Could be a mindset shift, routine, habit or anything small that genuinely improves your mood or helps stop negative thoughts.
Looking for new things to try.
One thing I think people underestimate during dedicated is the importance of giving yourself time to reset. Burnout builds quietly, and studying exhausted usually hurts more than it helps. Taking care of yourself is part of the process too.
Remember you earned your seat. Enjoy the journey and take a breather. Good luck to everyone taking the exam soon, you got this 💪🙏
What drives you to keep going? ✨
Today marks a huge milestone for me. Since the age of 19 (now 34) I haven’t gone a single calendar year without some kind of recreational drug use (coke, ket, mdma, pills, weed).
I wouldn’t say I had an addiction per se but when festival season comes around i.e. right now in the UK, bank holiday/ sunny weather I would always succumb to temptation.
Today marks a whole calendar year since and now I’ve reached that milestone I am going to carry on and cut it out completely.
I am going to a day festival in London tomorrow and am going to stay strong and just drink even though I know there will be stuff floating about.
I "paid it forward," - I paid the entrance fee for a few people behind me in line at a poetry event. Woman behind me bought me a drink, sat next, and was very friendly, interested. I had learned her interests, which overlap mine, so shared briefly on that. Really big hug when I left.
Messaged her back, shortly after. She responded she's never met me, has never been to a poetry event. Weirdly, she even asked how I got her number, which is bizarre - what? And no, no date will be happening - hard stop on that.
So - that is a positive, to be turned down! I have previously laboured for years in relationships, forever trying to "make things better." Her turning me down, brusquely, is a huge gift of years of my life and emotions, not wasted.
A win!
I have been in the midst of a pretty difficult setback with my mental health and I just need all the advice on how to stay positive. What do you fill your life with in order to find meaning and maintain a positive mindset? What kind of books do you read, movies do you watch, hobbies do you do? Just tell me anything that helps you! 💚
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For a long time I genuinely thought I was lazy. I’d make plans to fix my life, read more, focus more, stop procrastinating, sleep earlier… and then somehow still spend hours scrolling every night.
Not even because it was fun anymore. Just automatic.
I used to think the problem was discipline or motivation. But the more I paid attention, the more I realized my brain was constantly chasing tiny dopamine hits all day.
Checking my phone for “one second.”
Opening apps without thinking.
Watching short videos while eating.
Switching tabs every 2 minutes.
Playing background noise just to avoid silence.
None of it felt extreme in the moment. But by the time I actually needed to focus, my brain
already felt exhausted.
What changed things wasn’t suddenly becoming more disciplined. It was realizing how
overstimulated I was before I even started doing anything meaningful.
A few things that genuinely helped:
● I stopped starting my mornings with social media.
● I deleted TikTok/Instagram instead of pretending I would “use them less.”
● I made distractions slightly harder to reach. Opal helped a lot because even a little
friction breaks the automatic scrolling loop.
● I also started learning more about the actual mechanisms behind focus, attention, and
dopamine. Deep Work completely changed how I think about distraction and fragmented
attention, while Dopamine Nation helped me better understand overstimulation,
dopamine loops, and why normal life can start feeling “boring” after constant scrolling.
● Honestly the thing that helped me MOST was replacing visual scrolling with more
screen-free/audio learning instead. I use BeFreed to replace doomscrolling. It turns
books, psychology, history, biographies, basically anything I’m obsessed with into
podcast-style lessons, and you can customize the voice/style too. I also love the
personalized learning plans because they make learning feel more structured instead of
random content consumption.
● I stopped caring so much about motivation and focused more on reducing friction.
Nothing here magically transformed my life overnight. But things started feeling quieter. And when things felt quieter, I could actually follow through more often.
I still slip sometimes. I still waste time online sometimes. But I don’t beat myself up the way I used to.
If you constantly feel like you’re “working on yourself” but never actually moving forward, it might not be laziness.
Your brain might just be overstimulated before you even begin.
Today is day 215 of me quitting all that stuff. It sounds crazy to me even now as I do remember how good that cup of coffee felt or how fun it was on those weekends, but to be honest I would never get those habits back.
I actually made a post here on my day 93 but a lot of stuff changed, so this post is kinda an update with more and better advice.
How my life changed over the last 7mo
Before, I talked about how quiet my head got. but after a few more months, that quietness turned into actual drive. I was feeling so... motivated? I know motivation isn't the thing that will get you from A to B, but this motivation is different. it feels like a superpower because I wasn't just motivated on the first few days, it still drives me even now.
I'm going to the gym 4 times per week for the third month now! I'm reading my bible everyday, and my boss said that I was never this productive before. And I can actually feel it: i just sit and focus on my work whenever I want to.
