r/getdisciplined

I've had days with 15+ hours of screen time. At the end of those days, I couldn't tell you a single thing I'd learned, built, or accomplished.

I'd feel guilty and disgusted. Then I'd do it all over again.

One day I got sick of it and said fuck this shit. I started learning every country and capital, something I'd always wanted to do but never made time for.

That was just the beginning.

The gap between scrolling and actually doing something started closing. I remembered what it felt like to be curious. I started learning how to learn again.

So pick anything. The thing you've always wanted to do. The hobby you abandoned. The skill you keep telling yourself you'll get to.

You'll suck at it. You'll feel awkward. Do it anyway.

Because if you never let yourself be a beginner, you will always be one. Forever.

Fuck what people think. Fuck waiting until you're "ready."

Put the phone down. Go create something

Twelve weeks ago I added one thing to my routine that made a bigger difference for me than any other habit. It was a meta-habit. The habit of reviewing my habits.

Every Sunday evening, 15 minutes, four questions:

1. What did I plan vs actually do this week?
2. What kept getting in the way?
3. What's one change for next week?
4. What am I dropping to make room for it?

Some honest findings from 12 weeks of this:

The first three weeks were uncomfortable. My mental picture of my week and the written record disagreed constantly. I felt like I worked out regularly but it was about 60% as much as I was giving myself credit for. I "barely watched TV"... if you consider nearly 10hours a week "barely" then maybe..

I don't think I was lying to myself so much as never checking.

Around week 5, the reviews started changing behavior upstream. Mid-week, mid-decision, I'd think "this is going in the review" and make a better choice. The observation was doing more work than the planning.

Adding a layer of visibility into my week basically forced me to start acting like a better version of myself.

To try to make it even more objective I do my weekly review with AI so that I can get an "outside" perspective that sees through my excuses.

It can be a bit brutal to admit you spent 2 hours watching Gnetflix each night when you should have been studying or working. It completely destroys the "I don't have time" excuse when you actually look at your numbers.

If you aren't tracking and reviewing your performance on a weekly basis I highly suggest giving it a try. Absolute game-changer for me.

Hey guys I’m very far behind in life and it’s making me extremely depressed, feeling like a loser, and making me wanna give up.

What I’m doing right:

I’m in good shape. I workout a good amount and eat right.

I go for walks in the morning to get out of my apt.

And I’m not addicted to drugs

That’s it lol.

And the bad:

I have a shit restaurant job and hardly get any hours. I basically make no money and I’m ashamed to not have a career going for me. Which means no good woman is gonna want me and it makes me walk with my head down feeling that way. I basically have no future or status or anything.

I’m extremely depressed and lonely.

I have choice paralysis and don’t know what career I need to stick to, to not waste my time cause again I’m 26 and I really don’t wanna waste more of my life.

Basically I have no skills worth money.

So that’s it.

I’m working on getting therapy cause I know I need it at this point. Although I don’t know how effective it’ll be. I have somewhat of a drive to get better but everything hitting me like this is so difficult.

My problems are all summed up by career and money. That’s what I’ve identified. What needs to be done?

Hey everybody! I am looking for some advice that might help me get myself out of this rut that I’m in. For context, I’m a 34 year old married father of a toddler. I have anxiety and depression that I’ve dealt with since adolescence and is fairly well under control, as well as a more recent ADHD diagnosis. I have struggled my whole life with self-discipline, organization and executive functioning. I coasted in my school years since I was interested in most subjects and got good grades, but I have had a much harder time in adulthood now that priorities have shifted and I am now responsible for earning a living, raising a child, owning a home etc. My wife and I both struggle with things like keeping our house and cars clean/free from clutter, paying bills on time and managing finances.

We both have steady employment and a healthy and happy daughter. But day to day feels like I’m barely keeping my head above water— overwhelmed by all the things I’ve procrastinated. Then I end up wasting time distracted on my phone, feeling too tired to do chores and eating lots of sweets late at night to soothe the cycle of stress and shame.

Intellectually I know what I need to do to help myself, and I know that it’s not an all-or-nothing thing. But the older I get the more cynical and discouraged I become. In my 20s I had periods of good habits like running and eating right. I even successfully trained for and ran two half marathons. But now that I’m in my 30s and have less energy and free time, each attempt ends in a false start, and I’m back to eating fast food milkshakes every night in a messy house.

My life is so different now that I am a parent, I think I need a new framework for making changes to my life and health. Applying what worked in my 20s has proven unsuccessful. Any fellow 30-somethings have any tips for making lasting changes and combating the cynicism and jaded feelings after years of backsliding?

