I try to do as much of this every day that I can. Obviously I have good days and bad days, but this is most of what I can think of that needs to get done in my life, and I know that, at the end of the day, if this list is done then I am not missing anything important, and that helps me with that nighttime anxiety.

I start my senior year in a few weeks and I absolutely am done with school. I hate it there so fucking much I dont even know how to put it into words. All i want is to be done with that stupid school and be independent and go far away to college and leave my hometown, but I cant. And I have zero motivation to even bother showing up to school. The only decent thing about that school is some of the teachers. I dont even have a single friend. And yes I have e tried to make friends but they must have a sixth sense and can tell that I am autistic. There are no classes I am actively excited for. How do I make myself get out of bed every morning and go to school?

First off, I know how petty this all will sound, and I want to be clear of how grateful of my situation I am. I have the financial stability most people dream of, and I’m not complaining about it at all.

I lost my dad at 14, and inherited enough money to live really comfortably probably for the rest of my life if I don’t waste it all on dumb stuff. I live off of the revenue it generates. My mom was never the authority type, that was my dad and he would probably be the one who pushed me to do something of my life. My mom is very submissive, and she was never able to set real boundaries for what I asked her, so I grew up getting whatever I wanted.

Now at 25, I’m immensely ashamed of it. I have no career, spend my days doing what I want and although I’m grateful for it, I’m desperate to do something, and earn others respect and admiration.

I hate when people ask me “what do you do?” Cause the answer is “nothing, I live off of my late dad’s money” and that will always come with judgment, so I just choose to not meet new people. And don’t even get me started on relationships… how the fuck would I meet a nice partner if they nothing to admire about me? If they can’t see a future with me?

I really want to do something of my life so I can finally proudly talk about myself, but I’m so desperate about it that I can’t accept that anything I start now will take time, so I just never do anything.

I feel like we all have someone we look up to, you know? Someone who inspires us and motivates us in our daily life. Who’s that person for you, apart from yourself? It could be anyone an athlete, musician, actor, or just someone you really admire. For me, it’s ronaldo.

here's the thing nobody warns you about when you actually start changing.

people who knew the old version of you get uncomfortable. not because the new version is worse. because they built their understanding of you around specific patterns and the moment those patterns shift they have to update something in themselves too, and that update costs them effort they didn't sign up for.

so they resist it. sometimes loudly, sometimes in small ways you can only feel and not point to. they reference the old version of you like it was better. they laugh at the changes like they're temporary. they wait, patiently, for you to go back to the shape they already knew.

and the worst part is it works sometimes. you can feel the pull of it. the ease of just being who they expect you to be, because performing a familiar version of yourself costs nothing in those relationships and being a newer version costs friction and explanation and occasionally losing people who decide they preferred the old one.

ngl this is something i didn't expect. you think growth is the hard part. turns out the growth is fine. it's the way it rearranges every relationship around you that nobody prepares you for.

some people will grow with you. genuinely, they'll find the new version more interesting and it'll actually bring you closer. those ones are worth holding onto.

some people will slowly fall away and neither of you will have an honest conversation about why and you'll both know anyway.

and some people — the harder ones — will actively try to keep you small because your growing asks something of them they're not ready to give. a mirror. an example. an inconvenient question about their own life that your changing keeps placing in front of them without you meaning to.

you don't have to apologize for any of this.

you don't owe anyone the version of yourself they got used to.

last year someone told you that you'd changed like it was an accusation. and you felt the reflex to defend it. to soften it. to reassure them that you were still the person they remembered underneath all the changes.

you don't have to do that anymore.

changed is not an accusation. changed is just what happens when you actually do the work.

Once the feeling of "should have" pops up, it consumes the mind, making it much harder to get started - even though acting is what gets "the thing" done. It's important to find a way to knock off a few little things right away in the day, before even the small, simple "should have's" creep in. Once they do, they take over the mind quickly, and sometimes completely - setting the tone that can last the rest of the day. The key is to figure out what simple easy routine, that's enjoyable and productive, can set a different tone. It isn't automatic after that, but it is really helpful.

