On being a fuck-up and trying to change

[Astrocloud]

Alright, I am a lazy fuck-up. I'm messy, disorganized and sloppy. Worst of all -I procrastinate to the point that things can get really bad before I try to do any thing about it. Sometimes it's too late at that point.

I also rely too much on others to tolerate my fuck-ups. My boss is one who hasn't really tolerated it. I work for myself but his success is partially based on mine. He has believed in me up to this point. I need to change.

The problem is that I'm an old dog and it's really easy to talk about learning new tricks. I have a scheduler and I have trouble keeping to my schedule. When I'm supposed to do something I end up doing something else entirely.

Like I said, I need to change.

Someone said that it takes about 21 days of doing something repeatedly before it becomes a daily habit. Has anyone successfully changed like this? I need like a total change soon or I'm toast.

Right now I feel like I am my own worst enemy. This is not a good feeling.

[Boo]

This is what I would look at:

Are you currently utilizing alcohol or drugs?
Are you in shape physically?
Do you eat properly?
Has something (an emotional event possibly) reduced your self esteem?

[lukethebandgeek]

Astrocloud, I'm in your boat too. I hate the boat. It's sinking and it smells like shit. I wanna fix it, but the water is all over the fucking place. And it sucks. So, I do nothing about it, while it fills up, until it sinks me.

I wanna change to, but Can't or won't.

[Painted]

Are you currently utilizing alcohol or drugs?

Yes

Are you in shape physically?

Sortofnotreally

Do you eat properly?

Yes I eat a lot cos I get the munchies alot.

Has something (an emotional event possibly) reduced your self esteem?

Yes

[lindseylatch]

So, I'm gonna give the answer that is probably going to become very familiar... :P
Therapy, guys. You're depressed. Seriously, clinically, depressed. It's really hard to make that first appointment, but trust me, it's worth it.
If you don't want therapy, you can go to a "regular" doctor and get some antidepressants.

Maybe I'm just projecting. Although one sign of my own depression in an increase in the amount of time i spend online, and a decrease in the amount of time spent face-to-face with people...

[TheFrogel]

Heh, I've done that same exact thing, but in college. Screwed myself over for two entire semesters, knew that I was going down in flames but didn't really care enough to do anything about it, and I would shove away anyone trying to help me. I'm working on trying to get over it right now; I'm in Jamaica with the Catholic Church helping out the people (putting on roofs, building houses, etc), but I find that when I'm not at a jobsite specifically, I'll take any opportunity I can to loaf. (Why am I on this comp? I should be preparing for tomorrow). And soon I'll be in the Navy, and I really don't think that they'll tolerate it. But all in all, I think I'm on my way up. Why? Because I'm working towards something.

I think really I started out in that direction because I didn't care what was going on, I didn't know where I wanted to go with life or anything. However, now I am going for a specific goal: when I'm in the Navy, I'm going to work harder than everyone else so I can have more options; officer, 1st pick of base, and things like that. I'm going in, and I'm gonna kick ass. That's how I feel about it, so that's how it's going to be. I have something to look forward to and work towards, that's how I'm trying to change.

About the 21-day habit thing: It kinda works, and it kinda doesn't. It'll help your mindset; for example, whever I wake up, the first thing I used to do would be go to the computer and boot up WC III. Now it's going to church, then doing something meaningful. Granted, it's not what happens all the time, but it's better to have a mind that's more inclined to be industrious than not.

But I hate that feeling. Good luck on working your way out of it. It's not easy, it's not quick.

EDIT: While I was writing, there was a reply about therapy. It's a good idea. It feels nice to just be able to talk and talk and talk about what's going on sometimes, and have someone who can help you.

[aberkok]

Astrocloud, you need to break the problem down into chunks. Nobody ever got anywhere by saying: "I don't like my life, I have to change." You need to figure out 3 or 4 specific things you'd like to change and pick one to begin with. Focus on this one thing, not worrying too much about the other things which bother you.

If you can work on this one thing, you'll probably find a bunch of positive side effects. For example, if one of your problems is that you are always late (I'm not saying it is), then leaving early for things and eventually being on time will start to get you a reputation for being reliable. One of the best examples of positive side effects I can think of is the exercise/diet example. I often find that in the times of year that I exercise regularly, my appetite is also under control. There's a metabolic relationship there. You'd think exercise would get you hungrier, and it does, but your appetite becomes more regular.

Just getting one aspect of your life under control will give you the self-esteem to tackle other areas. Besides, do you really think everyone else has it together completely? I've got a bunch of stuff I need to figure out myself!

[Master_Shake]

Hopefully you can win the lottery. Nothing else is going to make much of a difference.

