(Part 3) Top products from r/getdisciplined

Fellow speed freak checking in. I relate to this issue so much! I've developed many different methods for dealing with this, I'm not sure which will help you the most, so I'll just leave them here, for your review.


1.) Wake up early. This is key for me, because if I sleep until the world is awake, I get dragged along with the frantic momentum of a city full of people trying to get things done. This, in turn, makes me more frantic and rushed. Waking up early is an art, not a science. You have to be tired enough to go to sleep early, and you have to eat light, or not at all after sunset to release the energy drain from digestion. Ask anyone who's into fasting or intermittent fasting, they'll tell you: if you have 4-6 hours of not eating before you get in bed, your need for sleep will be practically cut in half. YMMV, but I just got back from a trip to Japan, I started eating a sushi meal in the late afternoon, and nothing afterwards. I started waking up at 3 or 4AM, totally clear.


2.) Crush a super hard workout first thing in the morning. A lot of people who are "fast" have untapped energy reserves. Literally you get frustrated because you can't express your energy completely, everywhere things are stopping you, or slowing you down. Not in the gym. You can go as hard as you want. Not at a hot yoga class. That will take the piss out of anyone, believe me. If it's your first time you'll be close to blacking out. But AFTERWARDS: you will be chill. I bet you $100 USD if you crush a hot yoga class before 8AM, you will be zen as fuck afterwards. You have to burn through your energy reserves first thing in the morning. It sets up a victory mindset in your subconscious - you've already crushed a major goal, so you don't need to rush toward accomplishing something more vague - and you've actually used your body and gone close to your limit (hopefully) so you get the satisfaction of having used your full power.


3.) Gratitude. I keep a gratitude journal, called the five minute journal which is a very minimalist approach to doing morning journaling. You write 3 things you're grateful for, and hopefully you truly feel that gratitude in your body. You write 3 things that would make today great, and you write 3 affirmations. That's it. You can do it in less than 5 minutes. Then, in the evening, you do the process in reverse. 3 great things that happened (hopefully you feel grateful for these), and a spot to write how today could've been better. It's really awesome for setting an emotional tone for the day - it actually conditions you to appreciate little details in your day, which will help when something stresses you out - you'll be able to find the flip side or the upside in anything. Somebody cuts you off? Now you feel grateful he didn't clip your car and take your mirror off. Drop your groceries? Now you feel grateful that cute person helped you pick them up. Etc. Having a gratitude practice is really important for learning to master your emotions, and a gratitude journal actually helps you track how you're doing across days, weeks and months, to see if you're making incremental progress.


Listen closely: Gratitude can actually make you invincible. If you can feel gratitude at will, literally nothing can take you out. You might receive a glancing blow, but as soon as you activate the gratitude, you're back on your game. This is why I practice Gratitude more consistently than anything else in my life.



and finally, the overall mindset of gradual progress:


THE ULTIMATE MODE I got this from James Altoucher's 1% Rule for Creating Habits. You have to take a view of your life that you're getting better 1% every day. This is so, so important. It's very difficult to make positive progress rapidly. Elite people understand this principle. You can do something Destructive rapidly - you can end relationships, ruin your reputation, shave your head, blow up your car - destruction is fast. But creation takes time. Look at nature, the way plants grow. It's gradual, incremental progress that eventually begins to spiral into exponential growth. Finance people call this compound interest.