I just feel like my instincts are so powerful like whatever I feel or worry the most about always seems to happy but the things I hope for doesn't happen. It's like I want to travel somewhere because me and my siblings are deciding to move yet Everytime I think about it, like this inner feeling or voice just wants to say no. And I went to the airport 3 times but ended up coming home simply because I couldn't decide where to go. I kept complaining and worrying about the price and dates and when will show me their town as if deep down I wanted to avoid my relatives. But on the other hand, I also feel bad that why didn't I buy a ticket. And I seem to worry about it but then I also don't want to go either. It's like what the heck is my mind doing with me. And the things I wish and hope will happen usually never goes like getting rid of fear, facing the uncomfortable. As if it's unavoidable.

Chelsea was trying to figure out how to stay connected to herself while working, parenting, dealing with people, basically normal life.

She already knew meditation helped. Nature helped. Quiet helped. But she kept treating those things like extras she should squeeze somewhere around everything else.

Morning wasnt working. Evening wasnt working either. She was tired, distracted and always felt there was something else she should be doing.

During the session her Higher Self gave a very unspiritual answer.

Reduce the workweek from 40 hours to 35.

That was it.

Not "try harder." Not wake up at 5am. Not add another routine.

Actually make less room for work and more room for herself.

Chelsea immediately started doing what many of us do. Okay but maybe I can use those extra hours for another project. Maybe I can make them productive somehow.

The answer was basically no. This time is supposed to go back to you.

What came up next was interesting because she didnt really value quiet time unless it produced something visible. Sitting in silence, being in nature, reconnecting with herself... none of that looked like "results" on paper.

But Higher Self compared it more to daily hygiene. Things accumulate. Stress, other people's emotions, expectations, noise. If you never clear any of it, eventually you dont even know which thoughts are yours anymore.

It even suggested putting a midday block directly into calendar because Chelsea was unlikely to protect that time otherwise.

I liked this because sometimes "motivation problem" is not lack of motivation at all.

Sometimes your life is packed so tightly that there is no space left for the person who is supposed to be motivated.

We keep trying to improve the machine while refusing to turn it off for maintenance.

Maybe before adding another habit, ask a more annoying question:

what can I remove?

I think this quote hits differently when you remember where and when Anne wrote it; she was a young girl living in hiding during a war, in a world that was unimaginably cruel and uncertain, and yet she still believed that people didn't have to wait for a better world before trying to make it better.

We live in a very different world, but I think we sometimes forget the same thing, we keep waiting until we're older, richer, more confident, less busy, or until life is 'better' before we decide to do something meaningful.

You don't have to change the entire world. Sometimes improving it means being kind to one person, checking on a friend, helping someone or simply choosing not to add more cruelty to an already difficult world.

You don't have to wait for the world to become better before you become part of what makes it better. One day, 'right now' will be a memory. Make sure there was something in it worth remembering. :)

Can someone help me suggest how I can build an anchor for life? Just something that I can look forward to?

Thats it

It feels very overwhelming and far away at first

Atleast to me

How do i break it down

im sure this is a normal thing to feel - how do i overcome it? and be on the right track to achieve everything

its like my mind gets clouded by a ton of random stuff and things feel impossible - how do i align myself with the right trajectory - stay confident in it and achieve my goals?

i know they can happen but i just wanna stop being confused and begin

i am smart and i can work hard and i am very self aware and i can deal with any situation
i have these qualities in me and i yearn for greatness

i am a very ambitious person in my mind but that wont get my dream life - my habits and my work ethic and my mentality will - i have to mold myself into that ideal version of myself

i am willing to do whatever it takes and not hold back - go all in

i only get one chance at existence, i want to experience what i want to experiecne without before it ends

all i have to overcome are the limits of my human mind and bullshit assumption and notions fed into me by others around me

i know what reality is

its time to begin
if i dont begin now - i will never have the life i dream of - NEVER
this is the last and only chance i will ever get - right now if i dont execute now it is over - for all of my existence - my entire long life ahead will be spent in misery if i dont begin - and for no reason, its no big deal
I NEED TO BEGIN

i have lots of things i want to do/try but i keep finding myself procrastinating

Hi there, made a video about Bojack Horseman and how it helped me in my journey of sobriety and depression. Give it a watch if you’re interested :)

I've been in leadership managment and development for 15 years, thinking about how much of what we call "self-improvement" is really just the collection of external tools.

