Reddit reviews Unleash the Warrior Within: Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence, and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals

With 700+ replies, I doubt you'll read this, but my suggestion would be: rather than planning out "everything" (which sounds like a lot mentally and can dampen motivation), just write down the one most important thing you need/want to do. Focus all your energy and attention and time on getting that one thing accomplished. Once you get into the habit of getting one thing done, you can expand your written list to 2-3 things, then more. But always keep your focus on the one item that's at the top of your list, and don't worry about anything else until that one's been taken care of.

Also, read this. The title sounds corny, but it's actually a good book for learning how to prioritize and accomplish things.

The first hurdle you need to jump is to realize that your wife is not your problem. She is someone who doesn't want to be better. You've been married for 15 years, if she wanted to be better, things would be better.

The fact that you are posting here tells me that you want to be better, and you are willing to grow and change.

One thing that has helped me on my path is mindfulness meditation. I used to be a jumble where my inner self was not connected to my outer self. I would be hurting, and afraid, and in pain, but on the outside I would convince myself that everything is fine. The people that hurt me are good people, and here are my excuses for them.

Here are four books from a buddhist monk that have been very helpful to me:

http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-No-Escape-Path-Loving-Kindness-ebook/dp/B00BBXJH5Y/

http://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult-ebook/dp/B00BBXJH2C/

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Where-You-Are-Compassionate-ebook/dp/B00BPE414Q/

http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Leap-Freeing-Ourselves-Habits-ebook/dp/B0041VYNVG/

And here's another good one from a navy seal to mix things up:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738215686/

I'll be honest, most people don't escape abuse. It's one of the hardest things to do, because people who will put up with the abuse lack the qualities that will help them escape. Why do people stay in abuse? Fear, lack of self esteem, lack of self respect. Not every thing is her fault. After 15 years, you know who and what she is better than anyone, and if that is unacceptable, you need to start taking some blame for not leaving. Ask yourself why you don't respect yourself enough to leave. Ask yourself why you being happy, or not living in constant terror isn't important enough to leave over.

You've vented, you've ranted, you've gotten a lot of advice and encouragement. Maybe you feel better, maybe you feel like you "got it all out" and now you can go back and cope better with your shitty situation. Next time she's awful, you'll go work it out at the gym, or have a night with the guys, or however else you cope. It's what I used to do when I felt trapped in an awful situation.

You say "my heart is in the right place" or "her heart is in the right place". That's bullshit and it is an excuse. If your heart was in the right place you would be loving yourself as much as you love others, and if your wife's heart was in the right place she would be putting as much effort into this relationship as you are - she would want to be an amazing wife to you.

You say she has been an all around great mother. Does an all around great mother actively get the children involved to monitor her husband's masturbation habits? That's so inappropriate that it is mind blowing.

It is ok to say she hurts you. It is ok to say she does bad things. You don't need to make excuses for her behavior. She is a grow woman and accountable for her actions and behaviors.

Go look up "Learned Helplessness" on wikipedia and digest that.

It might seem all doom and gloom, but you are at a great starting point. It sounds like you have a ton of family which already sees things you don't see in your wife. Confide in your most trusted, closest one. Tell that person "I want to get my life back together, and that means I divorce my wife." I am sure you will have a positive reaction. You have a support network. You have a well paying job. You are in a good position to really discover yourself and start over.

Imagine yourself TRULY happy, try and imagine what that would look like for you, and ask yourself if you love and respect yourself enough for that to be something to fight for. If it's not, then learn to love yourself until the fight IS worth it.

You're welcome! I got hyperfocused on fixing my ADHD once and learned some good tricks, haha. Here are some good books to look into as well:

First: "Attitude is Everything" by Jeff Keller. Very short book. It explains how your attitude basically controls how you feel about everything in your life. This relates to learning because you can choose how you feel about learning. Especially when armed with methods for studying & remember stuff, you can start each study session excited & confident instead of feeling repressed by having to actually do the work of learning instead of the idea of how exciting learning something would be:

https://www.amazon.com/Attitude-Everything-Change-Your-Life/dp/0979041031/

Second: "Unleash the Warrior Within" by Richard Mack Machowicz. As mentioned, one of the core takeaways I got was that you have to learn how to setup targets for yourself and then knock them down. A simple but kind of mind-blowing concept because you grow up getting work handed to you, and having to break things like studying down into chunks, put them on a schedule, etc., isn't really ever a skill we're taught. And that applies to studying for school, painting your house, following a workout program, etc. Setup targets, knock them down. Great concept:

https://www.amazon.com/Unleash-Warrior-Within-Discipline-Confidence/dp/0738215686

Third: "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle. The basic idea that talent is somewhat overrated & consistent work is really what makes people successful. There are plenty of smart kids out there who never end up applying themselves in college, for example, and end up being under-achievers. Second concept, slow failure - learning & mastering individual concepts, slowly, and learning not just how to get good at it but how to fail at it is important (the part about the Link Trainer is great). Third concept, myelin being an actual thing in your body that represents the work you put in to build "talent" or skill through repetition. Excellent book:

https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown-ebook/dp/B0026OR1UK

Fourth: "Getting Things Done" by David Allen (aka "GTD"). The basic concept is to capture 100% of your commitments (both to others & to yourself) in a system off your mind (notepad, smartphone, whatever), and then process them by asking what's the outcome desired & what's the very next physical action, and then grouping them by context so you always know what to do next when you're actively working on things. If you want a bulletproof system for never letting things slide or dropping the ball on anything ever again, this is it. It's a somewhat difficult system to learn because it is very comprehensive, but it's also very much worth it:

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity-ebook/dp/B00KWG9M2E

Fifth: "Grit" by Angela Duckworth. First, watch her TED Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8

The basic idea is that people who have "grit" are the ones who are the most likely to succeed, with grit being defined as basically picking a goal & sticking with it. This goes back to what I was talking about with having to be overly-organized when it comes to managing my ADHD...I have to not only pick something, but also break it down & make sure I work on it every day, because as you'll learn in GTD, you can't really "do" a project, you can only do actions related to the project, and when enough actions are completed, then the project is considered "done". So it's not about being superman and reading a book overnight or rushing through stuff, it's more, as the author puts it, like running a marathon & keeping a steady pace, which is really really really hard to do & counter-intuitive, because no one likes feeling stuck to a schedule. But by breaking stuff down like that...whether it's weightlifting or studying math or whatever...you will grow & learn over time.

https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook/dp/B010MH9V3W/

Sixth: "The Seven Hidden Secrets of Motivation" by Todd Beeler. You have to take this one with a grain of salt, but the concepts are good. These are basically good tricks for "motivation in the moment", i.e. how can you trick yourself into getting started on things? One trick is perspective. To cite a (hardcore) example he uses: "FloorboardQ, how does your difficulty with the process of learning compare to a blind child dying of terminal cancer?" Well suddenly it's not such a big problem, right? Similar to the "Attitude is Everything" book, we can shift our perspectives & our attitudes and change our moods & how we approach things so that we can kind of shrink the problem down to make it feel more manageable.

https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Hidden-Secrets-Motivation-Unlocking/dp/B000F0UUDM

According to Richard Machowicz, former Navy Seal, cold showers "cut a toughness groove in your brain."