I started drawing at 39 and picked up oil painting around the time I turned 40. Before that, I had never thought of myself as an artist.

A year later, painting has become one of the most meaningful parts of my life.

I used to think the important parts of yourself were things you were supposed to discover when you were young. I don’t believe that anymore.

If there’s something you’ve always wanted to try but think you’ve waited too long, start.

I'm 26. Public speaking has made me physically sick for as long as I can remember. Racing heart, sweating, mind goes completely blank.

Six years ago I started building a company to help my mom with her chronic pain. And somewhere along the way I realized nobody funds or supports an idea that the founder is too scared to talk about. My fear literally had a price tag on it.

So this August I entered a live pitch competition. A few hundred people in the room and over 30,000 watching the livestream. Judges, cameras, a countdown clock, all of it.

The hours before were the worst part. I rehearsed my opening line alone in hallways like a crazy person. I kept telling everyone I was nervous because I was.

Here's the thing nobody tells you. The fear doesn't go away. You don't wait until you're not scared. You do it scared and eventually the fear runs out of things to say.

They called my name, I walked into the blue circle, and I gave the best pitch of my life. We won.

The thing I was most afraid of ended up funding the thing I love. Whatever your version of the stage is, the fear is lying to you about what happens when you step on it.

I'm starting to think consistency is much less exciting than people make it sound, but that's probably why it works.

Most progress I've noticed in life didn't come from suddenly feeling motivated. It came from doing something slightly boring over and over until eventually it became normal.

There wasn't really a dramatic moment where everything changed. Things just slowly became easier because I kept showing up. It's not very inspirational in the movie-trailer sense, but I honestly find that more reassuring.

Not every improvement comes with a big moment where you suddenly realize everything has changed.

Sometimes you just notice that something is easier than it used to be.

A task that once took an hour now takes twenty minutes. Something you avoided has become normal. A difficult situation no longer takes up as much mental space.

Progress doesn't always feel dramatic while it's happening.

Fire Dance in Hawaii

Visit a Museum in every state

Fly with a Goose (on a plane)

1 week of 24 hour days

1 week of 24 hour nights

Buy a fish in a petstore in nebraska and sell it to a petstore in China

Grow a flower bed

Watch a full Sumo Tournament in person

Go to a Bookstore and buy a whole shelf

Enter Fast Food in a Food Cooking Contest

Go To a Black Church Service

Win a spicy food eating contest

Name a Goose in every Canadian province (and alaska)

Drink a Dr Pepper at the top of the Eiffel Tower

RIP

2 hours of motivation to push you towards your goals

Not my video

https://youtu.be/4xeW2ix6Jxw?si=q79gX3gL5bupWbyQ

Let us know what was most helpful about this piece? how did you like it? and what did you love the most about it?

Title

Everyone should take care of themselves before taking care of others.

Some people take on multiple jobs to take care of themselves.

Some people take care of themselves as the full-time job.

You should not be ashamed either way,

because you have taken the first step to take care of others.

I am tired of never changing, always finding a stupid excuse. Of always falling short and putting goals at the floor just so I don't feel like shit. But I still do. What should I do?

i used to wait to "feel" motivated before starting anything. waited a long time. turns out motivation shows up after you start, not before.

now I just do 5 minutes. not the whole workout, not the whole project — just 5 minutes. Half the time that's enough to get moving. the other half, at least I did something.

discipline beats motivation on the days motivation ghosts you

Background:

28M - Been a Warehouse Admin for roughly 8 years. Been applying for IT-related jobs in my area for over 2 years, finally landed a role making 25 cents higher than I make now, but the commute is 20 minutes longer and my wife will now need to commute to her job as well since we car pool currently.

I'm about 5k in the hole due to us rushing our wedding, random unneeded purchases, as well as things just getting so much more expensive than they were this time last year.

I know that If I hold strong and stick with this new career, I can be making several dollars more than I am now within a few months, which will more than make up for the gas cost of the commute.

I guess I just really need some advice and motivation on why this opportunity I have is such a great thing and not as bad as I am making it out in my head.

Has anyone here ever took a risk and changed careers despite being in debt? Did it work out in the end?

Now that summer is almost over, I know from experience that some of you are looking back and realizing you didn’t achieve anything, despite the fact that it’s the best season to reduce your weight. That’s simply because when the external temperature rises, your body doesn’t need to burn as much internal energy to keep you warm, and it naturally suppresses hunger signals because digesting heavy food generates metabolic heat.

To boost your motivation, you don’t need anything special. Just start from within, because that’s the sustainable way to go. It’s completely opposite to when the push comes from external sources (parents, a girl/man, etc.), because that’s like a crash diet, a short-term solution that doesn’t work in the long run.