If you make 1% progress every day, that doubles every 72 days. That seems like a lot of days until you're actually doing it. My workout routine, for example: I hit the gym at 4:30AM every morning and I bring my tiny pocket journal with me. I write down my workout that morning, usually only about 30-45 minutes. But then, the next day I have to beat my previous workout. I alternate parts of my body, so if I do abs and chest on Monday, then on Wednesday I flip back, see what I did, and I have to beat that, even by 1%. It doesn't seem like much. If I do 100 pushups on Monday, I have to do 101 pushups Wednesday. But it's not really that slow. I go for 200 pushups, even if I have to take breaks and grind them out, because again, I'm like you, I'm a hyper creative person, so I'm going for full burn first thing in my day. I love the feeling of totally destroying my previous record.


so you can see how, months from now, I'll be crushing 500 pushups before 5AM, that's nasty by anyone's standards. But I don't start by forcing myself to torture myself in the gym for hours going for those 500 pushups. I just take the 1% mentality, that I'm gradually upgrading everything, and down the road a ways, I'll be totally killing it. It's the same way a bamboo plant grows. You have to water bamboo sometimes for a year or two, and meanwhile you see no growth whatsoever. But you can't dig the plant up because it's not apparently doing anything. It's building an intricate network of roots down there. And then overnight it grows 60 feet. Did it really grow 60 feet in one night? No. It had to build that steady, incremental foundation first.


hope this helps.


tl;dr, wake early to establish yourself in a chill vibe. practice gratitude. go hard on a workout first thing in the morning to set up a victory mindset, and make incremental progress every day knowing that weeks and months down the road you'll be crushing whatever you've come here to do. stay on the ball.

I think I know what you are going through because I have the same thoughts. What it really boils down to is your value system. Right now, you put higher value in short-term stimulus' like video games and and things to keep your mind stimulated, like YouTube, and now you realize that only doing these things gets you nowhere. So why would anyone NOT just play video games all day? Its the same reason why you shouldn't eat nothing but junk food, I'm sure you already know this. So where do you start? The first question you should be asking yourself is "Are my studies important to me? Maybe they aren't. Maybe you were forced into them by your parents or caretakers. If you truly do not want to do something it is very hard to get it done. But I suspect this is not the case with you. From your wording it seems that you want to study but you lack the discipline. It may be helpful to write our the Pros & Cons of studying. I think you will find that the Pros vastly outweigh the Cons. You can use this knowledge as fuel to keep you on track by reminding yourself that it is important to YOU that you study.

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Ok, so you want techniques. Unfortunately there are no quick fixes. You need fundamentally change the way you see the world and replace it a whole new way of thinking, which is no easy feat. I know it sounds corny, but i like to listen to motivational clips from people i respect. I find that it helps me to see things from a different viewpoint than mine. It also gives me an extra push because it reminds me that the struggle to accomplish my goals is not only hard for me, but for everyone else too...but it's worth it. Here is one that is relevant to your situation:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29oD-AeDwrk

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Also, check out Jordan Peterson's & jocko willink's videos..I mean, your already on youtube all day right!

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I also like to read books about how I can improve my life. One of my favorites is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Powerful/dp/1451639619/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1536593013&sr=8-2&keywords=7+habits+of+highly+effective+people

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Make an agreement to yourself that you will invest time and energy into improving yourself everyday. Start formulating goals that you truly want, formulate a plan to achieving them in a specified time.

Looking at your post; One thing that I thing would be beneficial would be to try to wake up earlier everyday & going to bed earlier as well. There is a lot of research on the benefits of having a consistent sleep schedule as well as productivity benefits for waking up early. A quick google search will guide you on making that transition.

Other than that my only recommendation would be to start small. You cannot expect to will yourself into fixing your problems overnight. Expecting perfection will guarantee that you will fail, give up, and go back to your bad habits. It takes time. So start small. Set yourself up for success instead of failure. Instead of a goal of 2 hours of studying every day, maybe start off with committing only to 10 minutes per day. You will probably find that just starting is where 90% of the effort comes from. Often it is very easy to keep going once started. You also build a series of 'wins' under your belt in which you subconsciously learn that you can trust yourself that you CAN accomplish what you set your mind to. Then you can slowly slowly SLOWLY start to incorporate other healthy habits such as scheduled exercise, healthy eating habits, meditation..things like that. Good luck.

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Thank you :) I’ll definitely up that book.



