I’ll start with physical fitness. I’m 31 years old and I’ve never seen my abs. I am not even overweight, but I drank pretty heavily during my 20s as a bad coping mechanism for not being good at socializing while sober (and also to avoid painful emotions). The result is an undeveloped frame with a beer gut thrown in.
Let’s get to the social stuff. I was terrible socially during my 20s. While 99% of people were out having a blast, casual sex, making many new friends, I was borderline reclusive for most of the decade. I had social experiences, but they almost without fail involved me drinking at least 4 beers.
Relationships wise, I’ve been with just two women in my life. The first, from 18-21, ended with me being dumped by text and taking years to get over it. The second, from 24-31, was an even worse shitshow that involved me settling down with someone who I never really even felt happy with but because my self-esteem was so screwed, I just accepted the situation.
Lastly, career and finances. I have no debts, $5k in a retirement fund, and $30k in the bank, which doesn’t sound too awful (could be worse). But I only earn $38k each year as a middling freelancer. My work is isolating as fuck. And worst of all, there’s an inflated property market in my country that means I’m unlikely to own a house in the next 5-6 years.
I actually feel like such a fuck up that it’s paralyzing me from improving. The prospect of going from failure to somewhat successful requires improvements on so many fronts: social skills, lifting, developing new hobbies, potentially changing careers. I don’t know where to start especially because these are all things I should’ve excelled at in my 20s and laid the foundations for…not now.
17 comments
Don’t worry about the should haves. You’re only 31 and you turn things around. You sound a bit overwhelmed with all the things you perceive you need to change.
I suggest you start with getting sober, or at least only drinking at the weekend.
Then find an exercise you enjoy. I work from home and it’s great to get out for a run 3 times a week.
Then get onto your diet and find one that gives you the most energy and mental clarity.
So you’re not suffering from any physical illnesses, you don’t have any debt, have been in a couple of relationships and are employed?
The first thing to do is to realize that you are incredibly far from being a failure. You’re average, or maybe even above.
The second is that I would start going to the gym regular and doing some kind of strength training program.
The rest, well, it’ll come.
Working out should be the first step imo. There are countless studies showing the positive effects that come from exercise and it really doesn’t matter how you exercise for a lot of them. If you’re anti-social you can walk, run, hike, barbell/bodyweight train at home, if you’re feeling social check out local sports clubs, group workouts at gyms, or hit up a yoga studio!
Do that until working out is something you cherish. Fake it till you make it if you can’t find an activity that is genuinely enjoyable. I prefer hiking, climbing, and powerlifting.
As you work out more it’ll encourage you to fix your food & sleep situations. You can’t stay grow with no sleep or terrible nutrition. Improving these also improves your mood, self-confidence, and self-esteem.
Better mood and confidence will lead to more successful social interactions, and eventually relationships (friendly and romantic) as long as you keep putting yourself out there.
Most importantly, set a plan, stick to it, and take each day one at a time. Try not to dwell on the past or future, the former leads to depression, the latter to anxiety.
You got this!
>I have no debts, $5k in a retirement fund, and $30k in the bank
If it makes you feel any better, you are way better off than the vast majority of us. If you consider this a failure…. I wouldn’t want you to see my books.
Incremental improvements, my guy. You don’t go from being unfit to some sort of Olympic winner in a week.
It’s like an hour hand moving – if you monitor it constantly you don’t see anything fucking moving.
But, to push the analogy a bit more, you can apply pressure to that hand and, before you know it, you’re sleeping better, you’ve quit vaping/smoking, you’re earning a good whack, and your outlook is better.
What would do if you won the lottery? Whatever you’d do to keep busy, do that in small amounts. Cocaine and sex workers doesn’t count.
Help others. A life lead in the service of others is a life well lead. It can be family, making a call to a loneliness charity once a week, supporting a little girl’s education on Eritrea. Whatever form it takes, it’s good for the soul to help a fellow Sapien.
If you want to be fatalistic, it’s still possible to be positive. We’re all gonna fucking die one day so you might as well do some mad, cool, interesting, and positively remarkable shit between now and then.
Actioning all this shit will enable the byproduct of you being a more well-rounded and confident person. That’s attractive and you’re then more amiable to the opposite sex (or same sex for that matter, go explore…)
Last note, finances: LISA (or whatever tf the US equivalent is + pension; compound interest is your friend).
You’re self aware enough to have reached out to internet strangers for help, and that shows you care enough to make the change. Stop planning, start doing.
Time management. It’s so sad and hard to realize how much time is wasted in meaningless things that bring little to none value in my life. I’m not saying that spending a whole weekend doing absolutely nothing is bad, but it shouldn’t be exception, not the norm.
