I should be studying right now, but everytime I sit to study, I can’t sit there long enough, I want food even though I am not hungry, I want to watch TV/youtube, self-pleasure… etc…
No matter what productive work I want to do, I will try to not do that and do something which gives me momentary pleasure. I want to masturbate, eat lots of food even though I am not hungry while watching TV/Youtube and I don’t seem to be able to break the cycle and it’s destroying me. How can I break the cycle and do something good for a change instead of pleasuring myself in the moment meaninglessly?
Self discipline is a skill in itself and it is something you can learn.
At it’s most basic you restrict things you want and make them a reward for doing a task.
It can be hard to restrict things as you say. When I used to study, I used to go to a “3rd place” to do it. That is somewhere that is not home or work - I used to go to a library. In that environments you don’t have TV, or food, and hopefully you won’t be masturbating.
Mobiles can be very difficult though - if you can’t stop yourself using your phone to watch YouTube then either leave it at home (I know, shocking idea in this day and age!) Or install parental locking/anti distraction software that locks your phone down for certain periods. This can help you learn self discipline with your phone.
Similarly if you study with a laptop, then look at anti distraction tools to keep you focused on your work rather than surfing or on YouTube.
The reward side is very important. You need to be consistent and follow through on your promises to yourself. Don’t use unrealistic rewards - like “if I study for 6 hours today I’ll have dinner tonight”. You’re going to have dinner anyway, and you don’t want to go down the road of punishing yourself. Make it a favourite meal, or promise to watch next episode in a favourite TV show.
The idea is that you will be still enjoying those things because you will study and work. But be prepared to deny yourself those things if you fail to reach your goals in the beginning.
Self discipline is hard, not least because you can cheat yourself too easily. But it’s worth putting in the effort, and the forced physical separation from the distractions and rewards at home makes it easier.
This is a fantastic answer. The things that trigger the reward center in your brain should not be the common input. I fully agree with the suggestion to remove the temptation beforehand and set goals. Personally, I also suggest that you make the reward less frequent over time so that the completion of the work becomes the desired result; rather than just a means to attain the reward.
It’s most effective for long term behavioral modification if your reinforcement drops off steadily, and becomes randomized (as in, may or may not appear, randomly selected each time according to a decaying probability curve).
hey, thank you! I feel like my brain is hijacked by all the stuff I do and I can’t do anything else. Fuck this laptop and fuck this phone. These aren’t good for me.
Escaping from these things is a long slow process involving a lot of work.
The book Atomic Habits is very good. It talks about how you have a limited willpower budget and the best way to make long term change is to only make small changes at any given time, and stick with that small change until it requires zero willpower. Then you can make another small change.
Basically it’s like making a sculpture by putting down little layers of concrete, then waiting for the concrete to fully cure before putting more concrete on it.
You make a little change to your habits. Something like “I don’t touch any apps other than alarm clock for the first five minutes of my day”.
Then you do a huge and nearly exhausting amount of work to make sure the first five minutes of each day aren’t your normal escape patterns.
Trying to go whole hog takes more willpower than you actually have, and so it breaks down. Trying to alter the first five minutes of the day takes an amount of willpower you can actually afford to spend.
And the key is, after you’re consistent with it for a while, it eventually takes no willpower, and is now by definition a “habit”.
It’s mostly not your fault. Apps, games, and socials are intentionally designed to be addictive. That’s because the more time you spend on them, the more ad revenue the owners make.
If sheer willpower doesn’t work, find other ways around it. Someone else already suggested going to a library or another place, that’s good advice. Of you phone is an issue, you could turn it off and allow yourself to turn it back on after you’ve been productive for an hour, or after you have achieved a specific goal.
I got diagnosed with ADHD, prescribed some meds. It was a total waste of time. Gave me anxiety for about a year and a half before I stopped taking the meds. My success at handling the complexity of life increased for the first few days of my medication routine, then dropped back to where it was before with more panic attacks.
For me, getting an ADHD screening started a major detour in my own development.
I’ll 2nd what hexagon said about going to a library or similar place. Trying to work around other people who are working helps to focus the mind and reduce distractions. If you can go to a library, this may be a good place to set up better practices, e.g. thoses others have suggested, first, then set up a work-only zone at home you can transfer that feeling of focus and work to.
Why would anyone wanna be productive if not for the sake of pleasure? Why even live? Get your priorities straight and then do the math. This shit is investment!
I hate to say it, but watch the David Goggins interview with Huberman recently. The overall point is - hard stuff is never easy, it always sucks, and there’s only one way through it and that’s by doing it, no matter what.
In your scenario, you’re always waiting for the moment when it “feels good or right” to do the work… but it never does feel ideal, right. That’s the key, accepting that it sucks and pushing on through that sucky part anyway.
The good news is, the sucky part gets less and less once you pass the first hump of starting. It’s like the hardest part of exercising is getting started, once you’re doing it you’re fine.
Good luck, I know the feeling.
Lemmy User: Asks for advice
Lemmy: ADHD
It’s worth noting that, now that people have had a few hours to vote, none of the most upvoted replies mention ADHD.
And that’s honestly not a positive. People out there don’t get diagnosed until their 30s because they never seriously considered it. Not saying OP has ADHD, but dismissing it outright without more exploration is potentially harmful.
potentially harmful
Oh for fuck sake. No, failing to give a voice to the hypochondriacs who bleat about every medical condition under the sun in any random social media thread isn’t “potentially harmful” by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, constantly obsessing over such things is itself causing harm.
You need practice at concentrating on your work.
In the same way you’d work out to build muscle strength, your mind needs regular training to stay in shape.
Start with sensible, achievable goals and improve over time.
Start with tiny goals. Not just achievable but almost trivially achievable.
Goal 1 could be: wait ten seconds before the next time I open social media
This is what’s meant by “baby steps”