I think a big part of the reason I’m doing so great today is because of my story.



When I began in 1st grade, I wanted no friends. I had no friends, and I got bullied-ish until around 3-4th grade. I used to beat people, and I always wanted to be the “cool” person. At this point, I don’t think I ever cried to any of my "friends".


In 4th grade, I became a nicer person. I will never forgot this year. It was amazing.



However, in 6th grade things were a lil’ off again. Many people at my school, including me began with that “tough act” again. We began joking with the teachers, some tried to smoke, and no one gave a shit about school.



In the end of 6th grade, I met this person. He looked like a nice person. Although, he was two-three years older than I was. We hung out every day. We messed up everything we saw, stole candy from the store, and annoyed people, and so on.




One day, in the middle of 7th grade I decided to drop out of school. When I came home, everyone realized that I have skipped school. The teachers tried to make me admit it for at least 2 weeks, every day. I never admitted it. I have no clue why they really wanted me to admit it so bad, but they destroyed all my connection to teachers. I felt like I they did not like me, ever. We did not have grades, but we had tests. I did terrible.



One year later, I started in 8th grade. I felt like these teachers knew how to handle things. I felt like this was a new start. I really loved school and my life at this time. I became a nice person, and I had brilliant grades. I was in complete shock- that a person with ADHD that has never ever understood much in school could get good grades. It felt great.



Now, I’m in 9th grade. My grades are still all right.
To this day, I’m probably concentrating more in school than the average person in my class.
My life is great, but it’s much to improve.
Just wanted to share this.


Eddit: Found it right here, thanks buddy :)

mostly meditation, exercise, and a positive journal. i try and meditate twenty minutes daily and i also write one page in my journal everyday. i also exercise for a half hour every day (alternating running and body weight training). my journal entries start with three things i am grateful for and/or make me happy, followed by one in detail description of something positive from the last twenty four hours. both range from large things to small, as long as they make me happy. both of these train your brain to scan the environment for positive things.

all of this is stuff i learned from The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, whom i discovered via his TED talk.

if you like i can send you the ebook version that i have. that book really changed my perspective on my own thoughts. overall a hugely rewarding read. i think i liked the book so much because it was exhaustively cited. Achor himself is pretty accomplished in the field of positive psychology.

Don’t laugh, but do yourself a favor and download the GOOP podcast with Dave Evans (sorry no link) about prototyping your life. It’s an interview about this exact issue—for all ages. Here’s a link to the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans. The two have developed a system & class to help people as well as a book. But that podcast interview gives a great overview. As others have mentioned, you often don’t just “have passion”, passion comes after you’ve gotten really into something & become good at it. So right now, you’re looking to become brave and curious about stuff to try things out. Seriously though, podcast is like 45 minutes or so, will definitely help you out.

I really enjoyed Shawn Achor's books on happiness:

• The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
  
• Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change
  
  Edit: Typo.

First, good on you man. It's hard (maybe folly) to give advice to someone you don't know, so I'll just share what worked for me at your age to now. Around your age I started to journal. I struggled to start and keep routines and recognized that the routine would be helpful so I stuck at it. I felt like I got to formalize a conversation I was absent-mindedly having with myself.

The other thing I did was attempt to calmly observe your mind and experience. It seems clear to me now (but wasn't always the case) that our continuous experience (an unending stream of now) is a projection modeled from the sensory input of our 'senses'. That model is very good, but it's worthwhile to remember that you are just assuming there is a room behind you. You haven't seen it for a couple of minutes and for all likelihood it is still there, but you confidence that anything is 'there' is just a consequence of all the times things continued to be there. Your thoughts and model of yourself is very similar in that we assume it continues to be there without looking at it, but in this case - you've never actually looked at the thing doing the looking and just assume it has to be there all along because ... I guess it would be awkward :/


A couple of reading recommendations

• The Diamond Sutra
  
  
• Plato's Republic
  
  
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
  
  
• Autobiography of Ben Franklin
  
  The 7 Habits Book is written for people your age, but you can equivalently read the 'adult' version titled "7 Habits of Highly Effective People"
  
  I'd also recommend what others have said here about eating well, staying active, learning and reflecting daily (journaling), and deliberately making yourself a little uncomfortable on a routine basis. Also find and hone your art, whatever that may be.