[veruca]

I myself have a procrastination/problem..that I have worked hard to change. I was ALWAYS late to work, and late on my bills....and I just couldn't make myself do what I needed to do, even though I knew better.
It took losing my high paying job and getting my car repo'd to get my shit together. I can tell you 4 years later..I am NEVER late, in fact am always early now, and all my bills are paid...I am out of debt and doing awesome..I think it may take something huge happening to you to get your ass moving..cause I tried everything

[Boo]

Originally Posted by aberkok

Astrocloud, you need to break the problem down into chunks. Nobody ever got anywhere by saying: "I don't like my life, I have to change." You need to figure out 3 or 4 specific things you'd like to change and pick one to begin with. Focus on this one thing, not worrying too much about the other things which bother you.
*snip

^Good advice!^

I suggest taking one of your vices per week and leaving it. Tell yourself that you are through. No more.... Some people have a hard time dealing with emptional events in their lives. Adding drugs or alcohol can magnify the feelings and make them appear to be more than they really are. I thought that I had lived a very hard life until I became aware of other peoples life histories. Now my experiences are minimized in the true world.

Don't make more of an event than it truely is.


Painted? Are you the same person??

[TheJig]

Alot of times I feel like I'm the only one who's like this. It's good to know I'm not.

I've gone through this a bunch of times, where I finally get to the point where I want to change. I start working out and keeping a schedule, start paying things on time. But once my self esteem goes up a little bit, I drop the schedule and stop working out.

I agree that the key is not trying to do too much, take baby steps, and know when it's time to get help. (That's the point I'm at right now.)

[Astrocloud]

This problem really isn't about depression or addictive drugs and alcohol. I know enough people with those problems who manage to be somewhat organized. My problem is not having organization skills and needing them desperately at age 35 --instantaneously.

When I was in college, I would take classes that I didn't like and just blow them off. I would then study like mad for the final and manage to pass them. Yes, I am kinda smart... but I'm also lazy which is the problem.

So right now, smart gets me in the door and lazy might get me kicked out. I need to be organized.

For example, right now I should be studying for an exam that I have to take in a few days. I've studied very little but will probably cram for it tomorrow. -Ugh. Save me from myself.

[aberkok]

Then just study for 15 mins. RIGHT NOW! I understand your problem really well being a practicing musician. I used to not want to practice in lieu of playing video games. Eventually I realised that it was a matter of quality over quantity and I'd put in only a few minutes at a time. It was way better than nothing, and eventually the regularity beat out the impending sense of "oh, man I've got 3 hours of stuff to do..."

Remember. Just do 15mins.

[Seeker]

I was once told to shedule my day: The things I should be doing that I didn't have drive for were my first sheduled items, then as a 'reward' type situation, schedule the things I would like to do (it didn't matter if it was 'unproductive' or a task I would usually do while procrastinating). This then gave me a basic discipline to spring from. It was funny how I felt that the things I didn't want to do I later took pride in and gave me a sense of pride and worth - I think this process is termed 'delayed gratification'...

[FngKestrel]

I can relate to this. You can cognitively understand what you need to do, but there's a voice in the back of your head that says, "You can put it off til later." And later never comes.

It comes down to, as soon as you know what you need to do, to do it before that voice gets a chance to slow you down.

aberkok has a good suggestion. 15 minutes, right now.

[flamingdog]

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

This problem really isn't about depression or addictive drugs and alcohol. I know enough people with those problems who manage to be somewhat organized. My problem is not having organization skills and needing them desperately at age 35 --instantaneously.

When I was in college, I would take classes that I didn't like and just blow them off. I would then study like mad for the final and manage to pass them. Yes, I am kinda smart... but I'm also lazy which is the problem.

So right now, smart gets me in the door and lazy might get me kicked out. I need to be organized.

For example, right now I should be studying for an exam that I have to take in a few days. I've studied very little but will probably cram for it tomorrow. -Ugh. Save me from myself.

Maybe this is just who you are. Maybe you need to accept that, and instead of working on changing yourself or your habits, work on making your circumstances fit you. So you don't work to a schedule? Get a job where you don't have to. In my experience, people are very, very resistant to changes, and even though you might find you can make a fist of it short-term, in the long run, you're either going to miserable, filled with existentialist angst, or you'll just slip back into those same old habits. I've never been able to use diaries or schedules, I just make it up as I go along. It works for me.

[lindseylatch]

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

This problem really isn't about depression or addictive drugs and alcohol. I know enough people with those problems who manage to be somewhat organized. My problem is not having organization skills and needing them desperately at age 35 --instantaneously.

Depression and addiction are different in all people, and we all deal with it differently. Maybe those people are able to beat it by being organized, were as you have to go a different route.
But, I like that 15 minute suggestion. I'll have to keep that in mind as well.

