To do list is heavy today, fucking intense day, got sooooo much to do it's gonna be an all nighter. Oh well.
I completed Jordan Peterson's Future Authoring exercise. It takes AGES. See below. Posting for posterity, will edit a link to this post on the OP. I started this on my birthday, and completed today.
The very peripheral goals at the end which aren't my main focus did not get completed in depth because they are not comparable to sorting out my dating life and getting rich.
JORDAN PETERSON SELF AUTHORING SUITE: FUTURE AUTHORING EXERCISE - COMPLETED BY MAC 19/07/2021
THE FUTURE I WILL CREATE - OUTWORKING GOD'S PLAN
One Thing You Could Do Better
I have been lonely for most of my life. I turn 30 today, and have never been on a date, or had any intimacy with another human being. I have not given a tremendous amount of thought on how I became the person I am today, given what was a very difficult and stressful life, it's perhaps not surprising that my overall development was impacted in the way it was. But if I could choose ONE thing that I could do better, that one thing would be connecting with women. I am sinfully untouched and have very low self-esteem because I feel so unloveable and ugly.
In an ideal world, I would choose to be able to connect with women and be able to capture their interest, in a manner that would incentivise them to want to know me, spend time with me, and perhaps even want me to feel good about life.
When things have gone wrong in your development, turning the ship back to course is difficult in the extreme, but to allow myself to dream for a moment, I envisage a world where I do not experience the loneliness that I feel.
Things to Learn About
There are several things I would like to learn more about, firstly, I would like to develop a robust and significant skillset in (a) Digital Marketing, and (b) Business. Thereafter, I would be interested in broadening my intellectual horizons more generally, and digest great works of art, learn from top books and build my overall knowledge base, and enhance my overall thinking and problem-solving ability.
In the next six months, I would like to invest my energies in learning enough about digital marketing to start working in the industry, and in the next two years, I would like to build my overall knowledge base and accumulate the wisdom of the ages. In five years, I would like to have developed an excellent set of mental models and to gain a working understanding of the big ideas in various disciplines.
Improve Your Habits
My habits have improved a lot. I am engaged in a wide range of very healthy, productive habits and I am able to work effectively and move towards achieving small goals. If I was to consider how I could improve my habits, I would say I would like to enhance my focus and powers of retention, study more, and gain higher levels of clarity. I am working on this actively and have made significant progress this year.
Habits in relation to friends and family are not the best. I have had a history in the past of being a rather anxious and neurotic lone wolf, always going it alone, and as such, I have spent more time alone than one would perhaps like. This was an error, and I have a terrible habit of pushing people away. To improve this, I simply must begin to say yes to things, spend more time with friends and family, and take time to recharge in the presence of other human beings. I think social contact is required to maintain your health, so whether one enjoys it or not is irrelevant, I will keep pushing and ensure my calender features significant social activity and outside of learning and study, minimises time alone.
My habits in relationship to health have made great strides. I eat well, follow a 16:8 intermittant fasting template, and do 2 x 24hr water fasts per week. I train in the gym 5 times per week, and perform 3 sprint workouts a week in addition. I enjoy time in nature and hiking. I perform 30 minutes of core work daily do an hour of movement and stretching 5 times per week. Sleep is an area in which I could improve, and for this, I must become consistent with wearing blue blockers after 7pm, using blackout curtains, and getting in bed at a good time (10pm preferably).
I seldom drink, and I do not use any form of drugs.
Your Social Life in the Future
My ideal social life would be composed of a good number of close friends and associates who are motivated, productive, happy, vibrant, and high performing individuals. I would like to have a social life which features some form of organised social activity weekly, and I would like to have friends and associates who are highly motivated to realise their human potential, perform highly, and gain a plethora of meaningful, satisfying life experiences in the span of a lifetime.
The connections I would like to make would be focused on those who are ambitious up and comers with an enormous drive for success and hard work.