You should really read "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself" by Dr. Joe Dispenza. It is truly revolutionary - I'm reading it right now and I feel like the keys to understanding life have just been handed to me.

Also I do think that you should follow the advice of other posters and consider getting help. If you need help finding a purpose in life read this, it can definitely help.

Good luck OP

OP, I'd also recommend reading the book where this concept came from: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That one book has helped me more than any amount of advice I've ever been given. Being 20 myself, I know exactly what you're going through, the world is a fucking great big scary place and it feels like you should be doing 10 million things at once. But you also feel as if you're too incompetant to even get started.

Instead of worrying about the future, instead ask yourself "what do I want to do RIGHT NOW?". The future seems miles away, but, if you could be doing anything right now, what would that be? It doesn't matter about being qualified, it doesn't matter if you want to spend your life doing it or not, cos you don't have to. You can drop anything at any time. Just have a think about the thing that you would most like to do right now and make a step towards it. I think this old comment of mine pretty much sums up what I'm trying to say. Especially watch the video, if you don't do anything else, WATCH THIS VIDEO

You have so much more life ahead of you than you've already lived, there's no need to feel pressured to get it all done right now. So far, you've only really had 2 years of freedom, if any at all. You have 40 ahead of you with which to do what you want, and that's if you decide to retire. Take it one step at a time, there is no rush.

Sorry for butting in /u/blue_fitness and I hope this helps you /u/konstabro :)

Here's an idea I think you'd be good at based on your interests: I'm reading a book now called A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It's about how we came to understand the things we know about our planet and our universe. It's absolutely fascinating but it's super long. Condense some of that information down into a format more accessible for high school students. The universe is unfathomably incredible...like pants-wettingly amazing. But high school textbooks are the most boring possible medium ever for conveying that wonder. Turn it into some captivating format that blows kids' minds and makes them fall in love with science. Start a YouTube channel or something.

I always struggle with motivation and direction, even as an adult. I figured that it's all about the conversation you have in your head and fixing that. Here are a few things that help me on a daily basis.

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Great book on mindset Breaking the habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Habit-Being-Yourself-Create/dp/1401938094

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This is a great app for daily motivation and mindset. Personally, i cannot meditate so this helps. https://getmotivateapp.com

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When I was in a dark place this blog helped me a lot https://jamesaltucher.com .

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Good luck!

If I may make a recommendation for some reading, there are three very good books that may apply here.

• Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D Burns. It's a book that teaches you how to do cognitive behavioral therapy for yourself to deal with depression and anxiety, but it's useful pretty much any time you're feeling bad and having repeating negative thought patterns.
  
• No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A Glover about how to be more assertive and express you needs and desires properly.
  
• Daring Greatly by Brene Brown about the power of allowing yourself to be vulnerable and how it can improve how you feel about yourself and your relationship with other people.
  
  The three of those books together could do great things to aid your confidence and assertiveness, as well as help you cope with the negative thought patterns that seem to be overwhelming you right now.

Add to all the other good comments the observation that we don't always act in our own best interests so some ambiguity in life is "normal." If you have a few small goals you have a better chance of reaching them then if you have the heavy weight of major goals with an unrealistic timeline. First of all, make your bed. Discovered this years ago. Good book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Bed-Little-Things/dp/1455570249

These two books by Cal Newport, one of the best authors on productivity and discipline.

Deep Work

So Good They Can't Ignore You

And also, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Aaaand, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

For mindset, I also recommend The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. It'll teach you to choose your battles carefully, although you can find most of that content in his site.

