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Self Improvement
A community which focusses on improving yourself. This can be in many different ways - from improving physical health or appearance, to improving mental health, creating better habits, overcoming addictions, etc.
While material circumstances beyond our control do govern much of our daily lives, people do have agency and choices to make, whether that is as "simple" as disciplining yourself to not doomscroll, to as complex as recreating yourself to have many different hobbies and habits.
This is not a place where all we do is talk about improving "productivity" (in a workplace context) and similar terms and harmful lifestyles like "grindset". Self-improvement here is intended to make you a generally better and happier person, as well as a better communist, and any other roles you may have in your life.
Rules and guidelines:
- Posts should be about self-improvement. This is obviously a wide category, and can range from advice, to finding resources, to self-posts about needing to improve in a certain area, or how you have improved, and many other things.
- Use content warnings when discussing difficult subjects.
- Do not make medical decisions solely because of a discussion you have had with any person here (e.g. whether to take or not take medications; diagnoses; etc.) as we do not vet people. All medical problems should be discussed with a real-life medical professional.
- Do not post harmful advice here. If this is seen, then please report it and we shall remove it. If you are unsure about whether it's precisely harmful advice or not but feel uneasy about it, please report it anyway.
- Do not insult other users and their lifestyles or their habits (unless they ask, I suppose). This is a place for self-improvement. Critique and discussion about a course of action is encouraged over shit-flinging. Don't talk down to people.
First off, you don't need to improve. That whole framing is off. You personally have desires and achieving those desires is worthwhile because YOU are worthwhile. You deserve to pursue and achieve your desires. In that context, you may need additional power(s) and those are things you can specifically frame as improvements you want to achieve your desires.
So for example, you want to lose weight. That's fine, but that's a very specific improvement towards one or more aims. Perhaps you want better long term health, or to participate in specific activities that your weight restricts you from, or perhaps you have a desired body image. You deserve your authentic desires and achieving them may require specific improvements. That framing is so important because YOU are not something that needs improvement, it's specific capabilities and properties that enable you to achieve your desires that you are choosing to improve.
Practically speaking though, working out isn't really the path to weight loss. The adage goes: build muscle in the gym, lose weight in the kitchen. The fact that you're working out hard means you likely have a lot of muscle waiting to be exposed. Cutting fat requires you to improve your knowledge of human biology, metabolism, nutrition, and specifically your own body's behavior. It's time to be curious, not fearful or despondent. Yes, of COURSE you can lose fat - it's a standard function of the human body, of all mammalian bodies. The question becomes how does your body need to be activated for that to happen. There is an answer to that question and you are capable of finding it. When you find it, you'll be faced with the challenge of whether or not it's worth it, but you don't need to worry about that until after you've learned more about how your body responds to various behavioral changes on your part.
Next up. Employers don't give a flying fuck about your GPA. The only companies that do are white supremacist consulting firms that only hire from elite institutions and the only reason they care about GPA is because it's a solid filter for keeping the poors out. Plenty of fail sons with shit GPAs get those jobs, so that tells you GPA is used for specific purposes. I can say this as hiring manager I have NEVER in the 100s of people I have hired EVER looked at someone's grades. I care about whether the person is capable of learning, capable of humility, capable of courage and curiosity, and has the minimum knowledge and experience required to succeed in the position. Whatever you believe about hiring, it's wrong. And you can hang your hat on that because you've never hired anyone and so your beliefs are all based on something other than reality. Give up those beliefs and acknowledge you have no idea how hiring works or what people look for and just get out there and do what you do.
Trust me. You're enough.