Godly confidence!

I'm very glad that I could inspire you all. You all have the potential to shape your live how you see fit as long as you actually put in the effort and try! I believe in each of you! Even though you all keep telling me I'm inspiring you, I feel quite the opposite. I've gotten this far because all of YOU have helped me get here. Thank you, whether your just reading this, you've replied to the forum, or you have sent me a message. Each word from you helps me become that much stronger!

As for the update:
The new girl ive been studying with is amazing. We studied for 7-8 hours last night and it was fantastic. I didn't read or write a word, but I did have one of the deepest conversations of my life, which led to us talking about doing research together (we're both in the psych program). I'm glad I have the chance to spend time with someone so motivated and intelligent. Ive been skating to the school every evrry evening to walk her home from school since shes deathly afraid of the dark. She most definitely really likes me and I'll definitely see where this goes. Even if things don't work out between us, I still had the privilege of having intellectually engaging conversations for once!

Hope all of you have a wonderful day, stay strong you've got this!!

 

Just another quick update for today!

I decided to take ASL (American Sign Language) class this year, not knowing a thing about sign language. I was soooo scared to go to this class it was ridiculous. But my first day in class I realized how easy it was to learn. Even though I've only been studying for 2 weeks so far, I'm on the same level as people that have studied ASL previous to college. After class my teach (deaf) signed me to stay after and meet with him. I was a bit nervous thinking I was in trouble. Then he wrote out to me "Have you ever thought about pursuing a career in interpreting? You're very good and are picking things up extremely fast". My 4th ASL class the whole term, and I'm already being picked out as having great skill in ASL and offered help to become an interpreter. I didn't say yes, but I didn't turn it down either. As a psychology student I aspire to someday teach at a university, but also to offer a much needed service as a deaf counselor. My teacher was excited to hear that and said they were in high demand and that would be an extremely fulfilling career.

Thank you guys for getting me involved in the NoFap and giving me the courage to sign up for ASL, I have a great chance to make an impact on peoples lives thanks to you all. If I never stopped PMO I would have never signed up for ASL and been heading down the path I'm on right now. I hope you are all doing as well in some form as I am!

 

Its been a few daysbsince I've posted so I thought I'd drop in and update y'all! I've been extremely busy since schools started. I have study partners for all of my classes and actually spend more time studying than in class. Studying is no longer a boring task that I put off until the last second, I actually enjoy it now.

Remember that girl that walked up to me in the gym and asked me to study with her? Well now we hang out on a daily basis and have built a very solid relationship. Ive never really felt this deep of a connection with anyone before. Not to say that I'm some super genius but most people don't communicate at my level of intelligence and I usually feel like I'm talking to a brick wall, but not with her. Shes definitely the smartest individual I've ever met.

I've also been making friends like crazy. People literally just walk up to me all the time and start talking with me. It may just be the fact that I'm seeking conversation everywhere I go now, but I feel like since starting NoFap I have almost a magnetism that attracts people.

And finally, I no longer fidget a lot during class. I used to always shake my legs and scribble around but now I stay focused and attentive with great posture as well.

Keep going guys, don't stop don't give up now. Things will get better for you, maybe it'll take 10 days to see it, maybe it'll take 100, but I promise you all it will make an enormous positive impact on your life.

 

Hey there guys!!!

It's been almost a month since I've posted but what a great month its been. I've learned a lot about myself and I am much better at controlling my emotions and not letting things get to me. I haven't been meditation, but I have been practicing mindfulness in daily activities. Whether I'm at work, school, the gym, or with friends I always try to keep my mind in the present and not on the past or future. I've found that by only focusing on whats happening right this moment I am much happier and my time feels like it was much better spent than when I focus on all the stressful things ahead of me.

I've been studying with that girl from the gym a lot, and we hang out a few times a week. She's actually coming back with me for thanksgiving since she can't spend it with her family. We're great friends, I've never really had the chance to connect this deeply with a person before in my life. We have tons in common and never talk about shallow things, we always talk about real things instead of all the garbage surface questions of the mainstream world like "hows your day" "what are you doing today" "what class did you have". No we talk about real things like the applications of family therapy in treatment of schizophrenia. I plan on letting her know how I feel about her at the end of the term. I know shes interested in me as well, but we both have very demanding class schedules and I don't want to put anymore stress on the both of us than i have to.

Either way it goes I'll still have made all of this progress, and come out with a new best friend on top of it all. That's pretty fucking win if you ask me!

Thank you all for reading my posts and your continued moral and social support. Have a wonderful day nofappers!

 

Alright guys after quite an absence I'm back! Man oh man has life been a blast the past few weeks.

I'm getting A's on all of my assignments that I've turned in so far and I'm receiving praise from all of my professors. Multiple opportunities have come up and I've jumped out at them. I've had an interview for a paid position as a teaching assistant for the psych classes on campus, as well as a paid internship for a position as a research assistant. One of my professors and I are publishing her psychology research over Christmas break so I'll have my name out there on some research as well!