This is a tough issue - as your story makes me feel you are telling me that you need to cut hours somewhere. I am not gonna psycho-analyze you because I am no near qualified for that; but you make me think of me. You want to do a lot of things but you can't, thats the basic problem. But why can't you? You don't imply to procrastinate at all. (atleast; it's not the main factor) So this is an issue that has to do with reassessing priorities. I am not gonna tell you to cut this of, or do Y instead of X. As these are for you and you alone to decide . But I will tell you there is a distinct difference between the relative and exact value of your time and effort. As you seem to be a person who works a lot of hours on payroll. To me this seems like this will be your challenge to define your happiness. This doesn't mean I only imply that you should cut hours one way or another. I would suggest the first thing you should do is to have a good think about these things. This might be a good book for you to read. As for the hobby part. Read.. always read more - especially when they are as related to your life as in this example.
Some insight or perspective can change your life forever, be open to it.

Success is psychological. Redefine everything, always - evolve.

I recently read Daily Rituals, about the work habits of successful artists, writers, etc. There were folks in there like mathematician Paul Erdos, who lived out of a suitcase and only worked or slept (meals were work time).

But a significant number kept a steady schedule and averaged maybe 6 or 7 hours of work. It was more about maximizing focus and efficiency than squeezing every last second out of the day.

Per his book, he uses these methods to focus strictly on his business. He would take the energy used on consuming the media above to make his business run very efficiently.

For me, I plan on using that time and energy to focus on writing and creating my own business.

If you have a kindle, you can grab his book for $1.99 right now or order a hardbook copy. It is a highly recommended book in the online business world.

One book I am currently reading that I am enjoying is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck It is about what things you should care about in life, and has a funny approach to it.

I do not recall where, but I read an article that gave a good review of an app, HeadSpace. I read a book called How to Meditate by Prema Chodron, which might be useful to you and while this video isn't directly aimed at mediation, the concept presented at the end (surfing the urge) is meditative-esque, at least to me.

1. What was the most effective thing you've ever done to improve your life?

went to therapy

2. How did you do it?

I used PsychologyToday.com to find a therapist. You can search by insurance, what kinds of issues they have experience in, what types of treatment they do, their gender and religion if that's important to you, if they're open to LGBT folks, if they do video/online counseling. I chose a youngish guy who had a kind face, and that worked out.

3. How did you realize that it was the thing that needed changing?

My therapist connected all the dots for me. Before I went to therapy, I was trying to optimize a completely broken system. I couldn't see how procrastinating on doing the dishes was related to how much I drank every day, how that was related to my depression and lack of motivation, which was of course unrelated to my childhood and how I learned to think and behave growing up. Therapy was like making a map connecting all the dots and once I did that I could see multiple paths out. I made some small changes, which led to bigger changes, and now I'm 5 months sober, hitting the gym twice a week, asleep by 10pm every night, back to my hobbies and looking forward to the future

4. Why hadn't you changed it sooner?

moneyyyy

5. What was the biggest obstacle?

moneyyyy

6. How did you overcome it?

I got a promotion and raise at work and took the plunge. I wish I had a better answer and I wish quality mental health services were more available.

7. What would you advise someone who wants to do the same?

if money's a problem: look for younger folks still under supervision. They're often cheaper, and studies show age makes no appreciable difference in quality of care. The office may offer a sliding scale fee, and some are able to give you a lower price if you explain your situation to them. If you really can't afford it, books can really help too. This one on Childhood Emotional Neglect really opened my mind. The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook is also extremely helpful.

Obviously I don't think everyone in this sub has a mental illness and needs therapy. But if you're struggling with a consistent lack of motivation, inability to get going, general dissatisfaction, etc. I think it can be really helpful to examine the structures at work behind that. Are you trying to optimize a broken system?