Your Leisure Activity in the Future
The leisure activities I would like to be engaged in in the future are: hiking, gym, sports, time in nature, by the sea, observing art, literature, quality film, cultural events, and travel.
I would like to take part in a range of hobbies and build my skillsets, and also, recharge my body, mind and soul in interesting, stimulating experiences, whether they are hiking, training in the gym with a motivated training partner, or enjoying an open mic or comedy night with friends.
Your Family Life in the Future
I would like to find an incredible woman and get married to her. I would like to have several children, 3 or 4. I would like a happy family life where I am able to lead a small tribe of people towards a life marked by a high standard of living and enjoyable, stimulating, soul-enriching experiences.
I would like to be married to a woman who is a loving and kind partner, who supports my ambitions, and believes in me. I would like to be very attracted to her both physically and emotionally, and be able to be my most authentic self and be accepted for it. I am willing to do the work to bring about this life and I accept it will be hard to overcome my significant trauma and attain this. But I will achieve this come hell or high water.
My relationship with my family is quite good, including with my sibling (younger brother). Like all families, there are challenges and different ways of seeing things, but overall, I enjoy the bonds we have.
I am looking forward to starting my own family one day. But there is a lot of work to be done in putting myself together as a man.
Your Career in the Future
In my career, I am interested in work that will enable me to solve problems, feel valued, and make an impact, whilst also enabling me to earn a high-level income of at least £100,000 per year and bring with it a high quality of living that such salaries entail.
Six Months: Having self taught digital marketing and build a portfolio, I will start working in the sector.
Two Years: Work as a middle manager / mid level professional, have responsibilities of budget and staff.
Five Years: Have started my own business(s) using my digital marketing skillset, and sell products and/or services at scale, enjoying significant financial returns.
Qualities You Admire
Two people I admire: David Goggins and Jordan Peterson.
Which qualities do they possess that you wish you had?
David Goggins: Mental strength. David personifies No Excuses, and has been described as 'The King Of No Excuses'. This means the world to me. No matter how seemingly impossible the task may be, David faces it head on, and attacks it with everything he has got, relentlessly. He is willing to fail again and again and again. David NEVER, EVER gives up, and through the brutal life he lives, he has built his brain. He has formed an unstoppable mind that can do only one thing: move forward. Why this means so much to me is that life has hit me incredibly hard, like it did David, and I have been left rather fucked up, traumatised, and frankly, quite sad about how lonely I am. Why I deeply admire David is that he was also beaten hard by life, but found passion and drive to become something. And he did it. Through willpower alone. I cannot imagine how good it would feel like to move forward relentlessly like that and become something greater than I ever even dreamed I could possibly be.
Jordan Peterson: I admire Jordan's intellect, unflappability, intellectual courage, and commitment to his personal value system. Jordan's belief in speaking the truth, and living a meaningful life is inspiring to me, and his integrity as a person is something I admire deeply. Of his qualities that I wish I had, I would say his strength and stability are deeply admirable, Jordan was massacred in the media for many years and many very motivated people were hell-bent on his destruction, yet he remained true to his values and has touched the lives of many millions of people.
The Ideal Future
I want to be a highly competent, skilled, capable, confident, and balanced individual who is high achieving, high performing, and living an interesting, stimulating, meaningful life. I want to run my own company/companies, earn a top 10% income, and enjoy a high standard of living. I want to end up with a loving and happy family, be happily married, and with an abundance of great friendships and connections.
I want these things because they are meaningful to me, and consitute a significant victory, overcoming many obstacles, beating the odds, and turning myself into someone I admire.
I plan to achieve my goals through relentless, constand forward pressure, taking action every second of every moment of every day, and working brutally hard until the very day I die, with strategic time to recharge, back off and recovery through the course.
I am currently putting my plan into action, working on all the areas in which I am weak, with an obsessive focus and drive.