For context I am 22(F). I’ve dropped out of college because of personal issues and lack of funds. I don’t have a job currently because I recently moved states but I have been searching non stop. Long story short, I’m kind of a bum right now and have nothing going for myself.

Because of this, I’ve been extremely depressed and I spend my days struggling to get out of bed and also struggling to sleep early. When I do wake up (which is mid afternoon) I spend most of my day scrolling aimlessly on my phone or playing video games. I have absolutely no motivation for anything and I just genuinely cannot feel anything. I’m constantly binge eating because I’m bored at home and alone most of the time. I have no friends and I have no energy to get out of the house. I see everyone having fun around me and there’s so much to do if I can just get myself out of the house. I genuinely cannot get out of this rut.

I have NEVER been the type of person to be this lazy and unmotivated. I cry every day because I really don’t know what I became and I don’t know how to fix it. I know this is so embarrassing and I might get criticized but anyone please help me? I want to get out of this hole but idk how.

I have struggled my whole life with motivation for anything; cleaning, exercising, homework, whatever it is, I just can’t get myself motivated. Now, as an adult, it’s even worse.

How do people become motivated to make changes? I want to be one of those people that wakes up one day and decides to make a change.

I’ve made decisions to change multiple times, but I never follow through. I think I struggle with the belief that I will just fail. I can’t fail if I don’t start, which isn’t true because it’s a failure to not start.

I’ve been in therapy trying to deal with my trauma and self worth, and I so badly want to work on my mental and physical health. I just don’t know where to start. I’ve read self help books, I’ve done the apps, I journal, and sure, it sounds great but it’s like I’m missing something in my brain to get motivated (not sure that makes sense).

I just don’t know what to do.

I’ve been trying to be more productive with my health during my mid-year university break (gym 3/4 times a week, walk my dog 40mins 4 times a week, reading ever day, making nutritious food at home instead of working out, 9k average daily steps) but I feel like I’m crumbling for my own expectations. Even though each goal is objectively a good one which should be beneficial to me in the long run and on the day to day.

On gym recovery days (which I objectively know I need! And are a requirement!) I have such guilt for not going, it’s really debilitating. If work happens to get in the way of any of these goals, I feel like a failure, even though I couldn’t help it, I feel like I always should have done more. I feel like I’m not seeing friends enough because I’m so stressed, even though these goals and rules are entirely self inflicted and imagined… like nothing bad will happen if I don’t get it done one week or another

any advice for remaining productive and consistent but also allowing yourself rest? I’m really struggling to find a middle ground

For most of my twenties I lived with a specific kind of anxiety that I couldn't shake, and maybe some of you know it too. It wasn't panic attacks or a racing heart. It was quieter and heavier than that. It was the constant, grinding fear that I was going to end up trapped in a life that wasn't mine.

I was never good at doing things that felt meaningless to me. I got kicked out of school, barely scraped through college, and then found myself standing in front of a future that terrified me. The only doors open to me were working as a cook, which was my technical qualification, or going to the factory where my father worked because he could get me in. So I tried. And I lasted a month, maybe two, before something in me couldn't do it anymore and I quit. Then I'd run out of money and crawl back. Then quit again. Then try something else that also wasn't mine.

And the whole time, this anxiety sat on my chest. I looked at everyone around me working nine to five, saving for a pension and one holiday a year, and I felt this cold dread, because I didn't want that life, but I couldn't see any other one. I looked at friends who had work they loved and money and freedom, and I wanted that so badly it hurt, and I had no idea how to get there. The gap between where I was and where they were felt impossible to cross.

For five years I basically searched. Searched for what to do, for who I was, for some path that felt like mine. Some stretches I did nothing at all, just sat in the anxiety of it. And underneath everything was this quiet terror: what if I never figure it out? What if I'm just not capable of the kind of life I want?

The thing that finally cracked it open was, oddly, hitting rock bottom. There was a hard period where things fell apart around me, a lot of people lost work, lost homes, everything felt unstable. And in the middle of that I asked myself a question that terrified me: if I had to leave, if it were just me on my own, what can I actually do? And the honest answer was nothing. I felt like I knew nothing, could do nothing, was nothing.

But that moment of total hopelessness was also where something shifted. Because from that bottom, I started to actually dig. Not into job listings. Into myself. Why do I want this? Why does that repel me? What is this anxiety actually pointing at? I started studying psychology, studying my own comfort zone, and I did this thing where I'd write out what I was feeling as if I were talking to a therapist, then question my own answers, then answer again, going around and around until I hit something real.

