r/selfimprovement

My main yes or no question: Have I reached a point where enjoying actual sex will be realistically more difficult than the average person? Or can I "return" back to my og state lol?

Been consuming porn since I was 15. I had never had a sexual experience with a guy until I turned 19 or 20.

I noticed that when I lost my virginity, I felt no throbbing sensation. I felt no arousal. I felt nothing basically.

He was eating me out. He was fingering me. He was penetrating me, but for some reason, it didn't feel that amazing.

I can only orgasm when watching porn alone, and sometimes, I have to sit at a certain angle to properly orgasm.

I will say at one point in my late teens I was watching porn compulsively multiple times a day. I used it to cope.

What made you healthier…mind, body, and soul?

I have known since I was a kid that no one will save me. And that I am 100% responsible for saving myself.

My family definitely doesn't help. It is a good day when they don't add to the problem list instead.

Therapy? Yeah, been in therapy for more than 2 years. Nothing really changed.

So eh. No one will save me. But past experience tells me that me saving myself is not going too well either. How do people even do it?

I (20M) just finished my second year of university and have moved back home for the summer. Being back in the place I grew up has really started to make me think of my life and everything I regret. Stuff I wish I'd done differently in high school, things and friendships I could have had but don't because of anxiety and lack of being mentally present. I have no idea what I want to do with my life and am honestly just really lonely. Any advice on dealing with this?

Note: I am officially diagnosed with Autism and ADHD

Good day folks,

I know this might be little long but please bear with me. I'm 21 yrs old in my 4th year of bachelors. My daily routine is sleeping at 11pm waking up at 7, doing breakfast with food that is our own little farm like eggs, butter ,bread etc all are our own made. I normally take a bath in the evening when I'm back from the uni so in the morning I just brush, wash my hair and go to university. I'm good in studies and do work a lot in my exams. I take 7k to 10k steps everyday, includes both my daily routine and some walking exercise. I eat homemade cooking mostly and avoid fast foods. I go to gym 4-6 times a week depending on when I'm free. I have good relationship with my parents and siblings. I'm still single tho. Never been in a relationship, don't talk to girls that much because of respect. I always complete task that I commit to but it's so hard for me to build up this commitment. My hobbies are gardening and gaming.

Now one thing I don't like about my life is the phone addiction or rather insta reels addiction. Now the reels are just about self improvement and some pranks etc but I'm still addicted. I'm on insta at least 2 hrs of my day which I don't like. I can't seem to watch long form content nowadays.

I want the suggestion from you guys on

1. How to get rid of phone addiction

2. What more can I improve in my daily life

3. Any suggestions related to if I want to start working (any particular skills to learn....ik Ai/ML )

Thank you in advance

Why is being turned down amazing you say! Here's why, in the past I'd always wonder, then I'd regret not asking. This time, I met someone I was interested in, took the plunge and they said no! Now I know,, I have no regrets, and I can hopefully find someone else. It was one of the most liberating moments of my life just asking. It was freaking exhilarating these are the moments life is made for. It didn't end the way I wanted it too but one day it will. And when it does I am going to post about that too. The only way to get a yes its to be able to humbly take a no! BTW she said we could be friends, and women are friends with other women which means maybe she has a friend that she thinks I will jive with one day.

I’m 30F and I’ve never been in a relationship, im scared of being in one. I’ve had a couple of “friends” but nothing serious as I don’t see myself in a relationship. My biggest problem is that my self esteem is almost non existent so I can’t take serious any compliment or anything in general that comes from a guy. I’m very insecure and distant in person, but at the same time I get attached so easily online as I used to be a chronically online person (and I’ve suffered a lot because of that which scares me more). I don’t know how to fix that. I would love to be in a beautiful relationship with someone, but at the same time I’m so afraid of suffering.

I have been locking tf in for the past year improving myself. On paper I am an above average guy for my age.

I have never had a girlfriend before in my life only hookups and talking stages. I will have a girlfriend I find attractive before 25.

So I'm pretty weird, everytime I talk about things I like it's like people make me learned to keep that for me since I'm a kid. I get rejected and mocked for wearing the clothes I want to wear (I'm a guy and I fucking love wearing skirts, things like that, not even that crazy). All my life everyone learned me to reject myself and fit but this version of me, I hate it, I can't go out anymore, I don't want other peoples to see me because I know it's not me, it's weird, I want to improve that and accept myself for who I am even if it's sometime out of the norm but it's freaking hard, how do I do that ?