It's personal for me, it's about turning weaknesses into strengths, and taking the clay that life gave me and moulding something incredible about it. What if I could be the guy who was one of the loneliest on planet earth, who was fucked up and overlooked for the first 3 decades of his life, and become something? What if I could enjoy abundance in love, money, and life experiences? How good would that feel? It is personal for me and my desire to succeed is extreme, the fire of motivation burns deep inside of me and there is simply no way I am going to fail, I will work every minute of every day even when it hurts, and come hell or high water, I will win.
The darkness that is in me, composed of past failures and the bitterness of rejection that has plagued me for over a decade is becoming a deep resevoir of motivation and fuel. It is becoming a source of strength. In some regards, I am flipping my situation and taking what was a challenge, a very painful past, and turning it into fuel, into energy, which I will channel into achieving my human potential.
Everyone loves a comeback story. Everyone loves an underdog story. Everyone loves the guy who fights, who beats the odds, who does the impossible because he found a drive inside him to go from nothing to something. What if there is an aftermath? What if we meet our creator? How good would it feel to come to the end of life knowing that you were born in hell, and made it to heaven.
Something I have learned about the human mind is that in some of us, there is an indestrudible desire for survival. There is something deep inside me that will not let me quit on building a better life for myself. Even though I have tried for 12 years, and essentially made only limited progress, the voice in my head and the sense that is deep inside me has simply got stronger and stronger. I know there is something deep inside me that truly, truly longs for success. I know that there is more in me and another person entirely who is fighting to be born. When we step away from the old, we allow the new to manifest.
Upon reflection, it is true that I did make progress in many areas. Perhaps I am being too harsh simply because I am lonely, but I was once, when I was around 21-24, a total anxious trainwreck of a person. Through years and years of daily, concerted effort, I became FAR FAR stronger, more balanced and confident, and really, really drove my anxiety levels down towards the normal range. That was a massive achievement and I am glad about that. But there is still some way to go towards building the life I want. And that is a big motivator for me. To reflect on how far I have come, it becomes easier to imagine that I could get to where I need to get. And maybe there isn't the mountain to climb ahead of me that I think there may be. Perhaps a breakthrough is only round the corner? What I do know, however, is I am willing to do the work, and because of that, I think it will come together.
A Future to Avoid
There is a life that I wouldn't want. A life marred by the spectre of loneliness and isolation, feelings of lack, resentment, and regret. I am at a pivotal moment in my life. I just turned 30, and I can either work relentlessly on making the next 10 years great, happy, satisfying years, or I can get to 40 and be practically dead and buried.
The life I don't want is the following:
I do not want to turn 40 and be lonely. I do not want to get up every day and be an unattractive, overlooked, sad, hopeless man. I do not want to be 40 and have lived a life where no-one ever cared to be with me, wanted me to feel good and whole, and to have never known love or romance. A life where I turn 40 and have had no loving relationships with women, have been on very limited dates, and have been never really been intimate with another human being is quite akin to a living hell for me.
I do not want to turn 40 and have failed to achieve my financial and business goals, and never know what success would feel like, or the feeling of overcoming the odds, beating your excuses, and to know the feeling of going from a hopeless sad lonely case to becoming victorious in life, loved and appreciated by others, and powerful enough to meet the difficulties and challenges of life with grace and poise.
The level of anger I would feel if I continue to live the way I am living is indescribable, it would be an overwhelming fury and self-betrayal that would probably leave me suicidal, because I will know I betrayed myself and consigned myself to a joyless, meaningless existence. The sorrow, pain and regret would wash over me, and though I would attempt to rationalise my outcome, blaming others, the seemingly impossible standards women have for me, or our society at large, I will know that I didn't ammout to anything and in the final analysis, it will only be myself I can blame.
I do not want to miss out on the fun, joy, connection and intimacy life can bring. I have already missed out for 30 years, and missing out for another 10 years would simply lead to my own destruction. I would be cynical in the extreme, resentful of the very burden of life.
