Day 368: Evaluation of Changes

July 26, 2020 

A little before the summer of 2019, I saw a post on Reddit about 2 guys (who I’d later known as Martin and Michal) who shared their story about how they were hitting rock bottom in life, and decided that enough was enough. Now, they had built a discipline system that got them waking up super early and pursuing their goals. They were inviting people who were interested in the idea of partaking in the group, and I didn’t hesitate to ask in. As much as I tried to hide it, my life was in crumbles, and it felt like that’s what I needed the most at that time. Shortly after, in July, my group officially launched.

Typically, like every summer, it meant I was going to be sleeping at 6 am, and waking up at 2 pm. Playing video games, watching random videos on YouTube, browsing randomly and mindlessly. The problem was, I had just graduated, and I had a lot of responsibilities to tend to. No one was going to knock on my door and offer me a job. Even if I miraculously could get a job, my sleeping habits would ruin any chance of keeping up with a healthy work life. I had a 2 second attention span. I remember that I couldn’t finish 10 seconds of a tutorial without thinking about something else, fidgeting, or straight up launching my favorite video game that makes me feel numb about real life, and I would play it for hours (I had 2k hours clocked in from 2 years of playing).

Then Forge happened. Martin and Michal helped me shift from waking up at 11 am to 6 am, and suddenly, I started waking up at 6, when nobody else was awake. It’s complete silence at that time. I felt weirdly refreshed. I always believed I was a night owl, because I never liked mornings, and liked to stay up late, drinking coffee, and just “vibing” to songs and games, but when I actually tried waking up early, it was a game changer. I still didn’t want to contend with finding a job. So, I did the easiest thing: put on a podcast and listen to it while still laying. 2 hours of intellectual discussion, I was feeling great and positive about life. I had just listened to 2 people unveil the knowledge they have gathered throughout their decades of hard work. It sounded like they had meaningful lives, and could carry meaningful conversations. They were pushing their limits. What could I achieve with playing video games? Maybe a high rank in a video game, which loses all meaning when I close the game. I had been pursuing nothing in real life that got me moving. Slowly, I figure: why not wake up early, and use the freshness of my mind to apply for jobs?

I am (or was) self diagnosed with ADD. I know every single human can relate to the symptoms, and everyone likes to pretend they have X and Y as an excuse for their lack of discipline, but my symptoms were very hard to ignore and everyone in my life gave me remarks about it. I was always lethargic, doing the bare minimum effort to get by. Before joining Forge, I was trying every single day to watch tutorials about things I was passionate about, but my attention span was so low that watching 1 minute of it was a challenge, and 5 minutes were simply impossible. At the start of summer, around the time Forge was just starting, applying for jobs was physically near impossible. Whenever I thought about it, I had overwhelming anxiety and started overthinking. This did NOT happen when I began progressing in Forge, and started waking up at 6 am, doing jumping jacks, making my bed, and making breakfast for myself. I felt powerful. I felt like nothing could stand in my way. I took my laptop, went straight to the most basic website for looking for jobs, signed up, updated my cv, wrote a motivation letter, and started applying. I found that once my cv and letter were ready, and I was logged in, it took a simple search “3d” and a simple button “apply” to actually apply for jobs. How could something so easy seem so out of my reach before? Looking back, I think if I hadn’t been waking up early and dedicating those few focused hours to job hunting, I would not be where I am today.

I got my first job!

Day 90

It didn’t take one morning. I had to do this many times. Sometimes, life happened, and weeks went by without me applying for anything new. But I did wake up at 6 one day, and felt excited to look for a job. This led to me finding freelance work from home. A 3D job where I work with my favorite 3D software, and it’s relatively very well paid by my country’s standard. I seriously cannot describe how life changing my current job is. My mental health has never been this stable. I have eradicated most of my lethargy and “ADD”. I don’t even identify as someone with ADD anymore, because it simply doesn’t feel that way anymore, and also because my mindset is slowly dropping off all the limiting beliefs I gathered through the years. I have joined a gym, and started paying attention to my diet as a result. I have goals that keep me directed. I have future career goals, daily job goals, things I want to learn, things I want to experience. I have my own office, with everything that I want (because I can afford it).

The change is even visible in my social interactions. I have gained confidence, look after myself much better (dressing better, wearing fragrances, have a skincare routine, take care of every hygiene thing I can). Of course there are still so many things to be learned, which excites me, but I’m also grateful that I have come this far, and most importantly that I’m actually starting to realize my mistakes and accepting that I need to do something about them. 

Day 0: Qualified into Forge

July 22, 2019