When you are feeling down, remember this: Start by starting! Enough is enough! Instead of asking questions, you need to start looking for answers.

All your trauma, and issues with relapse and the vicious cycle is valid. It's not easy, anyone with a brain can and will acknowledge that. That being said, nothing will happen till you break the pattern today, or the loop will repeat tomorrow. YOU, and only you must break the pattern today or the loop will repeat tomorrow. This is a YOU problem, and that's a good thing, the only silver lining of it all, since this is a you problem, it means only YOU have the MEANS, POWER AND WILL to fix it, even if you've not been able to yet.

Good luck.

Hi, I’m Manny.

I’ve started and abandoned enough habit trackers to notice the same pattern. I do well for a while, miss a few days, and eventually the tracker quietly stops mattering. Nobody else knows, and I can always tell myself I’ll start again on Monday.

So I’m trying something more uncomfortable for the next 123 days: I made the whole record public.

I built a small site called 320AM where I’m tracking seven daily habits: reading the newspaper, reading books or articles for at least an hour, cardio, lifting, eating clean, keeping a clean media diet, and intermittent fasting.

The scoring is intentionally a little harsh:

• Completing a habit earns 10 points.
• Missing one removes 20 points immediately.
• A perfect day earns a 50-point bonus.
• Points don’t become spendable until the end of the week, and how many I keep depends on my completion rate.

The points can eventually be exchanged for rewards I chose beforehand, starting with a meal out and working up to things that will take much longer to earn.

I’m at the beginning, so I don’t have a success story to tell. This could work, or I could fail very publicly. Honestly, that discomfort is part of the reason I’m doing it.

This isn’t an app I’m selling, and there’s no signup. It’s just my own experiment and an attempt to make it harder for me to negotiate with myself.

I’d be interested to hear what people here think. Has anyone tried something like this before? How can I make it better?

Here’s the experiment if anyone wants to follow along:

https://320am.com

I spent a long time thinking I lacked motivation, but I noticed something uncomfortable: I was constantly looking for proof that my effort was worth it before I allowed myself to continue.

I would start something new, get a little excited, and then a few days later I’d catch myself asking, “Is this actually going anywhere?” If I couldn’t answer that question, my energy would disappear.

The weird part was that I wasn’t quitting because things were difficult. I was quitting because I couldn’t guarantee that the effort would pay off.

I noticed this pattern while learning a new skill. I had a folder full of notes, practice files, and half-finished attempts. One night around 11:40 PM, I opened the folder and realized I had spent more time organizing what I learned than actually spending time being bad at it.

I kept thinking I needed confidence before continuing, but confidence was actually the thing that only showed up after I had enough evidence from doing the work.

A few things helped me break the cycle:

First, I stopped asking “Is this going to work?” every few days. I replaced it with “Did I show up and collect information?” That small change made unfinished progress feel less like failure.

Second, I started keeping a private record of things I improved instead of only noticing what was missing. I was surprised how many small improvements I ignored because they didn’t look impressive enough.

The counterintuitive thing I learned is that motivation often gets weaker when you keep trying to make the future feel certain. I thought uncertainty was the problem, but constantly trying to remove uncertainty was what drained me.

Some of the most consistent people I’ve watched weren’t more confident than everyone else. They just seemed less interested in getting reassurance before taking the next step.

I still catch myself looking for signs sometimes. The difference is I don’t treat that feeling as a reason to stop anymore.

I’m curious how many people struggle with this too: do you lose motivation because the work gets hard, or because you start wondering whether the work will actually lead somewhere?

I just turned 30, and I feel totally lost in life. As a woman, half of my friends are married and well into the family life with multiple kids. The other half are single, and or living life with their partners. All I do is work, and go home. I’m a waitress, work is hit or miss. I make enough to pay bills(a lot less than most my age, as I live with my grandmother in our family home that we’ve had since the early 50s) I definitely don’t make enough to be off on my own. I didn’t graduate college, life got bad and I moved out of state all within a month when I was 21. I’ve done retail management for 6 years, did the office job & now I’m back in the service industry. It gives me freedom, but with that freedom I have zero motivation. I literally wake up, go to work, get home and do absolutely nothing. I have my small hobbies like coloring, gaming, random little things like that. I’m wanting to get out of my comfort zone, join some clubs/organizations but I don’t even know what or where to look. A lot of the things seem more catered to the younger crowd, or the older crowd (I’m talking 18-25, and then 60+). I do the occasional social outings with friends, but when I’m out I don’t feel like I really belong there. It’s just like I’m there so I can be included in a way. I feel so far behind in life, and I hate it.

