ERNOL's Notes ☀

edits 3/6/22: I am working on streamlining the journal post to make it more beneficial to readers.

Note from 17 August, 2020: I have added a guide. what works for me to stay clean. It mainly addresses the mindset that has worked for me. Feel free to learn from it. Scroll down and you can see it.

Guide: This is what i have used to to stay clean in my journey. I have shared this before with some people. Now I am putting it here in case it benefits others.
It can be a long read for the taste of some people. I will say take your time. And understand what I have written down.
There are 4 sections. Read them in that order. Each section can be seen using drop down arrow symbol:

This journey is about just one day. Today.

I take it one day at a time. To me this journey is about just one day. Today. I know just today in my life i won’t be doing PMO.

This used to be me months ago:

“It’s just one day at a time. Just one day. Don’t think about how many days. When wake up make conscious decision that i am not doing it today. Live your life.”

After making this a habit, in present days, i don’t have to do it when i wake up anymore. It has become ingrained in my brain.

For some people one day may seem tough. If that’s the case i will say give yourself breathing room and “take it one urge at a time”:


Your reasons

Your reasons are important. Once i found good enough reasons my streaks skyrocketed. Just because: now i care more about staying clean and see myself succeed. I cared. doesn’t matter how i’m feeling now, good or bad, I care about staying clean. and That kept me clean.

Take this for example. When I saw things like this I asked myself i also have urge like this. same as him. totally same. But at this urge I relapsed. But he is not. He did not give in. Why? Because for some reason this person wants to not relapse.

As I said before, Once i found good enough reasons, I cared. and That kept me dedicated to stay clean. my streaks skyrocketed.

i found many reasons live a noPMO life, during my journey. But they were not written down/compiled in one location. I am thankful to the forum because When I joined “Last person standing challenge” in the forum, one of the task was to do this:

for these questions wrote down as many answers as i can. like a list having 1, 2, 3,… and so on. I will suggest you to do same. write down answers for the two questions.

if you need idea how it should look, read this to get ideas: Why You want To quit

Your reason need to be good enough that you care enough to not relapse. and Read your answers daily.

also this: :point_down:

My advice would be, reread it also when feeling like giving into an urge. Over the course of years, i have been damaged so much that now i have all them listed (like in a note in my phone). It is synced across all my devices(so i have access to it all the time. even when I am lying in bed). I read it and realize there is no point in going back.

But Your reasons need to be good enough that you care enough to not relapse whenever you have an urge. That’s the point: :point_down:

See the trend? 3 different people using the same thing.


Discipline is the next piece of the puzzle

(the image was shared by user Aragorn I think) Anyway, if anyone asks me how can I be Disciplined? The image has the answer. This is what you want most: staying clean from this addiction.

Why do you need to be disciplined? :


You are all set. Now the only problem you may face are "big" urges

Some urges can give you big trouble. With all the mindset i mentioned before, if you are equipped with those mindset, now you have to do only one thing: You have to find a method to deal with big urge. When there’s urge for example, Special_Bird goes out and runs outside. Some people simply go and talk with family members/works in front of family members rather than being alone at that time. point is, you have to do something else that is most beneficial to you to prevent relapse.

Remember: “Urge comes, urge goes.”

urge always goes away. Having this knowledge is enough to give you the strength to not relapse. You just have to let the urge pass. with time the urge will go away. During that time, you have to do something else that is most beneficial to you to prevent relapse.

And don’t worry about when the urge will go away, why is it not going away and worry and worry. Thinking that way about urge won’t help. rather do something that will shift your focus. For example, I play chess because it makes me think about winning rather than the urge i’m having.

During such urge don’t peek cause it is the doorway to relapse. And you are opening that door. keep yourself occupied and urge will eventually vanish away.


any comment/resource I used, credit goes to the rightful authors.

Btw for this journey you need 2 things: your ‘mindset/attitude/dedication’ and ‘plan to deal with urge.’

What i shared with you talks about mindset.

But you MUST have plan to deal with urge also. there are many technique to deal with urge in the forum. If you need them knock me. I will send what i have.

What if I relapse? :

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Day 1
I didn’t have enough rest last night so i decided to take a nap in the afternoon. I saw a bad dream and it ruined my mood. I am wondering if i will get anything done today becuase of it…
But i try to take lesson from even bad experiences. The lesson i found from my bad dream would be there are toxic people in the world. Which is why we should appreciate the good people in our life.
And another thing is toxic people don’t want to leave you alone. They want to come back into your life. So constantly evaluate them and if they start becoming toxic again do not give them even an inch of breathing room to show toxicity. Ever! Maybe you are kind. I will respect you for that. but don’t let toxic people make your life a miserable place because of it. Toxic people will use your kindness as your weakness. kindness is a virtue. Don’t waste it on a person who is toxic on a constant basis. He does not recognize it’s value. Toxic person isn’t worth the price he will make you pay.

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I watched an interesting video today. It did make me think…
Here’s the video
https://youtu.be/qOgsDvpyAhw

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Self-reminder: don’t waste time on internet when in reality it doesn’t help you at all

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Day 3

I woke up a little while ago. I wanted to sleep more but in the end decided not to. I am trying to figure out if i have laziness problem( since i wanted to sleep again so badly) or if i am just tired( i slept 5 hours). If anyone’s reading this, let me know how long do you sleep to not feel tired throughout the day? Anyway, time to start another day. Saw the quote in the forum post and it really resonated with me:

“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”

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Same feeling, bro. My streak is only 10 days, but I feel not productive at all because of lack of willpower.
But there’s always some stuff to fo, I’ve got a huge project at work.
So let’s do it, now or never.

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I’m with you. Let’s give our best. Let’s go!