And slowly, through that digging, I found it. I realized I'm drawn to freedom and not being dependent on anyone. That I wanted remote work, to get paid in a currency that didn't tie me to one country, to not be trapped in one place. I realized I love digging into things, figuring them out, learning, teaching. That I love technology and the idea of building things with it. So I started learning to program. And I became a programmer. The exact thing my anxiety had insisted was impossible, that I'd never build a life of my own, turned out to be findable, once I stopped running and started digging.

Here's what I learned from all of it: the anxiety was never random, and it was never just a malfunction to be silenced. It was pointing at something true. It was the signal that the life I was drifting toward wasn't mine, and that I hadn't yet found what was. The anxiety wasn't the enemy. It was the messenger. I just had to stop being terrified of it long enough to hear what it was actually saying.

And that changed how I see anxiety completely. Under most anxious reactions there's a root, something real the feeling is trying to tell you. Get to that root, and the anxiety often loosens its grip, because it's finally been heard.

That whole process of digging, of getting under a reaction to the root driving it, became something I couldn't stop doing. And eventually, being a programmer now, I built a tool around it, something to help people go to the root of their reactions instead of getting stuck fighting the surface of them. I called it Nolum. It's in my profile if you're curious, no pressure at all.

But honestly, product aside, the reason I'm posting this here is simpler. If your anxiety is telling you you're going to be stuck, that you'll never get the life you want, that you're not capable, I've been exactly there, for years. And it can change. Not by silencing the anxiety, but by getting quiet enough to hear what it's actually pointing at. It's usually pointing at something that matters.

not looking for motivation, looking for consistency

over the past year i have realized that I don't have a discipline problem. i have a consistency problem. i start strong, disappear for a few days, then start over from zero. i am done repeating that cycle.

current goals:

• fix my sleep schedule
• gym/workout 4-5/week
• study every day
• reduce doomscrolling
• eat right and healthy

i am not expecting perfection from anyone. i just want someone who actually replies, checks in, and doesn't vanish after two days.

the plan:

• daily 5-minute check-in
• share each day's goals
• share what we actually completed
• focus sessions together
• call each other out when we are making excuses
• celebrate wins

about me:

• 26M, India (IST)
• into fitness, productivity, nutrition, learning
• prefer people around 20-35, but mindset matters more than age.
• time zone doesn't matter if we can communicate consistently.

if you are serious about making this one stick, send me a DM

Hey, i have a problem with concentraction. I have my final exams next year and I also need to make a portfolio for my collage and i cannot bring myself to get up and do that. I can't concentrate for more than like five minutes. I used to read for hours and now i can't do that.

I believe the issue is my phone but I have all the blocking apps i do not scrool so much but when i'm not on my phone i just wath some movies.

For some time now Idon't feel exaitment or anything like that so i thought maybe that's the problem that you know deep inside I don't care enaugh. I procratinate so much and when i try to do somenthing i can't concentrate for too long and it demotivates me.

How can i stop this is there any medication or method that i can use? I do not have ADHD I use to go to the therapist for 6 years she would heve noticed something so i trully belive it's the phone.

I just want to do something with this shit hole that I'm in, I'm afraid that i will end up like those people who do nothing but complaining how this world is unfair. I'd appreciate every comment.

19 years old finished my exams 3 weeks ago waiting for my results in 2 days

I am currently unemployed studying to get my drivers license

But mostly working on my dream of becoming a great comic book /cartoon artist.

-I am more productive than ever before

-It's been a couple weeks since I hung out with my friends

-Currently intermittent fasting while lifting weights

Went from 255 lbs to 250 30% bf at 5.11 ft in 4 days

-I walk outside everyday

-jump rope everyday

-Practicing typing creative writing every week

-Reading classical literature

Not playing videogames

(But still watching adult videos)

I feel extremely exhausted and depressed but somehow I can work and stay focused for 5+ hour straight everyday

YouTube keeps recommending blackpill videos even though I always click uninterested I feel like my soul is under attack

I have no girlfriend planning on staying single but not getting any play either

(To be fair I am not approaching anyone)

I get angry at my parents for small pity things. And I immediately realize that I'm doing this. Than I try to control myself. I don't shout at them but get irritated.

But I don't want to feel that way. Why do I get irritated for no reason. Especially my parents are pretty good and understanding. Very atypical and unlike many other families in my country.

They always supported me in whatever I want. I feel really bad for doing this. Can someone please help me and guide me how can I change my behavior.