I've been working the same dead end job at KFC and A&W for the last 3 years. I've always disliked this job (mainly because I've been a vegetarian for the last 7 years of my life) and even though I don't agree with how the store operates and the ways we are forced to lie to our customers and hand out old food, I'm actually having good days at work now. I can make it through a whole shift working the drive thru without getting frustrated by rude customers, and always go home with a smile. The days still drag by sometimes but I don't really get frustrated by being bored there like I used to. I've learned a lot about how to maintain control of my emotions especially my anger at work. By thinking about situations rationally and telling myself I have no reason to be angry since it won't help the situation at all I can calm myself down pretty quickly and return to being happy. It feels really weird at first when you realize there's no point to ever feeling anger at all (aside from life threatening situations) and when you stop yourself from being angry you become much less hostile in all social interactions.

And finally I'm having a great time with that girl still. We've both been massively busy with our school work, so we haven't seen each other much lately. But every time we get to hang out she always expresses how excited she is to actually get to hang out with me. When we do get to see each other as always its amazing. We're pretty close now and she keeps including me in future plans. Last night while she was over for dinner she invited me to a few events this weekend and wants to take me hiking for a week with her parents when they come to visit. So at this point I'm just going to tell her how I feel the next time we hang out. I've grown a lot as an individual and I'm to the point that either way this goes, whether she says yes or no, I'll still have an amazing friend that can push me to work and think in ways I never have before.

Anyways I have to go off to work.
Wish me luck guys! I'll keep you all updated on my journey!
Have a wonderful day fellow Fapstronauts!

 

Anne - I appreciate your praises and I'm happy I was able to motivate you. You are able to do as well as me, and you WILL do just as well if not better than I have, remember that. Keep your head up and keep moving forward, every small step you take, every god though you have, is one step closer to you achieving your goals. I've read a few of your posts and I think you might benefit from this stoic point of view about life (it helped me a ton). Stoics believe that the universe keeps repeating itself and it will always repeat itself exactly as it did before. So after you die millions of year after the whole universe will have ran its course and come crashing together in a big cosmic disaster, another big bang will happen and the universe and everything in it will start over the same exact way as before . Earth will start again too and history will repeat itself exactly, down to the very t. This means in your next life you will experience the exact same things you have already lived through and in the future you will face the exact same things as well. With no control over the actual events of your life, the only thing you CAN control are your own thoughts and emotions. Though everything will happen to you exactly the same way as before, you can control how you veiw these events. Do you sit through them and pity yourself? Or do you stand up and take the initiative to put a smile on and try to see the lighter side of life. Every bad thing had an equally good thing to go along with it. I always find a positive in the situation even if it all seems bad you can always learn something about yourself, or the people involved in the situation that will benefit you.

Sorry if I didn't explain it too clearly its a difficult concept!

Targon - Hey there bud, I'm glad my thread could inspire you! I thought I'd answer your questions so you can see what my situation is kinda like. I'm 22 years old and in college. Balancing interests is a bit difficult sometimes. I'm a very impulsive person so aside from scheduled things that I need to do like classes, meetings, and work (I work 25-30 hours a week at a fast food restaurant) I usually just kinda go with the wind. Obviously I plan things with my friends, around school and work, but some things are mainly impulsive (ie friend texts me and asks me to come smoke a bowl, have dinner, go to a party, I always say yes; unless I have waaaay too much homework). It also really helps balance things out when you hang out with people that have similar interests. The girl I've been spending most of my time with is very dedicated to her school work as well so we study together a lot so I can kill two birds with one stone right there. I do work out as well. I used to think going to the gym was dumb, but then I started going. From day one I started running for 30 minutes without stopping, then working my ab's for about a half hour daily and alternating chest/arm/back workouts throughout the week. I honestly don't have that difficult of a workout routine but the results are amazing. I now wake up looking forward to working out and I can see the benefits as well. I've went from slightly chubby to having a pretty defined body, for the first time in my life my ab's are visible and I almost have a six pack, start working out YOU WILL LIKE IT, I can promise you that.

Here's how I order my priorities:
1. Class and Work (obviously can't ever skip those)
2. Hanging out with the girl (this is before homework because we do a ton of it together so you may want to order yours differently)
3. Gym
4. Homework
5. Friends
6. Extra curriculars
7. Hobbies and video games (before NoFap this definitely was #2 right after friends)

As for goals dude, I would set the goal to never PMO again, that's my goal. I believe while it can be constructive to set small goals so you get a sense of accomplishment, they can also be your downfall. For example after achieving 6 small goals and getting up to one month pmo free you may think "I achieved so much already one time won't hurt". Going for the lifelong goal is great and helped me quit smoking 3 years ago, and I've never smoked a cigarette since. When you start telling yourself daily you won't do something ever again, and especially when you tell others you form an accountability network, it seems kind of weird at first but almost all of my friends know my views on pmo and that keeps me from slipping. But just work on your will power, something that helped me was reading another poster's comment about how they "formed a covenant with their eyes" This means that they made a promise with themselves never to objectify a woman again by looking at their butt, cleavage or anything like that. Doing this will help tremendously with your confidence since your no longer hiding anything from women (you lose the subconscious guilt you've built up over time from from staring at them like objects) and it will help stop urges. The first place you look when you don't have a screen is the scene, but if your scene consists of looking at women eye level instead of chest/butt level you will tremendously reduce your urges as well.

