At quite a few points in the duration of my self-improvement journey, kickstarted by this very subreddit, I almost lost hope. I felt like it was all pointless, a colossal effort doomed to fail from day one. I made self-defeating affirmations that created a vicious circle of despair and disappointment.

I was born way too ugly to ever fuck a decent looking woman.

My left pec was way bigger than my right, so no one would ever love me.

I would never become as big as I wanted without steroids.

I was balding, and no one loves a bald man.

I was falling behind the person sitting next to me at school, so studying was pointless.

Maybe you hold such delusions yourself as you read this post:

You are black/indian/whatever, so white girls will never fuck you.

You were born dumb, so there's no point in studying.

You weren't born a competitive person, so you should just do what you're told.

In conclusion, It's hopeless. There's no point in even trying.

Notice that these self-destructive affirmations usually appear whenever there is no immediately noticeable improvement in any of the areas that you're working hard on. You're eating a shitton of protein/dieting hard, but the weight on the scale is not rising/dropping as fast as you want. You're going out every night but not getting as many numbers as you want. You're studying harder than ever but still not getting as good grades as you want. You are working your ass off but still not getting that goddamn promotion. You get the point.

This happens because your brain is still experiencing withdrawal from betaness and excessive dopamine. If your attention span screams in horror at the thought of meditating for 30 minutes, how can you reasonably expect to work hard at any of the above for months - or even years for some hardcase newbies - before you can reap any of the fruits of your labor. This is even harder for beginners, since they have never actually experienced the joy of delayed gratification, and at times it becomes doubtful that what they're doing is gonna work at all. Getting rejected time and time again certainly doesn't make you feel like you're making progress, and weighing in heavier after a week of eating boiled chicken and rice makes you want to quit alltogether.

In my experience, there are two main ways to avoid becoming hopeless and quitting.

 

1) Reframe your insecurities to your advantage.

We've all heard about how owning the frame can help you put a woman in the right mindset to be fucked by you. What you might not have thought about is the possibility of changing your own frame in order to manipulate yourself into being motivated and badass. This is simple. Take on of your most crippling insecurities. As funny as it sounds, one of the worst ones for me was my pectoral muscle imbalance; one was significantly bigger due to my scoliosis, and I felt like it was so bad that anyone looking at me shirtless would burst out laughing.

This became really bad, until one night I felt like I was being suffocated by it. I knew I had to fix the problem right then and there. Until then, the issue was framed as:

My left pec is way bigger than my right, so no one will ever love me.

I worked hard until I found a way to reframe the above statement in a way that actually made me feel confident about it:

I have a big (right) pec, and a huge (left) pec.

Boom. I immediately felt relieved. In the next few days, I repeated this exact statement in my head anytime I felt desperate about it, and was instantly relieved every time. A few months later, I rarely ever think about it.

Do the exact same thing with your own insecurities. I can't hold your hand here; you have to find a way that makes you feel comfortable about them. Once you do, repeat the exact same phrase every time you feel insecure. With time, it will get better and better, until you're wondering how it was ever a real issue1 .

2) Become grateful for the obstacles.

Not everything has to be a grind. You can make hard but necessary procedures easier. This doesn't mean actually putting in less effort or somehow making the procedure physically easier; after all, that is sometimes impossible. A 225 lbs barbell will always weigh 225 lbs. Approach anxiety will never really disappear. And unfortunately, boiled chicken breast and canned tuna will always taste like the sahara and dried whale cunt, respectively.

However, you can do is rephrase these hard acts into something pleasurable. The way tho do this that has worked best for me is gratitude. Don't hate the barbell for being heavy; thank it, because if it wasn't you couldn't use it to build your body. Don't hate yourself for being afraid of approaching; thank your fear, because it lets you know you are going in the right direction. Don't hate the meat for tasting like shit; thank the animal that died so you can absorb its protein and become huge.

This should not be just a mechanical affirmation in your head. Truly take a moment out of your day to thank these hurdles for hitting you. Feel the gratitude flow through your body, and smile.

This gratitude has more benefits than just getting through the daily grind. By repeating your mantras of gratitude during your daily meditation (which everyone here should be doing), you cultivate a deep love for life and the world surrounding you. You end up thanking trees for being green and thanking the cold breeze for biting your hands, and just like that nothing can really make you feel sad anymore.

I no longer hate life for giving me a huge nose and a curved spine, or an absent, manipulative father and a narcissistic mother, who didn't know how to raise a man. I'm not a victim of circumstances. I thank life, because if I wasn't born with all these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, I would have no incentive to become the great man that I'm on the way to becoming.

Tl;Dr: whenever you are feeling like you are losing hope, try to reframe your difficulties into privileges that you are grateful for. With time this will become automatic.

Lessons learned:

  • Have faith in your effort.

  • Reframe your insecurities to your advantage.

  • Become grateful for the hurdles.

1 I'm sure this has something to do with NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming), but I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic to go deeper into it.