I feel high on emotions when this happens. And it happens for very silly reasons. Like they not understanding what I am saying. Or doing something not 'my way'.
I feel really pathetic and feel like I'm emotionally abusing my parents. My parents don't deserve it. And I know we sometimes can behave like that with our closed ones. Because we have that liberty in such relationships. But its really bad. Please help me improve as a human.

I have been masturbating like crazy for the past 25 days, and I honestly think I've done it more than 120 times, although I've completely lost count. On most days, it's around 6–7 times a day. At this point, it doesn't even feel like a conscious decision anymore. It's like my body goes into autopilot, and before I realize it, I've done it again. I know I should stop, and every time I tell myself, "This is the last time," but a few hours later I'm back to doing it again.

The strange thing is that I wasn't always like this. A while ago, I managed to quit completely using the cold turkey method and stayed away from it for 30 days. I thought I had finally gotten control over myself. However, after a disappointing personal incident, I relapsed. Since then, things have spiraled out of control, and I feel like I've completely lost my ability to resist the urge.

Over the same period, my entire daily routine has fallen apart. I'm barely eating proper meals, my sleep schedule is a mess, and I'm only getting around 4 hours of proper sleep most nights. I stay on my phone until very late at night, wake up late, and spend most of my day scrolling through social media or watching random content. One day, my screen time even reached 18 hours, which shocked me because the remaining time was basically just eating, using the bathroom, and getting a little sleep. Even on normal days, my average screen time is around 10 hours. I haven't been productive at all, and I haven't done any meaningful work during this period.

It feels like everything is connected. I scroll on my phone for hours, get exposed to triggers or just become bored, masturbate, then feel guilty, continue scrolling, stay up late, sleep very little, wake up tired, and repeat the exact same cycle. Because I'm constantly sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted, resisting the urge feels almost impossible. It's like my self-control has disappeared.

I don't think masturbation itself is the only problem anymore. It feels like my entire lifestyle has become unhealthy at the same time. My sleep, eating habits, screen time, motivation, and self-discipline have all collapsed together. Right now, I genuinely feel like I'm operating on autopilot instead of making conscious decisions.

Has anyone else experienced something similar where multiple bad habits snowballed at once? If you managed to get out of it, what actually helped? I'm not looking for quick fixes or magic solutions—I just want practical advice on how to regain control of my routine and stop feeling like I'm trapped in this cycle.

Edit:I normally do these but now it's a different case and its too much, to be honest I am in this state after finding my crush sleeping with someone else.

Edit:Ever after its paining down there I can't stop myself.

I'm not sure the easiest way to explain my situation. But basically I studied maths and physics at uni, went boxing 3 times a week and spent 12 hours a day studying. I'd always worked hard like that, my whole life. I had trauma in childhood which I think made me focus harder. But I also have autism, anxiety, depression and OCD.

In my second third year at uni I got into a relationship and it was toxic. They tried to change everything about me, blindsided me with lies and last year we broke up. That was 1 year after graduation. In that year I was working and planning to move out with him while he showed little Interest. I really left that relationship as a shell of myself.

Now I am unemployed, trying to heal and trying to find a way back. To someone that worked so hard towards their dreams and found passion in my work.

At the moment, I basically play PC games most of the day while I wait to see if I will get a place to study my masters. My OCD is worse than ever. I feel both exhausted with life and determined to find a way back.

Has anyone got any advice ? Is it discipline I need ? Or should I focus on my healing and mental health, I don't know anymore.

I have a scrolling habit that is just driving me crazy. 

Today I’ve spent almost 5 hours on my phone. I have an app limit for Instagram that’s password protected and my gf is the only one who knows the code, I have deleted all other apps, I have a limit for the browser version of Reddit and Pinterest, I have tried greyscale, I have rearranged my Home Screen. 

There was a period of time where I carried my journal around with my phone. That created an awesome writing habit but didn’t get rid of the scrolling one. 

Right now my biggest issues are 

1. I cannot remember how I made limits for the browser version of Reddit and Pinterest. This means I spend a lot of time on Tumblr and YouTube shorts on my browser app. 
2. When my time limits are up, I just randomly open and close different apps. Discord, email, texts, Band (it’s an app my work uses to post announcements), etc.

 

It’s such an ingrained habit that whenever I sit down or experience down time, it’s the first thing I go to. I would much rather just stare into space than scroll because then my rest would be restful. And maybe the boredom would push me to do something productive, relaxing, or interesting.

january 2025 i made one resolution: stop being the friend who disappears. no grand gesture. one habit after i see or speak to someone I care about, write down whats happening in their life. one note per person. 30 seconds.