Edit- I truly appreciate everybody’s advice, and the messages I have received!! I also wish everybody who is feeling the same way, a happy and positive life!

Recently 18F and I’m a horribly flakey and inconsistent friend. I grew up neglected and self-isolated a lot growing up because of it. While I did have sporadic friends, for some reason I could never handle having more than 2 or 3 friends. I grew up being used to not having anybody to talk to, or having anybody expect or want me to talk to them. I spent a lot of time alone in my thoughts.

I didn’t like this back then. I wanted more friends, but couldn’t figure out how to handle it. And I especially don’t like this now, since I kind of need to lock-in on making connections and bonds. As it’ll only get harder as I get older.

I made 3 friends within the last half-year. And honestly, I’ve probably damaged them, a lot. I started responding to texts late or not showing up to things we planned. Because I was tired after work and just fell asleep. I fucking ghosted one of them for a month because I was out of state and forgot to talk to them.

Talking and responding began to feel like an obligation. I got anxious whenever I responded because I felt like I had to respond “properly” or it’d ruin the relationship. Or they’d text me when I wanted to do something else and I’d get annoyed that I had to talk at all. It kept building until the idea of having to talk was a source of massive anxiety.

And I don’t know why. I don’t know why I got so annoyed or anxious. I like my friends. They’ve been great. I don’t want to lose them. I don’t know why I can’t hold a relationship for more than a couple months.

I don’t know why my social battery is so low, when I love people. I genuinely love being around people and I love human connection.

Actually, in general I’m so lazy. My rooms a mess and my mom constantly yells at me to clean. I keep forgetting things at work (idk how or why they haven’t fired me). I barely take care of myself. I’m almost failing college because I can’t be fucked to study. I was supposed to make a doctors appointment today but I spent the entire day with terrible brain fog and was barely able to string a sentence together.

And like, it’s not even laziness from lack of consequence. I have had consequences. I just can’t make myself care.

I thought maybe it was my ADHD, but I take medication now and I still barely do more than before. Why am I so lazy? Why do I wake up with such a low energy threshold? Then I just spend the day with low background anxiety about things I should be doing.

How do I fix this? How do I be a better friend? And how do I train my social bandwidth/battery to last longer?

I spent years making plans that I would not sustain or that I would not start. Something would always come up. The time wasn’t perfect. Monday has passed so I have to wait until next Monday. Oops, I didn’t prep on Sunday so nothing is ready Monday so let’s start this next week. For really, really reals this time. Tomorrow never came. Something about TBIs and PTSD gave me all or nothing thinking.

Then I realized that you don’t need motivation. You don’t need a drill sergeant yelling at you at all hours of the day. You don’t need a dozen alarms on your phone. You really need just three things:

• Change your attitude. Instead of shooting for completing a perfect 100% of your tasks, realize that 80% done is a hell of a lot better than 100% planned. Don’t beat yourself up about the other 20%. Your goal is momentum, not perfection.
• Start now. Not tomorrow. Not in 5 minutes. Not later today. NOW!!! Stop wasting time. Momentum, momentum, momentum.
• Once you get started, Pareto the crap out of your schedule/tasks. Focus on the 20% that’ll get you the 80% of the results you want to achieve. Do the work that matters, not the busy work that bogs you down. You will feel the greater momentum. Then create a system that makes it easy for you to get started, and harder to procrastinate.

These are what I used to get myself off my butt. YMMV. If you have any other suggestions or think I missed anything, chime in. I always want to learn new techniques.

I’m 26 years old, unemployed, and I feel completely stuck in life. I’m writing this after breaking down again. Honestly, I don’t know how many times I’ve reached this point.

From the outside, it probably looks like I’m simply wasting my life. The truth is, I don’t understand why I keep repeating the same pattern. I genuinely want to change. I know I’m wasting time. I know what I need to do. But when it’s time to actually take action, I freeze and avoid it.

I lost my father when I was young. My mother raised my sister and me by herself. She worked incredibly hard, spent her savings, and even took loans to give me opportunities. She still believes I can build a good future, but I feel like I’ve let her down.

I’ve been unemployed since graduation, and almost four years have passed without me doing much with my life.

One of my biggest problems is fear and avoidance. I’m scared of almost everything that requires me to step outside my comfort zone.

For example, I can’t ride a bike or drive a car. If you ask me today whether I want to learn, I’ll confidently say yes. I’ll even imagine myself doing it. But when someone actually gives me the keys and expects me to drive, my confidence disappears. My heart starts racing, I panic, and I back out.

The same thing happens with almost everything important in my life.

In 2024, my mother enrolled me in technical coaching related to my field. I knew how important it was. I knew how much she had sacrificed for me. But I barely attended. I knew I was making a terrible mistake. I cried about it many times and promised myself I would change, but somehow I still couldn’t make myself go.