People make bad decisions. People quit too soon, and at the first sight of pain. But what if our capacities lie dormant within us, and can only manifest when we live in the fire for many, many years? What if, on the other side of suffering, there is success? What if I got to 40 and chose comfort over suffering, and cast myself into the inferno of overwhelming loneliness and wasted potential. I am at a critical juncture and I can go left like many who are in my position would do, lamenting the difficulties of the road and the psychological torment that marks much of the road I travel, or I can go right, the path of MOST RESISTANCE, reserved for only the most ruthless and fearless of warriors. I simply have to go right, and so, I have done so.
The pain of constant rejection, deep scarcity, and total inability to spark any form of interest whatsoever in the opposite sex is hurtful, but it is INFINITELY superior to the fate that waits for me unless I work relentlessly on improving myself. The life marked by scarcity and intimate rejection is too brutal to even consider. I am not living that life. I will not allow it.
My Main Goal
OUTWORKING GODS PLAN: THIS TIME, IT'S PERSONAL
Become an attractive, well-put-together, powerful, successful man who lives a life of personal, financial, and romantic abundance.
Goals I Want to Achieve
Physical Transformation
I will transform my body. My immediate goal is to get to 200lbs in bodyweight (at 6 ft 5), and then, cut down as much as necessary to reveal a full set of abs.
Evaluating Your Motives
This goal is TRULY important.
If I didn't achieve it, it would quite literally destroy my whole life.
In the competitive world in which we live, it is not an option to have an average or below average physique if you are a man who is going to make something of yourself. By having fat on your body, and not having a muscular, well-developed, balanced, strong, fit, healthy body, you will be unable to compete with other men who do.
My experience in the dating market has been damn near excruciating. Upon analysis, this outcome is due to my weight, and being overweight. That is, however, a factor within my control, and I absolutely must, as a priority, become as lean as possible, with significant and well-developed, proportional muscle mass.
Until I get to 190lbs, I will not be allowed to complain about women finding my unattractive, or the lack of any real meaningful female contact in my life. Too bad. Be better. No one cares, work harder.
Considering the Broad Personal and Social Impact of Goals
Disciplined success in physical transformation will greatly support the nurture of healthy self-esteem, a sense of worth, and a feeling of being worthy of love, affection, connection and intimacy.
My personal life will change as a consequence. Most importantly, there will be women who find me attractive, and the package I will be presenting to the world will be of quality that is sufficient to compete favourably in the dating marketplace, and gain the interest, respect, and appreciation of the opposite sex. As such, I will be finally, after 30 years, be able to build something of a 'normal' dating life, with a view towards moving in the direction of a successful, active, highly stimulating and rewarding dating life.
Transforming my body, building self-esteem and confidence, and elevating my dating life will have a positive impact on the way in which other people perceive me. I will gain access to new opportunities, I will strengthen my network, and I will be able to push forward aggressively in work, career, and finances.
Finally, in improving myself, I will present a happier, more successful human being to the world, and will be able to support those around me in achieving their goals and enjoying success, whilst also providing a powerful case study to those who come after me that you can come from absolutely nothing, have not a glimmer of hope for success, and have known over 10 years of soul-destroying defeat, and you can still win the fight in spectacular fashion.
Considering the Detailed Strategies for Goal Attainment
I must eat a healthy, nourishing diet, whilst following an intermittent fasting protocol of an 8 hour feeding window and a daily 16 hour fast. I will also practice 24 hour water fasts 2 times per week.
I must train hard in the gym 5 times per week. This will support the building of muscle mass, a better hormonal environment, and the development of an aesthetically pleasing physique.
I will perform sprint workouts 3 times per week, and go on long hikes on the weekend.
By the end of December 2021, I must weigh 200lbs. This will require a further weight loss of 25lbs from this moment (July 19th 2021).
Thereafter, once I have reached 200lbs, I must continue to lose bodyfat until my abdominal plate is visible. This, I estimate, will requite a further loss of 20lbs, that is, a bodyweight of around 180lbs.
