How to change yourself when you feel down and don't know where to start
Do you feel down because of procrastinating all the time?
Do you want to change but don’t know where to start?
Is all the information on overcoming procrastination overwhelming?
Then read this.
If you’re at the beginning of your self-development journey, you probably struggle with where to start.
There are so many productivity blogs, Youtube channels, or self-help books that it can be really daunting to start. Everyone uses their own made-up terminology even though they describe similar ideas, which is confusing. Additionally, almost everyone looks at productivity and procrastination from their own perspective, and they don’t understand it as a whole.
This can overwhelm you because instead of understanding the whole picture, you only get bits of information that confuse you. You hear the same productivity tips over and over again. Find a passion, delegate, eat a healthy breakfast, exercise, etc. Either you stop trying altogether, or you try something that is doomed to failure from the get go.
We believe that to overcome procrastination successfully in the long term, one needs to understand themselves (your motivation, wishes, and fears) but also human behavior in general.
The good news is that you don’t need to learn everything about yourself or all human behavior at once. It’s a process. And the first step of the process is simple.
It’s called the No more zero days challenge.
No more zero days
It’s based on this 2013’s Reddit reply to this post:
Rule numero uno - There are no more zero days. What's a zero day? A zero day is when you don't do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I'm not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt' do anything all fucking day and it's 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you're in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that's what you're used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn't happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS. That's rule number one. Do not forget.
This one reply changed the lives of thousands of people and this subreddit is living proof that the challenge works brilliantly.
You can find all sorts of people there. From the most depressed ones that consider getting up from their bed or taking a shower as success, to normally functioning people simply trying to exercise or not overeat.
Why does this challenge work?
- It’s simple
You have one thing that you need to focus on.
People often want to change 10 things at once and they fail at everything.
When you begin with just one thing, it’s much simpler to track it. - It is easy to not fail
The goal of this isn’t to be perfect. The goal is to have no more zero days. Maybe your goal is to write for 4 hours. Well, even 50 words are better than zero. Even one sentence is better than zero and you can always write one sentence. - You gain momentum quickly
When you get a few days into the challenge, you’ll be happy about your progress. If you combine this with tracking your progress visually, you start something magical. You start a productive streak that you don’t want to break. - There isn’t a perfect way to start.
You could spend a lifetime preparing and looking for the perfect beginning. This is a waste of time. Instead, you can start and learn along the way. However, this advice is often mistaken and people start with something that is doomed to failure. In this case, the No more zero days challenge is something that worked successfully for thousands of others.
If you feel down because you haven’t done anything or fail at something regularly, but still have a little bit of fight left in you, please take on this challenge.
Go about it like this:
Select one thing or one goal only. This should be something that bothers you the most.
From now on, never let a day go by without doing something about it. Even one push-up, one sentence, one email replied counts.
Try to build on your successes.. Try to do more, get better. If you don’t feel motivated on any given day, do the bare minimum.
Additionally to help you get going:
Appreciate yourself whenever you succeed
Hold yourself accountable
Tell a friend that you’re doing this, ask him if he can keep an eye on you.
If you don’t have anyone you would like to share this with, use the subreddit.
- If you fail, don’t be mean to yourself, instead ask yourself why it happened and what you can do better in the future.
This is the first step toward changing yourself. It’s that simple. No more zero days.