Angel Ace - Thank you for your kind words. Its actually your post that's brought me back to keep posting on here. Knowing that its helping to inspire other motivates me to not only post on here, but to go out and do even better than I currently am to show all of us that we can do this. All of us can be confident, calm, collected, social, and happy with ourselves. All of us can stop pmo and improve ourselves. All of us can make this world a better place, and what better place to start than by making a better self for us to share with the world. With all of our bright and smiling faces out in the world bringing hope to those and teaching others how to overcome their problems who knows what we can achieve!

Everyone else - I appreciate you all so much! I would like to thank each of you for reading my journey. As much as I inspire all of you, you all inspire me, more than you will ever know. Thank you for giving me the motivation to quit pmo and for the continued support you've all shown me. I hope that my posts will continue to help you and I wish you all the best of luck on your journey!

 

Hey there everyone! Sorry for the absence but life's been pretty hectic this last month with finals and all. I hope you've all had a great holiday season and happy new years to all of you as well!

In my last posting I talked about how I was going to tell my friend how I felt about her, and to be honest I never actually did. Every time I was about to say it (I tried literally like 6-7 different days) something would happen that would completely stop me from saying it. I feel like I'm stuck in a movie, one of the times I tried telling her the fire alarm rang and we were evacuated from the building, another time just as I was about to tell her, her mom called (they talk for hours) and it being almost midnight so I let them talk and went on my way planning to tell her the next day. The next day right before seeing her I found out a very good friend of mine had hung themselves in their house, just a few blocks from us, so I obviously wasn't in the right mindset to say anything about how I felt toward her. Then Christmas break came and she went back to Hawaii for the holidays, and I'm not one to text these things to someone, I feel like its only right you say it in person.

So fast forward to now. She just got back yesterday, but is sick right now. I'm going over later to hang out with her and exchange Christmas gifts with her. I mad her a jewelry chest out of an old sodden cigar box, some fabric, stuffing, and cardboard (for dividers so there's a bunch of different sized cubby holes to separate stuff) and it looks pretty awesome. I also told her we're doing something on the 8th and not to make any plans that day. Her favorite sport is basketball and she's always wanted to go to an NBA game but never has, so I scored us a couple tickets to the blazers vs. heat game for us. She still doesn't have any idea what we're doing and even after all the hints she thinks we're going hiking somewhere so I think she'll be pretty surprised. I plan to tell her how I feel at dinner after the game.

Wish me luck guys, this time no matter what crazy movie gimmicks life throws at me I WILL tell her how I feel about her. And either way it goes I'll still be much happier than just sitting here wondering forever.

This is the jewelry box, in the picture its missing one of the bottom pieces but I already wrapped it so I can't take a picture of the completed box.

 

Another update for all of you reading this out there:

She bombarded me with texts as soon as she woke up on Saturday and then said she was walking to the hardware store and asked if I needed anything, which i actually did need a few things to re-work the lock on my pick-up. So we decided to meet up at the hardware store. She was talking to one of the clerks trying to find the right lightbulb for a lamp and dropped the whole conversation when she saw me and ran up and hugged me for the first time and for a good while too. Even if she didn't mean anything by the hug other than that she missed me, its still a really big step (she doesn't like other people touching her unless shes very comfortable with them and only hugs her family and roommate). So even if she has no interest in me outside of friendship, I'm happy with knowing that she values me that much as a friend.

So after I suggested we go to a different store so she could find the right lightbulb, we went to my house and I fixed the lock on my truck and we hung out for a few hours and talked. She realized she was late to meet up with a friend so I walked her home so she could give me the gifts she got for me. She got me some amazing gifts: A bunch of gauges for my ears, an oriental bowl with bamboo chopsticks, and an awesome retro hat that looks like something from the fresh prince, I don't ever wear hats but holy fuck this ones awesome so now I do. She opened her gift which I had locked shut and wrote in her card that they were some old Jamaican cigars that I had come across and told her to take a look at them, she opened it up to find the real Christmas card, a book, and a beautiful jewelry box. I've never even seen her wear jewelry other than the same necklace but she loved it and ran into her room to stuff all of her jewelry in it. She still doesn't know about the blazer's vs. heat game we're going to, but shes still excited for whatever she thinks it is. I'm trying to come up with some more clues so she can piece it together a bit more, but the only things I can think of now are waaay too obvious. I'm about to head off to her house now so she can trim up my hair. Still nervous about thursday, but still really confident in myself. Either way thursday goes, the weight will be lifted off of my shoulders and I can start to wonder more about other things, wish me luck guys!