Gentlefolk of these here reddits,
I’d like to thank yall for giving me pointers, motivation, and personal stories. Up till this point I was in pure lurking territory, but… Well, gorramit, you ppl rock!
I’ve got a few pointers– things that helped me anyway– maybe they’ll be useful to some brave fapstronaut. They are nothing special, meaning I’m sure each and every one of them has been said before. They’re just what worked for me this time.
- 1) Your routine. It’s bad. Change it up somehow. I moved into a new apartment shortly before my challenge began– that helped immensely.
- 2) For heaven’s sake find a new stress reliever, preferably one that requires mental focus too. I took up yoga (and I’m a big mantitted neckbearded mudder). It fit perfectly into what used to be my faptime, I look and feel better than I have in forever, and I’ve got less stress than when I was fapping. Srsly, this one is huge.
- 3) This one is going to be vastly different for different people. For me, though, I didn’t tell anyone. Not anyone. I liked that it felt like I was secretly getting away with something, I guess? Maybe it was just veiled smug superiority… But yeah. That worked for me, you might react completely different to it though.
- 4) I kept a tally system. It was in big, bold dry-erase marker on my refrigerator. When I had friends over they’d ask what it was for and I’d (because of #3) respond “it’s for a project I’m doing” and then change the subject.
- 5) Dedicate 2-3 minutes of talking yourself up whenever you add a tally. I, for one, think it’s kind of gross to brag or tell myself explicitly how awesome I am, but for those 2-3 minutes all that shit gets put on hold. You’re awesome, tell yourself how awesome you are and how huge of an accomplishment all those tally marks represent, and don’t forget to remind yourself that you’re also awesome.
- 6) Do you remember that video of the– I think he was Norwegian?– guy on day 89 of his solo Antarctic trek? The cheezy doodles guy, bellowing and screaming on the ground for rediscovering his junk food stash. Yeah, so the reason he was so excited was because his motivation plan meant he didn’t record what he was leaving. So every care parcel he left for himself was a surprise. The anticipation, after all, is where a lot of the joy is. I did that. I wrote on playing cards a new reward and I flipped a new card over every 10 days (you could do more, I’m not rich though). My rewards ranged anywhere from enjoying a rootbeer float to getting a massage to getting shirts tailored. Every 10 days was awesome.
- 6a) It’s okay to talk about how awesome your reward you just flipped over is, too.
- 7) Infinity is a mighty big number. So even if that’s your goal, break the time into manageable chunks. If you don’t have your heart set on that toppled-over 8, pick a definite finish to your trial.
- 8) Touch your junk as little as possible. Tersely scrub it in the shower in as general a way as possible.
- 9) Frame your thoughts appropriately, in order to motivate you. What I mean is, if you’re just starting, think about how unprecedented it is for you to go 8, 9, 15 days without da fap. If you’re 50 days in, think– holy wowzers that’s a huge accomplishment! If you’re at day 115/120, think how stupid you’d feel if you broke right now. It’s all about how you frame it in your mind.
- 10) The last one for me might be a little bit illogical– I bet you could punch a hole in it if you really tried– but I don’t see why you would. Just think: the challenge is to not do something. Which means you have to actually put energy into failing. You have to intend to fail. If you literally do nothing– just eat and shit– for the entire time span, you succeed! Success is easier than failure.
You can do it! Take it, it’s yours! Other Saint Crispin’s Day Speech Ripoffs!
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