He never told me loved me, he never spoke life into me, never asked me about my well being, never said I’m proud of you. We never hugged, he don’t give me real advice, no sit down talks or anything. In this household, we literally have to bathe outside or from the kitchen sink, because he doesn’t want to fix the shower, we have to use buckets to flush the toilet, because he doesn’t care about getting that fixed, we brush our teeth, and wash our hair from the kitchen sink because bathroom sinks don’t work. I share a bed with my mom, because my room is infested, him and my mom relationship is basically non existent they’re married with no connection it’s just like roommates, so he sleeps on the couch. Everything is clutter. He doesn’t care how do I accept the fact that this is just what it’s gonna be?

Lately I’ve been wondering how many of us slowly adapt to stress without noticing it until something small suddenly feels overwhelming. I work in a creative field, and for a long time I told myself I was “handling it” because I was still productive, still social, still checking everything off my list. But recently I realized I’ve been treating constant mental exhaustion like it’s just part of adulthood. It kind of felt like gradually turning down the brightness on my own life and not noticing until everything looked dull.

For people who’ve gone through this, what was the moment that made you realize your lifestyle or mindset needed to change? Was it one big event, or more of a slow buildup that finally became impossible to ignore? And once you realized it, what actually helped you reset instead of slipping back into the same habits?

I am home from college for the summer and I have decided I wanted to get rid of things, redecorate my room a bit, donate old clothes I won't wear anymore and buy new ones, etc. As I am looking for inspiration, I am realizing I don't know what I like anymore. I don't know what style I like to dress in, or how I want my space to look at all. I don't even know what color I want my bedsheets to be.

How do you figure out what you like when nothing seems appealing?

I'm 25 years old and I grew up with Asian parents, specifically a Filipino family.

They have both good times and bad times.

Let's talk about the rough moments. My parents are Gen-X. Sometimes, they stigmatize too much about what I enjoy such as anime. I hate when my parents intrude my room and yell badly over my enjoyment like watching and drawing anime. I tried arguing at them to stop, but they never listen to me. Instead, they just want me to shut up and listen.

I also hate when my parents are fixated about the bad comments about me, even if I'm trying to defend myself that I'm not. They even get mad at me for deviating, as in stick to one method only. They're driving me nuts.

When my dad gave me load by app, he got mad at me for using a different data load of the same company. I told him I just forgot. I couldn't use that app because I ran out of phone space. My dad thinks that I chose it because "I like it." Like, he's stuck in his own assumptions about me. I tried to defend myself, but he never listened. I wanted my parents to buy me a phone but they purchased one for my two younger siblings instead. My family is lower middle class by the way, and it's a bad time during the world economy fucked by Trump. I wanted to buy my phone with my personal money, but too many circumstances like spending for other needs (most of the time) ruined my plans.

I want to escape the shithole so badly. I got a job, but got laid off after four months due to cost-cutting. I sometimes envy on rich families (especially one or two rich relatives) that I should have been born to them instead of my current family. I have a BS Architecture degree. I've been applying more jobs, but most of them ghosted me. My old work was just closer to home and my salary is just OK.

I couldn't afford therapy. Just asking some same problems about me on Quora and Reddit (especially r/selfimprovement and r/lifeadvice). It's all I can do without my annoying parents interfering about me.

 I keep reading about CEOs and founders who wake up at 5 AM to meditate, exercise, and plan their day. It sounds great in theory, but I've tried similar routines and always fall off after a few weeks. Life gets in the way, I travel for work, or I just get exhausted. For those of you who have kept a morning habit going for over a year, what actually made it stick? And do you think the 5 AM wakeup is necessary, or just a flex?