Before checking in, read the note. follow up on the actual thing the interview, the stroke recovery, the kids first day of school.heres the compounding 18 months in: my sister calls me the reliable one, which nobody in my family has ever called me before. an old friendship that had gone quiet is back to weekly calls. i caught a friends job loss spiral early because id written down the warning signs from the previous call and followed up when it mattered.

Discipline talk here is mostly gym streaks and cold showers. the highest ROI discipline ive found is remembering people on purpose. the habit is trivial. the identity change is not i used to be someone who cared invisibly, now the caring actually lands.

Procrastination is ruining every aspect of my life. I have a great job, I know exactly what I need to do, I am qualified and capable of doing it, but I just can’t force myself to start tasks. I have sat sobbing at my PC screen mentally yelling at myself to do something and I can’t

I end up working until 2/3am just to try and get a days worth of work done. 20 hours in front of my laptop to eak out 5 hours of work. It’s having massive implications on my marriage, my abilities as a parent, and my mental health

I feel like I’ve read every productivity “hack”. Pomodorro - I get distracted or get lost in a thought for an hour. Breaking down tasks - I struggle to start writing the list. Deadlines - not an incentive until they get very painful

I’m so full of shame and guilt. My workplace isn’t aware (I hope) and I get by with the evening work and working my days off. Catch ups and work updates cause me anxiety attacks it’s gotten so bad.

I just don’t know what to do anymore. This has followed me in every job I’ve had. Please, is there a resource or a book that anyone has found to help them initiate and stay on track of a task? There must be something else out there I’ve missed

A lot of discipline advice seems to assume you have energy left after work.

But many people finish the day mentally fried, physically stiff, hungry, behind on chores, and already low on patience. Then they are somehow expected to exercise, cook, study, clean, socialise, manage money, sleep properly and work on long-term goals.

That is where a lot of advice starts to feel unrealistic.

It is easy to say “just make time,” but time is not the only issue. Energy, attention, mood and decision fatigue matter too. A perfect routine on paper can collapse completely when your workday empties you out.

I’m interested in what has actually worked for people with normal jobs and normal tiredness.

Did you move important habits to the morning? Make evening habits tiny? Lower the standard? Meal prep? Walk instead of doing hard workouts? Use weekends differently? Reduce phone use after work? Protect sleep first?

How do you build discipline in a way that respects the fact that work drains real energy?

I've watched this cycle for years, in myself and others: you find an accountability partner, you're both fired up, and within about two weeks one of you goes quiet and it dies. People blame their own discipline. That's the wrong diagnosis.

The problem is structural, not moral. A single partner is a single point of failure — the moment his life gets busy, your accountability evaporates with it, and there's zero cost to him leaving. One-to-one pairs from these threads have almost no survival rate past two weeks.

What actually holds, from everything I've seen:

• A small GROUP, not a pair (redundancy — if one person is out, the structure stands).
• A DAILY signal, not weekly (a one-line check-in by a set time beats long weekly updates).
• An assigned person whose job is to notice when you go silent.
• A real cost to disappearing, and a dignified way back when you slip.

I run a small system built on exactly this for a specific community, but the principles above work for anyone. Happy to go deeper if it's useful — feel free to DM.

What's actually held for you? Curious what's worked past the two-week mark.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

So much of what we do seems to be influenced by other people’s opinions—how we dress, what we post online, what career we choose, whether we speak up in meetings, ask someone out, go to the gym, or even admit we’re struggling.
Sometimes it feels like we’re living for an audience that isn’t paying nearly as much attention as we think.

For those of you who reached a point where you genuinely stopped caring what other people thought of you, what changed?

Did it happen gradually with age, or was there a specific moment that flipped a switch?

Did you become happier, more confident, or more authentic?

Or is there a downside to it that people don’t talk about?
Is there a difference between healthy self-confidence and simply becoming indifferent?

I’m especially curious about the mental side of it. Did the constant overthinking disappear?

Did you stop replaying awkward conversations in your head? Did you find it easier to take risks, make mistakes, and just live your life?

I don’t mean becoming rude or inconsiderate. I mean reaching a place where you no longer let the fear of judgment dictate your decisions.

For those who’ve experienced that shift, what was it like? What changed in your relationships, career, confidence, and overall outlook on life?

I’d love to hear your stories, whether it was a slow realization or a single life-changing event.