gonna do anything for you

    I put in all this work and I almost never see any reward for it

    Almost isn't never

    totally unemployable and while I have a summer gig right now

    Totally unemployable but you have a job right now? That's called "your brain saying stupid shit at you stop listening to it."

    But what’s the point if I’m not top of my class?

    99.9% of jobs aren't going to be measuring your GPA, the point of college is to LEARN SOMETHING and, for the purposes of job shit, show to the managerial class that you're a nerd who can do what they're told long enough to get through a 4 year program. That's it.

  • If you believe you can’t do something then you definitely can’t.

    Everyone else has covered the specifics very well but on a general level, you need to rebuild your relationship with your reward mechanisms. It sounds like you’re not allowing yourself to feel satisfied at what you have achieved, because you think it’s not enough. You need to start letting yourself feel good about having done exercise, about getting a summer gig, about being someone who tries, about considering college.

    The reason for this is that if your brain doesn’t get rewarded for achieving small things, it doesn’t give you motivation to seek greater rewards, because it starts believing that nothing will bring it satisfaction. I’m talking on a chemical level.

    I was in that trap for most of my life and I’ve recently been working myself out of it. It sounds silly but you just have to keep telling yourself stuff like “I worked out today, good job me”. And most importantly: praise yourself for doing the action, not for achieving a result.

    I believe in you OP.

  • Ok a few things I’m just gonna list them out:

    1. I don’t have any good advice re: motivation. The best I’ve found for self improvement is to say “ok DragonBallZinn wants me to be happy so I gotta do it for him.” Probably not the healthiest but I find it works.
    2. Fuck losing fat. Fuck that whole concept. I’m constantly struggling with my self image and belly fat but it’s all just self-deprecating nonsense. How’s your heart? How do your muscles feel? Are you healthy? That’s what really matters. You know that BMI was invented by some crazy frenchman trying to describe the perfect white man right? It somehow got adopted by actual doctors but it’s not a real measurement of anything useful.
    3. Being top of your class means jack shit long term. I thought my life was over when my final average gpa was under 3.0 but no one gives a shit once you’ve been in the job for two years. The job market is fucked so you gotta try to make connections and apply to a stupid number of stupid jobs. And by “make connections” I mean go somewhere and meet people in real life and literally nothing past that. If someone knows you’re a personable non-asshole who wears deodorant that puts you over any faceless resume who’s just as qualified.

    Conclusion: If you’re ontologically anything it’s ontologically blind to your worth. Don’t let the nonsense metrics of the capitalist hell society let you think you’re worthless.

  • you have to want it deeply to your core, and if you don't then suddenly communists turn into calvinists.

    motivation is an unsolved problem, but you can avoid things that egregiously demotivate you which is what other people are on about with how you've framed some of your statements and the standard you misattribute to employers when what you're really up against is "ai" and nepotism.

  • "I don't know if I can take it. Sometimes it seems like the whole thing is pointless. Like I am a loser and I will always be a loser. I do not know what to do "

    "You're right. All the effort is pointless... If you don't believe in yourself "

  • Another thought, my friend is into witchy manifestation woowoo bullshit and one of her things is saying "thank you, more please" when something good happens

    I don't believe in the manifestation b.s. but from experience it might still help you. I think it's training yourself to react with gratitude when something good happens which helps you in turn to notice and be mindful of those good things happening. It's just a little thing that imo could help you get out of these patterns of thinking about yourself

  • The point of working out is not to lose fat per se, the point of working out is to get stronger. You do a muscle motion to the edge of your ability enough times, and your muscles get better at doing that muscle motion. If you can do pull-ups and a respectable number of push-ups and run a mile without walking... if you can move yourself in the way you want to move, that's all that matters.

    I'm on the skinny side, people have often wondered aloud to me "why don't you just bulk up". It's not really in my biology. I wish I had a layer of fat so that you couldn't see my ribs. But if I can hoist 80-pound bags of cement, I can jump and pull myself onto things, that's all that matters. I really don't need to do the stupid gymbro numbers game.

    A big part is lifestyle. My fitness is integrated into my lifestyle (bicycle transport, manual labor). Another big thing is habitually cooking for yourself. Even if it doesn't make you slimmer, then hey, at least you end up as a capable cook, and able to take the agency for your own sustenance instead of accepting it from a ready-made source.

    Take the college courses that are intrinsically valuable to you. Learn what you want to learn. Taking a few courses doesn't immediately force your commitment into a 40-year career; lots of things will inform your experience indirectly. And at a community college, you can take a 3-credit class for a total sum of less than $1000.

    I promise you, 95% of Americans (and 90% of American college graduates) can't use the word "ontologically" in legible prose. In the age where everyone seems to make heavy use of assistive technology, you can put together a coherent thought.

    A lot of what you're experiencing is the effects of alienation. Being able to get into the nuts and bolts of something, instead of assuming "this is entirely the purview of someone else" has been one of the biggest mindset shifts of my life.

17 comments