I think it’s only fair to have a short summary of myself, as to give credibility on what’s happening with my life and with what I post here.
I always relied on motivation. I always was a procrastinator. I always had my share of both super productive periods and super slacking periods. I worked at a company where I could slack all day, and that’s what I did; and I was OK with it, I played games all day long.
At a certain point I had enough, quit, learned to program and joined a company where the first 1–2 years were extremely productive, but the next 2–3 not so much; without much details, I knew I was plateauing myself, yet I didn’t leave until long after that.
I delayed personal projects time and time again, ultimately meaning some ended up never launching at all. I kept losing sight of my true goals and life-long desires due to meaningless daily struggles like ”my boss treated me badly” or ”I’m not getting enough recognition” and due to a wrong philosophy like ”this company isn’t worth it” or ”I’m not being paid enough”.
I have been obese my whole life, up to this year. At 189cm, I was up at 136 kg at some point. I managed to lose weight a few times, reaching as low as 115 kg, but always going back to ~125 kg (127 this year).
I never ate healthy, never cared what I eat and drink. My parents almost begged me for 14 years to stop drinking coke and other sodas, not to mention losing weight and exercising.
I never exercised my whole adult life and for most of my teen life, with a few exceptions — a year here, 6 months there, 3 months there.
I always had a bad temper. I was getting pissed off quite easily, especially in traffic.
I don’t think I have read any book my whole adult life, up to this year.
But lately, I’ve been trying (and succeeding!) to rely less on motivation and more on willpower, habits and discipline.
I changed my philosophy in regards to work, for example: ”the company might not be worth it, but I am” or ”the sum I’m being paid shouldn’t affect the quality of work I’m doing”. I started blocking struggles from clouding my goals: ”it doesn’t matter if the boss treated me badly, because I’m putting in the effort because I believe it’s the right thing, at the very least for me” or ”it doesn’t matter how much recognition I receive”, for the same reason listed above.
I changed my philosophy and attitude towards myself, others and life, in general.
I stopped getting pissed off. I’m as calm as I never thought I’d be.
I started caring about health. Maybe reaching 127 kg this year triggered my panic alarm, dude, again??. With very few exceptions: I stopped drinking anything except water (a bit extreme, I know, but I have a lot of weight to get rid of); I stopped eating junk food, sweets and carbs, I started eating more vegetables & smoothies. I started exercising 3x/week and meditating daily. I lost 25 kg this year, in 8 months. All of this without a real struggle; it became the new normal; except carbs, which still find their way, but I’m fully aware of what’s going on.
I read ~15 books, countless articles and seminars on self-improvement. I wrote summaries about all of the books and the seminars.
Lastly, just like I mention it on my about page, even though I never had the worry of tomorrow and my parents did offer me everything I needed, I didn’t have a splendid childhood, I made some bad mistakes in my teens and a lot more as a young adult, I’m not wealthy, nor famous. At the time of this writing I have ~480 followers on Twitter and ~1000 visitors/month after 5 years of blogging; at the start of this year these numbers were quite a bit lower.
I’m mentioning all of this so you can see that anyone can do it. All my life I’ve been watching motivational speakers say ”if I could do it, you can do it”, ”if a man like me made it, you can make it”, but I always thought that’s just encouraging talk, or that it’s easy for them, because they’re rich and/or famous.
Well, I can now see their perspective, and I can wholeheartedly say that if I managed to do it, you can do it as well. Join me in my story and learn about my road of improvement; there’s no after, because I now realise that we should strive to improve ourselves our whole lives; the moment you stop moving forward is the moment you start going backwards.
I will be writing about my journey, about what I learned, what I experimented with, what struggles I had, what worked, what I read, ideas and various topics. If my writing improves even one person’s life, it will mean the world to me, so don’t hesitate to drop me an email to let me know.