Identifying Potential Obstacles and their Solutions
Lack of consistency with diet could be an issue. Breaking the principles of intermittent fasting, especially during 24hour water fasts, is a risk. To mitigate this risk, I must be prepared to develop very strong discipline and self-control.
Lack of consistency with training could be an issue. If I allow my mind to rationalise, or to feel run down and tired, it may become very difficult to go to the gym. I must embody a No Excuses mindset and simply not allow myself to miss the gym. Furthermore, I will need to ensure my recovery is adequate, and that sleep and nutrition are dialled in.
Monitoring Progress towards Desired Goals
When: December 25th 2021, I will weigh 200lbs.
Evidence of Progress: Weekly weigh-ins will demonstrate gradual, incremental weight loss.
Monitoring: I will track my habits daily! These are: (1) Gym, (2) Core, (3) Movement & Stretching, (4) Intermittent Fasting, and (5) Cardio: Walk or Sprints.
Things to change: I will have to discipline myself, ensure my weight loss goals are a primary focus, and I will have to ensure I stick to my diet to the best of my ability and maintain physical activity.
Ensuring compliance: To ensure I am not pushing too hard, I will take deload weeks from the gym every 6th week of training. That is, I will train for 5 weeks, take 1 week off, train for 5 weeks, take 1 week off, then train for 2 weeks at a very high level of intensity, increasing overall training volume substantially, and then take 2 weeks off completely to finish the training cycle. The process will start again after that. To ensure I am not going too easy, I will ensure that even on rest weeks, diet is on point, and even though I may not be training, I will go for long walks daily.
Romantic Abundance
I will take action relentlessly to have a world-class dating life, with an abundance of women to date, travel with and enjoy great experiences, as well as experience love, intimacy, and essentially, heal myself from the very painful past characterised by 12 years of rejection and suffering.
Evaluating Your Motives
It is truly important to be a person who experiences love and romance in his life, because I have known the total agony of long-term loneliness, a complete lack of any form of intimacy, and I know how horribly this has impacted my self-esteem, sense of self-worth, and I know the feelings of jealously, self-hatred, resentment, and anger at life itself being totally invisible, unattractive, and feeling as if you will never be loved.
This is a horrible place to be. For someone who hasn't felt it, and for whom the normal string of relationships and intimate experiences simply happened for, it may be easy to dismiss this as indicative of 'male privilege or 'entitlement'. I don't really agree. We are social animals, and we want to be accepted by the tribe. Decades of romantic rejection can breed a total, all-encompassing loneliness that can seep into your very core.
I accept we have no right to love. But I also believe 100% that anyone can become a better version of themselves, and if one is truly willing to grind themselves into a fine powder, it is possible to become greater than we can even imagine.
Romantic abundance is important for me, because all I have ever known is total lack, of being the guy on the sidelines, of being the guy who always has to go home alone, who no one wants to be with, who women gleefully take pleasure in rebuffing, discarding, and pushing away so as to not have to endure the indignity of being in the presence of an unworthy, unattractive male.
In the final analysis, it is entirely my fault for putting myself here, and I should have put in serious efforts in the gym, in dieting, and in getting counselling and therapy to straighten out my head. I take full responsibility for putting myself here, and it will be me and only me who will get me out of this hell.
"No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell"
-Carl Gustave Jung
I cannot fail. I simply MUST make it work.
Considering the Broad Personal and Social Impact of Goals
If I can overcome this albatross that has been around my neck for 3 god damn decades, crushing me under it's weight, destroying my self esteem and driving me damn near to the very limits of my sanity, then I can say I will know ever lasting peace.