Feel free to let me know how was your performance, ok?

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Hey @ERNOL. It’s good you have ypur goals I salute you for that… I don’t wanna be negative or wanna stop you in what you want to achieve it.

You see buddy your putting to much stress on you for wanting to do to much at one time. It’s awesome to push yourself, but you just need to scale down a little bit, because you see your mind is the problem here, because it is trying to cope with the change you are bringing. It was used to fapping and web browsing and other activities. So it is not use to going at a crazy pace of nofapping, studing, reading, learning a new language and exercising in your schedule.

So your mind is going in exhaustion with all the new things it has to cope with. Also it is going into a decision exhaustion state because you constantly decide on should I read or not for example and in the end you don’t, because your brain is thinking of all the options you have rather than to read. I know I might sound bad and everything, but your not used to a schedule so throw it away and just like nike’s slogan is ‘just do it’. Just try to incorporate your new things in your day. Don’t force everything at once and that’s why your not getting productive.

The other thing is incorporate your things seperate with an easy goal. For example if you wanna read, read only one to 3 pages for a week. Or exercise like doing 10 push ups for a week. And so on it will cut down on procrastination because you’ll give your mind room to accommodate all the new things. Just start off easy so your mind can adapt also with the small achievable goal your setting and achieving it will motivate you more to do more.

So also your sleeping thing… like you I also was tired as damn, but there is no conclusive time in which they say is effective or enough because everybody is diffrent and some need less sleep then others but the general believe is 6 to 8 hours of sleep, but you can test that also by sleeping for in that time period for a week checking how you feel. Note and probably obvious listen to your body when your tired go and sleep don’t stop it just go to bed. The other thing you can try for a week is going to bed each day for 2 weeks at the exact same time as the day before and also waking up at the same time each day and notice how it is effecting you.

Also lastely on the tiredness issue check your diet. Check that what you eat truely suply your body with enough nutrients, vitamins, minerals, proteins and carbs. Use multivitamins and they are all differnt and don’t necessarily work for you from first try again a week or two’s test on this one. Follow the intake instructions so you don’t over supplement because that’s also not good… If your able consult a doctor or dietitian on this if your ever uncertain.

I hope it helps good luck man and stay strong!

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@Cubenix thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it. I just woke up. I will read it.

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Day 6
If i have to be honest i don’t like writing it here… but I have to be true to myself… I had a breakdown today due to frustration. My family member spoke to me and i have calm down in the end. I realized i have to stop being this hard on myself.

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Yes man, be kind to yourself. I used to have breakdowns out of frustration from school work and it was difficult, but I’ll tell you man, getting sleep makes managing these things and being productive so much easier! I used to get as much sleep as you, and I would always wake up tired, was depressed everyday, couldn’t focus on work, and was emotionally distraught.

Sleep is literally so important for your body I have found. Your brain releases all its toxins during sleep.

Personally, and I know I am on the upper spectrum and not normal with this, but I need around 9 hours of sleep every night. If you are waking up tired, your body is trying to tell you it needs more sleep. When I get enough sleep, I don’t wake up feeling like that, I feel good and ready to conquer the day.

They say the average adult needs 7-8 hours of sleep each night, and the teenager needs 8-9 or 9-10. As cubenix was saying, everyone’s different though, but you definitely should try getting more sleep than 5 hours. Try getting 7 hours of sleep and see how you feel. If you still feel tired, try 8. If you feel groggy like you got too much sleep, then try 6.

But I think you might find that you will feel a lot better in a lot of areas once you start getting more sleep consistently. It’s a huge player in mental health, at least in my life.

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Day 7
Today is beginning. Just had to share my thoughts. Today is the victory day of my country(Bangladesh).

Respect for the women and men that had to sacrifice their honour and their life in the war for the freedom of this country. I never can and never will know the sacrifices they had to make. They deserve peace. May they rest in peace.
https://youtu.be/J9vUulq4tZI

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Day 9
Life’s been going slow. Still working on improving my eating and sleeping habit.

My NoFap journey is going well. I had minor urges a few times which was no problem. You know what they say:

“urges come, urges go.”

Today i was having my 1st dream in this streak and it could result in a wet dream but I did end up stopping myself in the middle of the dream. That feels good ha ha.

On today’s to do list:
Positive affirmation
Studying

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I think it was wise to relax a bit in order to deal with anxiety. People say that some of our phycological problems are bound with our body, so sleeping enough, exercising, healthy eating habbit are definitely helpful.
So you are doing great in fighting your unproductivity. Stay strong and keep going, and nothing will ever stop you!

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Yeah, i thought about what happened yesterday and realized that it was not within my control.
i have methods to deal with anxiety but studying was making it worse, nothing was working. So, stop studying was last resort. I had no other option. I shouldn’t be sad about it, I am taking care of myself.

nothing will ever stop you!

I appreciate the encouragement. I intend to make it happen. :boxing_glove:

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The way you handled yesterday was a victory, brother! Life won’t always be great, but we can still make better choices for ourselves, find better ways to meet our needs than we used to.

Keep going strong brother. GOD bless.

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And may God bless you, keep you safe and protect you always my brother. :slightly_smiling_face:
Peace be upon you.

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Well done bro! It’s awesome to see your are winning both of your fights! I am feeling very awesome to see that you are doing so well and now it can only go better and better. Let’s go my bro we will reach that goal, your on fire.

Good luck and stay awesome!
God bless and all the best for you!

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Yes we will as long as we persevere. It’s better to win the war than a single battle. Looking forward to the future. Living one day at a time.

:sweat_smile: Everyone’s well wishes made me grateful and humble. Love you all brothers! :hugs:

And @Cubenix brother may God bless you and protect you as well.

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I’m gonna just drop this here

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