It's also worth pointing you towards John Perry's IgNobel prize winning work on procrastination! http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Procrastination-Lollygagging-Postponing/dp/0761171673

>If you want something done quickly give the job to someone busy

Ell oh Ell. If I recall correctly, that is also a quote from a book called The Art of Procrastination

That book is hilarious. I highly recommend the read for anyone who considers themselves a procrastinator in any capacity.

Maybe the Five Minute Journal would help? It’s more focused on mindfulness. (Edited) Here’s a link to it https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206

Super normal

Get your hands on this book https://www.amazon.ca/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339

I'm really big on learning from others and also try to find the routines, habits, and tricks of those who I may be able to model myself after and have found a few helpful links like;

https://podio.com/site/creative-routines

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601/?tag=dailrout20

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1880115107?pc_redir=1411836474&robot_redir=1

Really good points that change your perspective on getting things done.

First - what you're doing is completely damn normal. People don't tend to be put their full attention to something until the resources required are scarce (see: Scarcity. Highly recommended book.)

To combat this, you can set mini-deadlines within your project. To hard commit to this, you can do something like telling the customer/your boss that you'll have a first draft to them in 2 days so they can give feedback. Or you can come up with some rewards / punishments to incentivize you to meet them.

A. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World https://www.amazon.com/dp/1455570249/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_vHE3AbY88JWM8

I have the book (actually its my wife's) haven't read it yet, but basically the main premise is to make your bed first thing after you get up for the same basic reason of having made one small accomplishment.

B. Re: water: if you know you aren't drinking enough water, you're probably chronically dehydrated. If you think you're drinking enough, you still probably aren't. Remember the general rule of thumb has long been 8, 8-oz. glasses each day, which is 64 oz or half a gallon.

I drink between 1-2 gallons each day and really cannot overstate the benefits it's had for me. The biggest thing for me is I used to have chronic neck & shoulder / upper back pain, which usually devolved into an almost crippling headache just about each day.

Turns out I wasn't getting enough water. 🙄

I like my water COLD, so I got myself a 64 oz. stainless double walled jug off amazon - a generic one - the HydroFlask brand are stupid over priced and they're really all the same. Keeps my water ice-cold until its ready for a refill from one of 5, 48 oz. nalgenes I keep in the fridge at all times.

That's how I count my water intake too, since I know the main jug is 64 oz.

I also found a really cool carrier for it: GoNovate 64 oz Pouch / Sleeve with Carrying Handle for Hydro Flask Bottles, w/ 2 Pockets and Adjustable Shoulder Strap https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019COFX3S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_-ME3Ab437CY64

Needless to say, anytime I'm going to be out of the house for more than 30 min, I bring this puppy along.

https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-English-Bhante-Henepola-Gunarantana/dp/1536610208


https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808

Self Discipline in Ten Days, by Theodore Bryant
http://amzn.com/1880115107

Do you think you (have) suffer(ed) a bit from this? (Speaking as a commiserator, not a bystander):

https://drjonicewebb.com/about-emotional-neglect/
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Empty-Overcome-Childhood-Emotional/dp/161448242X/

have a look at "The power of now" by Eckhart Tolle

I think he means this book

read this https://www.amazon.com/Isnt-Brain-Working-Revolutionary-Understanding/dp/0985690437

Das book:

http://www.amazon.com/Immunity-Change-Potential-Organization-Leadership/dp/1422117367

The people behind the course are the authors

For anxiety, I recommend Hope and Help for Your Nerves

I didn't post the Amazon link because there's a summary in that link of the steps (though the book does not portray it as steps)

> Here are Dr Weekes' 4 steps to overcoming anxiety:

> FACING the things you fear (instead of avoiding) – but in the right way, with appropriate help. (Fighting the fear, says Dr Weekes, will only add to your exhaustion and make the problem worse, by triggering more adrenalin.)

> ACCEPTING the symptoms, the fear, the situation. This will begin to reduce the triggering of adrenalin.

> FLOATING above or through the fear – not resisting or fighting.