We all have the same 24hrs., that’s the only “fair card” we all have in common in this life, and while some of us are more blessed by having some more spare time than others (working from home, having no kids, etc.) it must be a concise effort to make sure this resource doesn’t get wasted more than it should. Sadly, that’s isn’t the case with many of us, mainly me.
You know what I like more than a success story? A comeback story. Be the comeback story.
For your health, start with simple things. Take a 30 minute walk. Next time, walk a little farther or faster. Look at what you are eating. Heathy eating does not have to taste like shit. Look at what portions you are consuming.
Baby steps towards where you want to be. Visualize where you want to be and make small changes to get you closer. You can do it.
Man, the first thing is your self-esteem.
We all struggle with career goals, with relationships, and with the idea of getting older. That’s OK and expected. You have to know that you’re good and valuable separate and distinct from the trappings of success.
In case it helps: I was a total boner in my 20s, and now I’m planning my honeymoon in Europe. I’m 36. You can do it.
Its overwhelming for sure, so it’s important to set achievable but inportant goals and try to reach them. For this and many other reasons i think you should start with exercise. The fact that you started with it means it’s important to you. I would start there.
I know you don’t feel like you make much money, but try to budget yourself some extra cash for a personal trainer. They can be incredibly helpful and a huge source of knowledge that you can use to keep yourself fit and healthy. I waffled going to gyms for years before trying a trainer and it was night and day.
Many will agree that getting your gut down and the general journey of becoming more physically fit and active will have a range of positive effects, mentally, physically, and socially.
Spirit, Mind, then Body. Also, mood follows action.
I swear, this sub is obsessed with working out sometimes.
Here’s a different perspective. Pick something that interests you. That can be working out, if that’s something you want. It could be something completely unrelated – like volunteering with an organization, joining a social activity, or just working on something around your house. The important part is picking something that you like or enjoy, because that’s going to help keep you wanting to go back and do it more.
Start small. Short steps. Do a thing, then do it again. Then do it a third time. Use those little, incremental steps to build momentum and expand out from there.
There’s no hard and fast rules here – do x, then y. You’re an adult and you can pursue whatever you like. Working out, starting a new hobby, learning an activity, or even if it’s just snorting coke off of a stripper’s ass, the steps are generally the same. Start small, build momentum. Go to a strip club.* Say hi to a dancer. Go back, say hi again. Keep returning. Build a rapport. Maybe she’s got a supply or knows a dealer. There’s your momentum.
The sky’s the limit.
*Disclaimer: I’ve never been to a strip club, so please don’t follow these steps and expect success.
> While 99% of people were out having a blast, casual sex, making many new friends, I was borderline reclusive for most of the decade.
This is probably a gross overestimation.
As for the physical stuff: I’m 45 and started weightlifting three months ago. I’ve gone from barely being able to lift a bare barbell to squatting 80lbs, benching 70lbs, and deadlifting 110lbs. If I can get this far that fast at my age, you should be able to do even better.
I started with getting into shape because that was something I knew I had 100% control over. I don’t need any lucky breaks, I don’t need anyone to take a chance on me, I don’t need to be accepted anywhere. Just eat smart, exercise. and self discipline. Once I was making progress there it fed into anything else I wanted to do.
Get fit.
You need stamina and strength to fight your corner – good luck.
> While 99% of people were out having a blast, casual sex, making many new friends
For what it’s worth, people are having a lot less sex and have fewer friends than most realize. Our low self-esteem likes to whisper in our ear how much better everyone else has it, but it’s a lie.
> don’t know where to start
You can’t really think of your life like a series of quests to be completed in order. Life doesn’t really work like that. Instead, it’s a half dozen quests that you chip away at in parallel. I know it sounds intimidating to have to do them all “at once”, but the trick is to realize that on any given day, you only need to make a *little progress on each.
If you got a good night’s sleep, hydrated, and went for a walk, you can pretty well check off “health” for that day. If you texted an acquaintance, you made a little progress on friendship.
Think of it like investing. You can’t save up all at once right now. You just sock a little away every week. You’ll be surprised how much accrues if you just keep doing that.
> I should’ve excelled at in my 20s and laid the foundations for…not now.
Actually, scratch that. There is *one* thing you should do first: Stop thinking “should’ve”. It’s a toxic self-defeating word. Our anxiety and shame throw it at us to make us feel bad, but it does nothing but demoralize. The past is immutable. Those mistakes have already been made and it’s time to let them go so that you can focus your attention on the present where you *can* still exert control.
So your not obese, had two long term relationships, and have a decent amount of savings. Sounds pretty normal to me.
I’d starting with working out and updating my resume. I think those are the two areas that are the easiest to solve. I’d consider talking to someone about the reclusiveness.