I’m stressed cause I need a job. I had quit my retail one over a few things and there wasn’t many hrs. Anyone who doesn’t struggle with generalized anxiety or social won’t understand this at all. If you think all I need to do is exposure therapy I’ll happily tell you I do it in stores, I do it in groups and anywhere I can be social honestly. It just sucks no retail places are hiring and fast food is just strict has way higher standards, as well people care for their jobs as they are the ones keeping up with the restaurant. If I apply get hired and do bad it’s just gonna be hell for me. I’m legit scared not because of the people but because I feel like I really will mess up in a fast pace environment like that. I will look like a lost duck going back and fourth or staring to see what to do next and I’m not a idiot it’s just fast pace stresses me out alot where I lose the flow sometimes.

I wish I was on Lexapro again cause it helped so much with everything but I’m waiting for insurance approval. I’m 20F and it sucks feeling this useless . Like when I walk in everyone will likely talk shit behind my back for slowing the place down. I overthink and am hard on myself cause I just know from experience when I had my first fast food job it wasn’t amazing .

 I have been working on myself for a few months now. Better sleep, regular exercise, cutting back on things that were dragging me down. The strange part is that the people who were most worried about me before seem to have gone quiet now that I am actually doing better. It feels like they were more comfortable with me struggling than with me changing. Has anyone else experienced this kind of silence or distance from friends after making real progress? How do you deal with the loneliness of outgrowing your old patterns without losing the people you care about?

My mother’s been forcing me to attend personal finance classes, courses, and seminars since I was 12 as even though we were destitute it didn’t have to stay that way.

In college I studied nursing, took everything she forced me to learn over the years and I’m the first generation to have 0 debt, a net worth above $200,000 despite paying for my college, braces, and car all on my own.

Now of all the things I’ve learned over the years here are a few I wish I made sooner.

#1. Has to be tracking my expenses because as soon as I started doing this i realized I not only had an egregious Amazon addiction, but I was spending damn near $8000 a year on fast food. I’m far from perfect by any means but I can say with complete certainty just tracking where my money was going to the dollar made me spend less.

#2. The 12.5% rule, I learned this one from David Bach who’s angle on it was you work 8hrs on average each working day don’t you think you deserve to keep at least one hour for yourself? Once I started autoinvesting 12.5% pre AND post tax I started feeling much better about my financial position.

#3. Focusing on savings rate not amount
The one determining factor of when you retire isn’t how much you’ve saved, but how fast you’re saving it. If you save 50% a year (which is WILD) you save 1yrs income each year and will have 15x your salary in 15 years. If however you save 10% that’s 3x your annual salary in 30 years. Point being the less you spend the less you have to save for more spending down the line.

How about y’all?

I've been a paper guy my whole life. Every morning I'd write out what I needed to get done, cross things off, tear it up at the end of the day. Except I'd lose the sheet. Or have to rewrite the same recurring stuff for the 400th time.

Every app I tried felt like too much. Tried Trello, tried all the usual stuff. Still too much noise for something that should be dead simple.

Then I came across the story of Trent Dyrsmid. You might know it from Atomic Habits.

23 year old rookie broker. Small bank in Canada. Nobody expected much.

Two jars on his desk. One filled with 120 paperclips. One empty.

Every sales call he made, he moved one over. Didn't stop until the jar was empty.

18 months later he'd brought in $5 million.

No secret sauce. No system. Just a jar and a rule: don't stop until it's empty.

He didn't track results. He tracked the work. Simple idea. Somehow that was the one that actually landed.

So I took the concept and threw it into Notion. Not Trello, not anything with features baked in. Just three columns I built myself. Tasks on the left. In progress in the middle. Done on the right. Move each one across until they're all gone. First time anything productivity related actually stuck for me.

Started using it with friends and colleagues and suddenly everyone was using the same system.

But I just wanted to watch the pile get smaller. That visual of tasks moving across until there's nothing left. Notion could do it but it wasn't built for it.

So I built a proper version.

Called it Marbles.

Same idea, just swapped the paperclips for marbles. Trello, Notion, every other board app is built around projects and workflows. This is just built around one feeling: emptying the jar.

Three columns. Not Started. In Progress. Done. Recurring tasks stick around so you're not rewriting the same thing every morning.

Anyone else gone down this road? Happy to drop the link if anyone wants to try it.

I was at a company party when a coworker asked me what I actually wanted to do, not what I was doing. It was a simple question but it caught me off guard because I realized I had been going through the motions for years without any real direction. T...

I want to smell good that i can vouch for my smell then other good points