[Minorci]

You need to want something badly enough for you to do it, just thinking about it wont get it done, having a i dont care attitude doesnt work either.

[Astrocloud]

I've been meditating on this subject. I think I can trace the problem to my late childhood. My mother got sick from cancer when I was 10 and didn't get on me to clean my room. When she died I was 14 and really lacked the parental guidance needed to develop certain organizational habits.

Over the years I can say with certainty that my lack of organization and my general messiness has affected personal relationships in a very bad way. There were relationships that I wanted to keep -that just went away. Thinking back, there were a number of factors that caused the breakups... one of them was my general disorderliness.

I am changing. It is a slow, steady process but I am changing.

[iccky]

I’ve dealt with the same problems since middle school. And I don't have a lot of answers. But for me I think being "smart" in the intellectual sort of way that gets you through school and helps you do good at standardized tests is part of the problem. It both has allowed me to get by without working hard for a long time and gives me the ability to rationalize away my unwillingness to do work. "I can write a page an hour, so I don't really need to start that paper until 8." "After I beat this level, I'll feel better, and then I can really get cracking on that homework." Pure sophistry, but it works in the moment.

I told my girlfriend, who is probably less "smart" then me but works her ass off and does a lot better, that my biggest problem in life was knowing so often exactly what I should do to make things go right but being unable to do it. She asked me, "how can you live with yourself." not exactly the most reaffirming comment, but it made me think.

I realize too that I am happier when I work hard and get stuff done. When I’m fucking around, playing games or whatever, I think that that's what I need to do to make me happy. but really, if I look at it objectively, I know that I'm happiest at the end of those few long days when I can lie in bed and know I really did do everything I could have that day. Tired, but wonderfully so.

Yet on some level I think that maybe this is just how I operate. I tried on two occasions to get organized. I got a Palm Pilot and set up a schedule. And strangely, while I got more done, it destroyed my creativity. Previously I had known what I needed to do and been unable to do it. When organized, I know longer know what to do to make things work.

So, yeah, not a lot of answers, but I feel you man. The two things I have found works is changing scenery (realize you're just fucking around and getting nothing done? go work in a coffee shop, or just take a short walk and think), and not getting too absorbed in the problem. That goes back to <b>aberkok's</b> breaking things down approach. If you let the problem overwhelm you, you'll never do anything.

Originally Posted by Master_Shake

Hopefully you can win the lottery. Nothing else is going to make much of a difference.

And, dude, that was both incredibly rude and unhelpful at the same time.

[iccky]

P.S. When I'm on TFP, it probablly means I'm fucking around and should be workling. Send me a PM and tell me to get off my ass. Seriously.

[harry168]

at least be thankfull you recognise you are in the shit,perhaps only up to your waist, even. some of us carry on in our own sweet way oblivious, until the shit is well and truely above our heads.i,am sure you can sort it out.

[Painted]

Originally Posted by Boo

^Good advice!^

I suggest taking one of your vices per week and leaving it. Tell yourself that you are through. No more.... Some people have a hard time dealing with emptional events in their lives. Adding drugs or alcohol can magnify the feelings and make them appear to be more than they really are. I thought that I had lived a very hard life until I became aware of other peoples life histories. Now my experiences are minimized in the true world.

Don't make more of an event than it truely is.


Painted? Are you the same person??

Am I the same person? Pretty much.

[abaya]

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

My mother got sick from cancer when I was 10 and didn't get on me to clean my room. When she died I was 14 and really lacked the parental guidance needed to develop certain organizational habits.

Over the years I can say with certainty that my lack of organization and my general messiness has affected personal relationships in a very bad way. There were relationships that I wanted to keep -that just went away. Thinking back, there were a number of factors that caused the breakups... one of them was my general disorderliness.

I think both of these things happen to a lot of people, and it makes me sad. I see it a lot in my boyfriend as well, and at one point it almost got to breaking up with him because of it. Instead I started to get messier myself and somehow that made it okay. I dunno, maybe that's more screwed up than I thought... never thought of it that way before.

Anyway, I wish there was some magic pill to change what you're talking about, but it's almost psychological... unless your parents beat on you to be responsible and make you clean up after yourself, I don't know how to change these habits without plain old self-discipline. Which I used to have more of... it's really slipped away from me since I was in college.

I agree with Lindsey...

Originally Posted by lindseylatch

You're depressed.... Maybe I'm just projecting. Although one sign of my own depression in an increase in the amount of time i spend online, and a decrease in the amount of time spent face-to-face with people...

This is a serious issue for me. The more time I spend on a computer, the more depressed I am. Why else wouldn't I be able to just get off my ass, clean my room, do something productive... usually, the state of my apartment and the shit I'm doing in my life, as well as how long I'm on the internet [which is basically a lifeless machine keeping me company], tells you whether I'm emotionally healthy or not. I've been depressed in some way or another for a lot of the last year, and I see it in my declining self-discipline. It takes so much extrinsic motivation to do things that used to come so easily to me.

