I’m 23f, and really just have gotten so lost. I feel my priorities are all outta wack, but I’m struggling with being able to shift my focus. I want to be successful, and fit, and have good hobbies and just don’t know where to start.
This is a genuine question, I just see a lot of men in my life “lock in” and focus on the things they need to get done or the goals they want to reach and I could use some advice on HOW to change my focus. I feel like I spend too much time just sitting around wasting my life or if I am out and about it’s drinking with my friends. I feel like the world is moving and I’m not moving with it and that I could be holding myself to a higher standard. I have a full time job, I live with a roommate, I pay all my bills and consider myself responsible. I’ve never been arrested, I’m not hoeing myself out, I have a good social life. But just feel like I could do better.
Also good gym routines would be appreciated, but are not the goal of this post.
How do you “lock in”?
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The book Atomic Habits might help you. It’s about building good habits and sticking with them.
We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. Develop a good system and that’ll help maintain a baseline.
Use Google Calendar to make time for things like gym and learning. Schedule and live by the schedule.
I think you’re looking at everything you want and your are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do from too much choice.
I think you start with one thing, and focus on that for 4 weeks, get used to it in your routine, by week 4 you’ll be used to it in your routine. You’ll be itching to do the next thing you want to do, incorporate that into your routine and repeat!
Just be mindful that you can burn yourself doing too much and not taking a break. If things are too much, have a think if what you want is really that important. Or dial something else do that takes up a lot of your time.
Bite size things all the way! It’s easy to get overwhelmed with a lot of things to do at once, which makes it easier to get overwhelmed and stop everything.
I’ll be so honest. I was in your shoes when I was 23. Living pretty well but still within my means, mostly having a good life, but wanted more. And I knew I could get more out of life pretty easily, I just always lost motivation and kept convincing myself it’d be too much work to take the next big steps. So when I was 26 I tested for adult ADHD, and turns out I had it in spades. Now I’m on a moderate dose of adderall, and it’s been enough to push myself in all the ways I had always meant to. Went back to school for extra certifications to climb higher at work, proposed to my girlfriend, successfully saved up for a new car, it’s been a real lifechanger. I’d recommend you get tested. I’m sure other people will offer good advice about habits and whatnot, but really no sense in climbing a steeper slope than everyone else when you don’t have to.
Here’s my 2 cents.
Women are constantly bombarded by society telling them what they should do and how to feel about everything. Because of this, women are more likely to develop a negative complex like they aren’t living up to their potential.
Men are constantly bombarded by society telling them what they shouldn’t do and how they need to act. As a result, we feel like the enemy. So we focus on our families and goals to feel like we are achieving something positive.
This leaves women trying to please a more broad audience and men trying to please a tighter audience.
I think what we need to do is ignore societies expectations of us (direct or presumed) and just be the best person we can be for what we and those around us need.
Don’t move at the rate of the world. Move at the rate of yourself. You are a pile of dust at the end of all this. Take a moment right now and appreciate where you are and how far you’ve come. How much battles you’ve won and how many hard times you’ve survived.
Take a deep breath and feel the air move through you.
Now start again.
Contrary to popular social media BS, real life “locking in” is starting to do what you know you have to do but haven’t. This is a long term action.
Start small, stay consistent and don’t let yourself mentally be defeated. If you say you’re gonna do it do IT!
I was once in your situation (28M and still learning) At one point I no longer enjoyed the young life and felt like I wasting time. Your not!! You’re doing what you should be doing at a young age of 23. You are growing, finding yourself and socializing. If you genuinely don’t like where you are at, you have to start planning out goals and models that you can implement to improve yourself. Move it from mental to physical ( chalk to board, pen to paper, or a open convo with a coach etc)
Keep your up head high and understand this is a marathon 🏁
Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re 23, simply being independent at your age already puts you far ahead of your peers.
Truth is, you don’t overhaul your life overnight. It takes a long time of slowly incorporating better habits into your lifestyle until it’s a different lifestyle entirely.
Also no one can explain how to train and eat properly in a Reddit comment. You need to read and research until your eyes bleed before you’ll have even a mildly tangible grasp of the fundamentals. The best generalized starting point is reading “Starting Strength”. So do that.
You don’t sound lost to me! You sound like you totally have your shit together. Lots of kids your age (I’m old so that makes you a kid) are way less put together at 23. You have your own place, you pay your own bills, and you have hobbies and a social life! Don’t be so down on yourself.
Instead my guess is that what you are missing is a goal. You have asked about how to get “locked in” and have a better gym routine. But neither of those are GOALS. They are amorphous blobs of pseudo-aspirations that you can tell yourself you want, but since they are not well articulated, then you can slide on them easily. Which then gets you down on yourself because you “failed”, creating a negative feedback loop.