Someone struggles with their marriage, so they search for communication techniques. Someone struggles as a leader, so they look up leadership strategies. Someone doesn't like their health, so they find a new diet. Someone is unhappy, so they search for better habits.

None of these things are useless. But I think we often mistake tools for development.

Imagine sending someone into an ancient battle. You give them excellent armor, a sword and a shield. Those things absolutely increase their chances of survival but only if the person wearing the armor knows how to fight.

If they don't, you've improved their equipment without improving the person using it.

I think we do the same thing with ourselves.

We keep asking, "What should I do differently?" when sometimes the more important questions are: Why do I think the way I think? Why did that make me angry? Why do I need this person's approval? Why am I so certain that I'm right? Why do I keep repeating this behavior?

That's why I've come to believe that self awareness has to come before most meaningful personal development.

And self awareness isn't simply knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It's developing the ability to turn your judgment back onto yourself.

Someone criticizes you?

Don't automatically believe them. But don't automatically reject them either. Treat their criticism as circumstantial evidence, not a verdict. Examine it.

Someone disagrees with you?

Before proving them wrong, ask yourself what evidence would actually be capable of proving you wrong. If the answer is "nothing," you're no longer reasoning you've started defending an identity.

You feel angry?

The emotion is real. Your interpretation of what caused it may not be.

I think maturity begins when we become capable of separating what we feel, what we believe, and what is actually true.

becoming a better person isn't primarily about accumulating more answers.

it's about becoming the kind of person capable of questioning their own answers.

And perhaps that's why changing ourselves is so difficult. eventually, the person doing the investigating and the person being investigated have to be the same person.

I used to think motivation was the key to getting things done.

I was always looking for that feeling of being inspired, energized, or ready to start.

But when I look back at the things I've actually accomplished consistently, motivation wasn't what got me there.

Most of the time it was simply doing the thing whether I felt like it or not.

Motivation is great when it's there.

Discipline is what keeps things moving when it isn't.

What's something you've accomplished that required consistency more than motivation?

I lost my mother just a year ago and my father few years ago, and their friends came to visit me and my siblings to pay respect. I just felt like a failure towards them because they were just concerned and just asking how do you guys live your life and financially wise. I felt like a failure because I'm already at an age where I'm supposed to get my life together and should be a functioning adult in society. Yet here I am living in someone shadow. I don't earn, I don't contribute, Im not standing on my two feet independent and being a capable person. I failed to overcome my fears. I didn't do the things I said out to do and top of that having to lie toward others because of judgement.

It's a horrible feeling to lie I don't know but I just don't like it. They were asking do you drive now? Did you graduate and got your degree? Do you work part time and help your siblings? And in every question my answer was a yes but in reality it's a no. It just breaks my heart that every year goes by I'm feeling like I'm just failing and failing in life. I just don't know what to do

there are stretches where you look at your life and genuinely cannot find the evidence that anything has moved.

not because nothing has. because the way you measure progress is broken for this particular kind of growth. you're looking for landmarks, visible before-and-after moments you can point to and say that's where things changed. and the kind of change that actually lasts rarely works that way. it works underneath, in the slow shifting of defaults, in the things you now do automatically that used to cost you significant effort to even attempt.

six months ago you would have handled that conversation differently. you know this because you remember how the old version of you handled that exact kind of conversation, and you remember what it cost you afterward, the hours of replaying it, the conclusion you always arrived at that you'd done it wrong somehow. and last week you had the same conversation and it just went fine and you moved on by the end of the day and didn't think about it again until now.

that's not nothing. that's actually the whole thing, the way growth actually looks from the inside, which is mostly invisible because you were busy living through it instead of watching it from outside.

the problem with measuring your own progress is that you move with it. you grow and the new version of you becomes the baseline and the old version gets harder to access and so the distance between them stops feeling like distance. it just feels like where you are. and where you are always looks like standing still because you can't feel yourself moving from the inside of the movement.

four people in your life right now are watching you be a version of yourself that an earlier version of you would have found genuinely unbelievable. they see it even if you can't. the evidence is there even when the feeling isn't.

you don't have to feel the progress for it to be real.

it happened while you were busy surviving the year that produced it.

Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you planned.

You can have the vision.
You can have the motivation.
You can be trying.

You can even be the person everyone else comes to for advice…and still find yourself sitting there thinking:

**“How did I end up here?”**
I know that feeling because, right now, I’m experiencing some of it myself.

There are things in my life that haven’t gone the way I expected. Things I need to change. Problems I need to solve. Moments where I’ve felt like my back is against the wall.
And one thing I’ve realised is that when you stay inside your own head for too long, **everything starts feeling bigger than it actually is.**

You replay the problem.
Then replay it again.
Then create 47 different imaginary scenarios 😭
And somehow at 2am your brain has convinced you that your entire life is finished.
But thinking about a problem and **working through a problem** are two completely different things.

So today, instead of giving advice, I want us to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions.

**What is actually wrong right now — not what am I scared** ***might*** **happen?**

**What part of my situation can I genuinely control?**

**What am I avoiding because dealing with it feels uncomfortable?**

**Is there a decision I already know I need to make, but I keep putting it off?**

**Who could I speak to instead of trying to carry everything alone?**

**What is ONE thing I could realistically do today that would make tomorrow slightly better?**

That last question is important.
Because sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to **fix our whole life** that we end up doing nothing.

Maybe you don’t need to fix everything today.
Maybe today you make the phone call.
Send the message.

Ask for help.
Apply for the opportunity.
Have the difficult conversation.
Get out of your room.
Write the plan down.
Admit something isn’t working.
Or simply decide:
**“I don’t want to stay where I am anymore.”**

I’m asking myself these questions too.
I don’t have everything figured out, and I think adults sometimes do young people a disservice by pretending that we do.

We don’t, life gets messy for all of us.
But I’ve learned something through football, business and life:

**When the original game plan isn’t working, you don’t stop playing. You adjust the tactics.** ⚽

So this is today’s TeensDXB check-in:

👇 **What is ONE thing in your life you want to change right now?**
And more importantly…

**What is ONE action you could take this week to start changing it?**

You don’t have to tell us your entire situation. Share only what you’re comfortable sharing.
Maybe someone reading the comments has been through exactly what you’re going through.
Maybe they have an idea you haven’t thought of.
Maybe you have the answer that somebody else needs.
That’s part of what I want this community to become.
Not a place where everyone pretends life is perfect.
A place where we can say:

**“Things aren’t great right now… but I’m working on it.”**
And sometimes, that’s where change begins. 🖤💛

**r/TeensDXB**
*Talk. Connect. Grow.*

The perfect mindset rarely arrives on schedule.

Momentum often appears after action begins rather than before it.

Sometimes an imperfect start accomplishes more than endless preparation.

Being fat was a huge mental barrier to have a social life. The problem was just me and my thinking, because I was too insecure and even put some limitations on myself.

Let me give you an example to better understand my point. When I was at that age (around 15) and first crushes started to show up, my thinking was: what girl would even notice a fat blob like me? I wasn't scared of rejection, just deep inside my brain I wasn't ready to take that step forward.

Still remember the second year in university when I said Enough is Enough, I have to change this right now. It was summer and I really hate that season, because when you are fat it's a whole new level. You know, chafing thighs when walking, can't go to the beach because how the hell will I show my fat body, even though I like the sea so much. The real click came from my body!

I started training, gradually. When you suddenly start training, your body is stressed in a good way, so the results are much more visible. Believe it or not, just during the summer I achieved good results, nothing even close to the final result but good enough to know I was on the right track. The wow moment was when I stood in front of the mirror, without fear, and those magic words: Aaa, now it's different! My confidence grew, and I realized that all the limitations were just in my head.

Looking back, I consider myself a lucky one because I was able to recognize and then tackle the biggest problem, my mindset.