I think that drive is what we call momentum. And the further I go, the more momentum I feel.
The first month felt cool, but it is really not what you should be waiting for. If you quit those bad habits, all the other good things in your life will start compounding over time.
How I am maintaining it
I want to be honest, it's not that easy, but it's actually real. I still feel like sh!t some days and I still want to quit sometimes. But when i remember how my life felt before, I just decide to keep it up for “just today.”
Thinking about years or even months ahead is still too heavy for me. Focusing on today is the best because it is just small steps, and the compound effect does the rest.
I also still lean heavily on my faith. as a christian, knowing I don't have to be perfect and that i'm forgiven just to be a child of God takes all the pressure off. If you have a bad day or feel massive cravings, don't beat yourself up.
Also around month 3 I started using few tools. Purposа аpp helped me stay focused on my goals and habits, and Opal kept all the apps blocked to stop wasting my nights.
Advice
If you feel stuck in your addictions, it's not hopeless. Don't try to change your whole life forever. Focus on today, keep things simple, and don't run away from yourself.
Keep going guys, I am still rooting for you 🙌
Who else is quitting? What day are you on?
To people who's making reddit a nice place to hang. Whether it's an upvote , a sweet comment or a inspiring post, you all make a positive impact and I just wanted you to know that I see you and your efforts and you're likely the people who's most hard on yourself too so tap yourself on the shoulder for me and feel that proud tap. Thank you for existing and making reddit enjoyable.
Changed my life fr
Reading all ur stories motivated me to live ahead
Love this community
I would love to read your stories.
What’s something that stuck with you?
Edit: I’ll share one of mine. It is somewhat bittersweet.
“I can’t believe you go all around the world, spreading all this love… And then just, leave.”
In the last year of high school, there was this girl in my class who, at the time, I found to be very annoying.
She'd keep teasing me every time about me being her boyfriend. Over and over again. I wasn't so sure what was funny about it, but I assumed it was just a dumb joke that made her laugh. She seemed to enjoy the bit anyway. But I really didn't, and I remember I'd respond quite coldly to her teasing at times.
But she kept going for months despite my unenthusiastic reactions.
I just began to ignore it.
When the second semester arrived, she began to tease me less and less.
One random day during May, I was sitting at the Cafe and, for no real reason other than curiosity, I began to think of her behavior, all that teasing... was she really just mocking me like I thought she was? What an odd way to mock a classmte though. My suspicions arose, and I finally began to understand; but I couldn't believe it still. I looked up in Google
"Signs a girl likes you"
Reading the articles and watching the videos, it was as if they were perfectly describing her own behaviors towards me.
I finally understood, though there were only 2 weeks left until graduation... I understood.
I began to feel deeply flattered, then those feelings quietly and quickly evolved into something more.
The next day was Tuesday, I bought a candy bar from a nearby store and had a fun idea.
I walked up to my classmates and said jokingly, "WHO WANTS A CANDY BAR?". Of course, all of them wanted a candy bar. I fought my way through their extended hands and desperate pleas and gave the girl the candy with a wide smile.
She seemed taken aback and didn't say anything.
That same afternoon, she came to me looking very happy and said, "Jay! Haha, thanks for the candy! It was really delicious. "
"Haha, glad you liked it!"
Over the next 2 weeks, we began to grow a little closer. She started to tease me once again, and I had no problem with it this time. In fact, I was kind of enjoying it, which I think she knew.
I'd tease her too here and there. It was frankly pretty fun.
Every time we were around each other, it looked as though we were both very happy.
But I knew the clock was ticking, and during the final day of high school, we had a philosophy exam.
She finished it before me, and right as she left the classroom, she quietly smiled at me and handed me a small rose saying "Haha Jay! I wanted you to have this~"
My friends, of course, began to laugh hysterically. Their teases that day were brutal.
I pretented not to care about the rose and just kept it untouched on the table.
But right before leaving class, I secretly put it in my pencil case and went back home.
It's the same rose you can see in the picture. I glued it to my diary as I didn't wanna lose it.
It's old, faded, and dry, but seeing it still makes my heart skip a beat.
It has now been almost 2 years since this happened.
In the meantime, two weeks ago, I was rejected by my crush in university, who ghosted my confession letter.
That made me sink into self-doubt for a while...
But today, as I re-opened this old diary to relive some sweet memories, I got to relive the sweetest of them all.
It made me happy. It gave me hope. It gave me what I needed.
It showed me that rejection doesn't mean no one will want or like me. It just means one girl isn't interested. That's all.
I just wanted to share this story somewhere. Hopefully, it made some of you smile, gave some a bit of hope, or was at least entertaining to read.
Take care of yourselves!