Advice from an old guy: set a goal. It doesn’t matter what it is – could be fitness, could be professional, could be financial…. But set it and commit to it in a way that you cannot back out of. For example, let’s say your fitness goal is to run a 10k. Then go online and sign up for a f’n 10k. Once you have signed up for it you are committed and you would rather face the pain of training than the shame (and waste of money) that comes from a DNF. And presto! You are training for your goal. It might suck while you are jogging in the rain, but you will push yourself because of the commitment. And in so doing you will be “locked in”.
Telling yourself that “I’m going to get in shape! This is my year!!” is the format for millions of broken New Years resolutions. Instead, make an external commitment to something with a firm deadline, and you will find the motivation to succeed.
And I will repeat what I said above: stop being so hard on yourself! You are 23 and you have more of a life than some 30yr olds! Enjoy your youth, test your boundaries, take some risks. This is the time to do that! Lots of time to hold yourself to unreasonable standards later.
Routine-Routine-Routine-Routine.
First. List your top 5 priorities- #1 being your most important.
Second. Erase priorities 2-4 and focus ONLY on #1! This is now your GOAL and everything else is a distraction.
Third. Spend the first 90 minutes of your day for the next 90 days working on only actions that move you towards your GOAL.
After 90 days your routine will be established.
Walk, eat well and food you make, and find quiet.. 🙂
What’s uout motivation, not your end goal like “Being fit enough to run a marathon” or “look good at the beach”, it’s your “Why?”
Once you have your Why, build it into your narrative. If your Why is say, because you’re worried about developing early onset cardiac issues like your mother, then you think through out your day “Am I supporting my Why?”
Ask that question 2-3 times then your develop those incremental progressions rather than “oh, I ate a don’t today and didn’t go the gym, jot getting fit today, may as well give up.”
It also helps if you don’t let yourself make excuses and have someone to keep you accountable. Abit of “toxic masculinity” is actually useful in moderation.
Wow these replies are really nice. You guys are making me tear up.
Thank you all for such great advice, I really wasn’t expecting such good answers
For me, it basically comes down to personal enjoyment. For example when it comes to exercise there are very few forms of exercise that I actually enjoy. I hate jogging for example, so I just don’t do it. I know that many people enjoy jogging and that’s great for them but it bores the heck out of me. I enjoy riding my bike, playing basketball, and skiing. Skiing is expensive and seasonal, so I’m not able to do that much, so the bulk of my exercise is playing basketball and riding my bike.
I really only have one hobby, and that would be playing chess. I’ve been doing that since I was 5 years old. Other things that keep me occupied I wouldn’t call them hobbies, like taking my dog for a walk or taking her to the dog park – that’s not a hobby that’s just my responsibility and thankfully I enjoy doing it because she puts a smile on my face. I watch a lot of movies, which most people would describe as a hobby, but I am a filmmaker. Imagine an author who doesn’t read a lot of books – they would be a s***** author. Same thing applies for me – in order to be a better filmmaker watching movies is just part of my job. So it’s something that I enjoy but it is legitimately part of my profession.
And then as far as food is concerned, like many people who work in the entertainment industry I have a lengthy background in the restaurant industry. I was a bartender and server but I know my way around a kitchen. So I just cook food that I enjoy eating.
So I guess the abbreviated answer to your question is that I think you should just do what you enjoy, in regards to exercise food and hobby.
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Men struggle with this too. I highly doubt this is a gender -specific thing. We all want to “succeed” in life, whatever that means to each of us, and we see others, believing they’ve cracked it, being functioning adults and ‘winning’, but experience has taught me they are as clueless as the rest, and while you can be jealous of others achievements, you need to always compare the whole deal and what they sacrificed to reach those goals. They are probably sacrificing something you aren’t (yet) willing to, since you aren’t at their level, at that one specific aspect.
Sure, it’s good to have aspirations, but looking at others achievements and comparing can be very unhealthy. Of course it can also be motivational, but you need to be prepared to make big sacrifices. It’s super chill and fun soaking in the sun at the coffeshop most afternoons but you neither get rich or fit that way. Maybe you aren’t ready to give up that leisure. Maybe you are. But it takes sacrifice, and honestly, most people on their death bed rarely wished they grinded more. It’s usually they wanted to spend more time with the people they hold dear. Keep this in mind, as you lock in.
My daughter has been dealing with this for a while and finally got diagnosed with ADHD. She’s been finding some help from the author of “How to ADHD”
https://www.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD
I’ve gotten some ideas myself from the book she wrote.