> LETTING TIME PASS – allowing time for full recovery, because full recovery depends on repeated experiences of being in the situations you fear, and learning that you are ok, you can cope.

> Now, you might be tempted to dismiss this as too simple, or something you have heard before. But Dr Weekes explains each of these steps in a way that you can put into practice.

Mainly though it's more for your social worker so that they would be more tolerant of your present self. (I don't know what they mean by rigid but it sounds like they are trying to rush your recovery.)

Yeah perfectionism can be troublesome. The thing to look out for here is how would you achieve the perfect result? Sometimes you are on the right track and that's where you can do things in short bursts but you lose track of the right track (like the why behind your task) and end up getting distracted.

I'm not sure if you've seen this Simon Sinek TedTalk but at the core of perfect results is not the word perfect but the word results. How you define the ingredients for the word result will determine how prone or less prone you are to distractions because distractability is not a state, it's a rationalization and like all rationalization it can appear or disappear relative to the mindset you establish during that period of doing.

Realistically, even if you are distractable, there is so many happening right now in your thoughts that any short burst of productivity add up in the long term especially when it feels right regardless of how positive or negative you expect the results to be.

It all comes down to flow and bouncing forward. See the perfect results is like a signal. To you, there's a task that "feels right". That sends a signal that you are potentially sprinting towards a perfect result. That's flow. That's bouncing forward. That is the motivation or the clue to the motivation you are seeking.

But the signal gets buried under the noise over time. The worries start to creep in. The right to be ok gets replaced by the right to stay ok.

...but is staying ok really ok? For you, it doesn't seem that way.

And so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you stay this way then you won't try too hard but you'll also be trying too hard to stay like this. If you don't get better then people might still care about you but then if you don't get better then people might grow tired of caring for you. What a vicious circle.

...but... (yeah I'm using but a lot but we're getting meta here)

Ask yourself: "must" you be in this vicious circle?

To quote Albert Ellis:

>"When you are upset, look for the must."

In this particular reply, ask yourself:

"must" you have an extrinsic motivation?

"must" you worry about trying hard?

"must" you worry that people will stop caring about you?

What are the worst case scenario and then note them down and check back on those worst case scenario "as you are" trying to be better and as you are getting better.

As for failing, do a Google search and you can see random articles listing how many successful people are actually failures. link example

It is because you are a failure that you can accomplish anything. Deep down you already know that. Why would you wait to take action if you don't believe you can take any action once everyone gets angry and fed up with you? Sure, a part of that is because you won't have a choice but a part of that is that you have a choice...but the choice gets rationalized externally when what you should be looking for is emotionally inside you and deep down inside of you, you believe that you can do something provided that everyone gets angry and fed up so why not simulate that inside of your head?

Nothing is preventing you from creating a role where everyone has already gotten angry and fed up with you. Then take that bottom down approach and appreciate every little piece of benefit that gets sent your way even the imperfect ones. Visualize and list down the qualities that your social worker for example may be fed up with concerning you and then if they do something contrary to that, now you visualize and imagine this is how they've gotten to be AFTER they got fed up and angry with you. Negatives don't always lead to negatives.

Sometimes negative thinking is necessary for starting over and then restarting over. That's why I keep using but. For every negative thought you have there is a but that can lead to realistic thinking. It all starts inside of you (even when most days it seems something external gets in the way).

For your passion, I recommend starting with a book or movie about a lost soul who found themselves. If you've seen Kumare it may either uplift you or depress you more but find something similar to this.

You could also try some interesting trivia books like A Short History of Nearly Everything or 64 Things You Need to Know Now for Then

If you are into audiobooks, check out autobiographies - those tend to be easy to consume. For now just explore and take your present situation in little by little. The more you are mindful of how you grow from day to day - the more finding your passion and honing it becomes easier. Even meditation when forced can be difficult to receive benefits from but mindfulness of your own existence - that is that precious thing that keeps you going.