This isn’t new. I remember crying in 2022 and telling myself I had to change. Then in 2024 I had another breakdown. I wasted money, time and opportunities, even though I knew exactly what I was doing.

I haven’t seriously studied, applied for jobs consistently, learned useful skills, or followed through with the things I start.

Even reading a book is difficult. I buy books excited to learn, then never open them. I start TV shows, movies, hobbies or new interests with enthusiasm, sometimes watching several episodes or becoming completely obsessed with something, and then suddenly lose interest and move on.

My interests can become intense. I might spend days learning everything about football, filmmaking, tactics or something else, convinced that this is what I want to do. Then I move on to something completely different.

Sometimes I have extremely high confidence. I buy books, make plans, want to learn, want to travel, want to get a job, want to change my life. I feel like I can achieve anything.

But when it comes to actually doing the work, that confidence disappears.

I keep searching for motivation and role models. One day it’s Michael Jordan. Another day it’s Max Verstappen. I watch sports and want to understand every tactic. I imagine becoming a successful football player, filmmaker, or someone who builds an incredible career from nothing.

Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for some magic or superpower to suddenly transform me.

But I know there is no magic.

I’ve also been humiliated many times. People have called me useless, laughed because I can’t drive, compared me with younger people who already have jobs, and treated me like a burden. Some friends mock me. Some relatives barely talk to me.

When people humiliate me, it hurts deeply. Sometimes I feel like crying. It makes me want to achieve something and prove myself. But strangely, the humiliation doesn’t change my behaviour for long. Eventually, I fall back into the same cycle.

I’m not jealous of people who are doing better than me. I actually want them to succeed. I just want a good life too.

I’m from a village, and even some ordinary things feel huge to me. When I see people driving, travelling, having careers and living independently, sometimes they look like superheroes to me.

I want those things too.

I want a good job. I want to earn well. I want to travel the world. I want to visit the London. I want to go to the Arsenal stadium and experience things I’ve only seen on a screen. I want to live a normal, meaningful life.

I also miss my father.

And I have some health issues, including breathing and heart-related problems, which make me worry even more.

The biggest fear I have now is my future.

Sometimes I think: What if I can’t provide for my future children? What if I can’t give my family the life they deserve? What if I wake up at 30 or 35 and realize I wasted even more years?

That fear is becoming very real.

The scary part is that I actually predicted this years ago. I remember thinking, “If I don’t change, I’ll be 26 one day and full of regret.”

Now I’m 26.

And that is exactly what happened.

Sometimes I feel so hopeless that I think about dying. But I don’t want to die. Life is valuable to me. I want to live. My mother and sister depend on me. I want to make my mother proud after everything she has done for me.

I don’t have any major bad habits. My biggest problem is that I keep postponing my life.

I want therapy and professional help because I don’t know whether this is anxiety, fear, ADHD, depression, or something else. I don’t want strangers to diagnose me. I just want to understand what is happening to me and learn how to overcome it.

But right now I’m almost at zero financially.

So my first goal is simple: I need to get a job.

Then I want to work on everything else my fear, confidence, driving, health, skills, and life.

I know that if I start working and take things one step at a time, my life can change. I just don’t understand why I’ve been unable to take those first steps for so long.

I’m posting this because I’m genuinely looking for answers from people who may have experienced something similar.

How did you break this cycle?

How did you stop avoiding things you were afraid of?

How did you start taking action when you knew exactly what you needed to do but still couldn’t do it?

How did you rebuild your life after wasting years?

I’m not looking for judgment or mockery. I already judge myself enough.

I just want to stop waiting for my life to begin.

I want to actually live it.

Body: I used to think motivation was about locking onto a goal and refusing to blink. Every project I managed had a defined endpoint. Scope, timeline, deliverables. Clear success criteria. Then I applied that same logic to my life and it backfired spectacularly. I would reach something I had chased for months and feel nothing. The target had already shifted in my mind before I even got there. Hit one milestone, immediately attach to the next. It took a solo hike last fall to really see it. I had been trekking toward this summit for hours, pushing through a rough patch, only to find the view was just decent and the real good stuff was apparently another ridge away. I almost kept going out of pure habit. Instead I sat down where I was. Ate some trail mix. Watched the light change. Let myself be done for the day. That felt like a minor rebellion. I am still learning to separate ambition from compulsion. The thing about hiking though, you learn to appreciate the loop you finished, not just the peaks. Cooking helped too. The meal is the meal. You do not immediately start planning the next one while chewing. My question is, how do you actually let yourself rest at a goal instead of sprinting through it toward the next thing?