So yes, I highly recommend counseling. Not that it has been a magic pill for me (and I don't take meds, yet), but it gives me a place to communicate my shit to other people and try to make tiny changes that might add up. Hell, TFP can be a form a group therapy if you post honestly and often, since you're getting instant, honest feedback from other people on your own neuroses. At least, that's what I do... but the format makes it problematic, since being online only indicates my depression. Working on it...

[munchen]

I have this problem and I've been getting much much better.

I've been meditating on this subject. I think I can trace the problem to my late childhood. My mother got sick from cancer when I was 10 and didn't get on me to clean my room. When she died I was 14 and really lacked the parental guidance needed to develop certain organizational habits.

Sorry, but this is just an excuse. You probably already have the organizational skills neccessary, or at least the ability to obtain those skills. I dont think this is a problem that can be solved by brooding over your past, thats probably a big part of what is the problem. It was for me anyway. This does sound like depression but you may not need counseling. What worked for me. If you know what you have to do, just fucking do it. Its that easy. You can think about doing something, you can procrastinate, you can read a book about, you can talk about it, but the only way to solve your dilema is to do it.

A little trick that worked for me. I'm very competitive, so when i got that lazy slothful feeling I took it on like a challanger. Me against my lazyness and i don't like to lose. So I'd put myself in action almost to spite my lazyness. I felt much better when i did this so i'd get to like the feeling of springing into action, so it got easier over time.

[kellererd]

A couple of comments, although let me preface this by saying I'm no sage.. just a guy who has gone through life paying attention.

1. While there certainly may be Freudian / familial causes for your behavior, allowing them to rule or define who you are is counterproductive. Ultimately you and you alone control not only what you do but how you think about what you do.. and therefore what you feel about what you are doing. In my experience, positivity or just the thought of being positive can be stronger than whatever imbedded traits I thought I might have. That being said, take charge of and responsibility for what you are doing. Not doing so is cheating yourself.

2. Twenty-one days to form a habit I found to be accurate.. although I think that just having this goal in sight is more important than the arbitrary number '21'. I'm a firm believer in being accountable for personal change. For a more detailed, eloquent discourse on this try reading some of Krishnamurti's work. In a nutshell.. why wait to change? Why lean on an arbitrary goal? If you believe what you feel and have a serious desire to be / think a different way.. do it. Now. Right now. Don't wait for a gradual change to take place. Your mind is stronger than you think & if you decide you are done with a certain way of feeling or acting - drinking, for instance - then stop right now. At this moment, you're a non-drinker.

Maybe it sounds oversimplified.. but that's just because it is. Again, I'm just some guy. However I've found that both of the above points have helped me shape and re-shape who I am just by being aware of what is going around both around me and within me. Don't lie down and 'accept' that there is something irreparably wrong with you. To do so is to give up and forfeit whatever personal pride and sense of self you should have.

Out.

[abaya]

kellererd, good stuff. I agree that your solutions are a bit oversimplified, as you observed... but why not have ideals? Ultimately, slowness to change comes down to laziness and inertia against wanting to improve oneself, wanting to take the easy way out for the short-term. I get stuck in it all the time, and it's because I spoil myself too much and get fat 'n lazy on my free time. I really detest it when this happens because I want to constantly become a better person somehow, but can't make it happen. So this can be a stumbling block, too (perfectionism).

Yeah, family background really shouldn't matter if one is truly grown up and responsible for one's attitudes and actions... but I don't think you can snap your fingers and make that happen, either. It does take conscious, hard work to get it out from under one's skin. You have to have a vision of what you want to become, and the WILL to get there... working on it, myself.

[kellererd]

Abaya, point well taken. Sounds like you and I may be in similar places in regards to our desire (and progress) for self-improvement.

I do agree that we are all works-in-progress if, indeed, we each do aspire to improve some part of our personality or being. Part of it is having a goal.. but if you've never been there, how do you know exactly what your goal(s) is (are)?

Small steps to self-improvement or change can make a huge difference. I've found the biggest part of this is just having complete (as much as is possible) honesty about where you are mentally. That is, having at least a basic understanding and appreciation for how you honestly feel and what you'd like to change. Just a wishful 'if only I could..' isn't going to cut it. I believe you need to pinpont whatever small details you'd like to change and, again, change them. On the spot.

Looking at overwhelming, life-changing events or goals shows that this won't work. But chipping away or isolating goals which are attainable can set you on the right path. By finding one (or more) ways to change - and having personal success therein - can be the inpetus needed for greater change.

[steps off of soapbox]