The many, many years of going out to socialise and to be the guy who went home alone week after week, when my friends left with girls on their arms, and I spent year after alone, wondering why women simply did not want to interact with me, be near me, or even give me the time of day. After many years of really harsh treatment, I did have short, but intense waves of hatred towards women for the way they treated me. But I would also feel intense shame at having these emotions because I also love the opposite sex very much, and I felt so ashamed of myself for feeling the way I did. It is really wrong to hate a group of human beings,and only a real loser would allow themselves to allow the parasite of hate to burrow into them. No matter how many times the parasite would visit me, I refused to allow it to drill into my flesh, no matter how much pain I was in, and believe, I have been in agony in my journey, I think there were 3 or 4 times in my early 20s that I cried myself to sleep. That is a seriously awful experience when you are living with a group of guys who have an abundance of women and you are spending your nights studying when they have women coming and going all day.
To go from that guy who was completely emotionally destroyed by endless rejections and some pretty savage treatment by women, including several incidents of physical assault upon myself for the crime of saying 'hello' in a nightclub, to becoming the most badass embodiment of no excuses you can find out there, will bring me nothing but everlasting peace.
It will enhance my self esteem, confidence, self of self worth, and will enable me to heal myself emotionally, actualise myself further, and push forwards in my growth as a man.
Considering the Detailed Strategies for Goal Attainment
I will need to lose weight, get to 200lbs, and do new dating photos.
Once I have built a solid profile that gets matches, I will execute a strategy for going on a lot of dates.
I will go out and do cold approach every single day from now until the day where I have built a satisfying dating life.
Daily actions are: Lose weight and cold approach every day, speak to 10 women.
Identifying Potential Obstacles and their Solutions
The biggest issue is overcoming my painful past and not giving up or getting discouraged. It is likely that I have not even endured a fraction of the pain that is yet to come, and perhaps the most brutal experiences are yet to come. I will simply have to gut up to that, accept that, and lurch forward no matter the pain, the suffering, or the total, all encompassing sense of hopelessness.
Fuck it.
A truly unstoppable person knows no limits, and never, ever surrenders. A truly unstoppable person accepts no other possibility than excellence and greatness.
What could interfere with the plan is me simply quitting. This process will see me treated pretty poorly for many months, perhaps even years, and there may be very little by way of positive emotions during this time. There will be countless hours of racing heart, high adrenaline, trauma, and rejection. And it will stir up very painful memories and feed into the overwhelming sensation that I experience that I am simply malcreated, god's lonely man.
And when all that is said and done, I will still have to find a way to move forward.
Giving up can't be an option. Rather, I will have to find a way to reframe my situation and use the brutality that is ahead as strength, as an exercise in building mental fortitude, in becoming truly relentless, limitless, and unstoppable as an individual.
Monitoring Progress towards Desired Goals
Progress will be monitored simply in terms of number of dates.
Other metrics will be the numbers of cold approaches.
Online dating stats are more or less useless.
Financial Abundance
I will become competent in digital marketing, switch industries to begin working in the sector, work hard and scale my career, and when I have sufficient experience, knowledge, and skill, I will begin to use my skillset to build my business and sell products and services at scale. I will be moving to a major city, possibly London, and will build a career and life for myself there which will lay the groundwork for expanding my income, building multiple streams of revenue, and living a high standard of living.
Evaluating Your Motives
Persuing this goal is truly important. Being financially successful and strong means freedom, abundance, and an enjoyable life of travel, rich, meaningful experiences, and a sense of accomplishment and success.
If I didn't achieve it, I will consider myself a fraud, a fake, and a weak person who didn't step up to the plate.
I am doing this for MYSELF.
I want to start a family and be the breadwinner. I do not want my offspring to have a horrible life like I did. This cycle will end with me. My descendants will know joy, where for most of my life, I knew suffering. There is a meaning to be found in being a person who overcomes obstacles and ends a cycle of pain.
If I build enough resources in my own life that my descendants can have multiple rolls of the dice, I have won. They will never know how hard I have to work and what I overcame. And I don't care. What matters is one thing: I KNOW.
I can take that to the grave with me with a smile on my face.
Can anyone advise which I should go with?
