Help For Desperate Young Men

 "The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your  problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the  ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own  destiny."-Dr. Albert Ellis
 

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."-Henry David Thoreau
 

"When you adopt ultimate personal responsibility you give yourself  a tremendous amount of power which you previously didn't have. Blaming  others is especially pernicious because doing so blinds you to the  actions you could take to better your circumstances. You go from a  victim with no control or recourse (other than to accuse others of your  misfortune), to a hero with the power to create his own destiny."-Conscious Lifestyle  Design Part I
 

Personal Responsibility 

If you're deficient in areas critical to basic functioning,  then you've probably thought a lot about who or what is to blame for  your failings. Why can't I stop procrastinating? Why can't I stop eating? Why can't I stop being so lazy?
 

From the perspective of self mastery, you'll only ever find it useful to  blame four things for your shortcomings: thoughts, emotions, behaviors,  and willpower. What about family, society, industry, and the  government? Aren't they to blame? In a word, no. Let me explain.
 

I could easily write a whole series of blog post on all the ways that  these entities have failed young men, but that wouldn't do anyone much  good. That would only give you an excuse not to do as much as you could  to improve yourself. Blaming external factors is a crutch used by the  weak and chronically victimized--thus it is not fit for men.
 
To improve your behavior (the end goal of any rational self improvement  plan), you have to look at the immediate factors that are within your  control, and figure out how to start manipulating those in your favor.  The great exhortation of the ancient Stoic philosophers was to begin  life by distinguishing that which is within your power and that which is  without.
 

"What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances  [hardship]? What else than this? What is mine and what is not mine; and  what is permitted, and what is not permitted to me." Epictetus
 

To begin improving, you must believe (or at least act as if you  believe) that you're fully in control. The basic message of modern,  science based psychotherapy is simple: You are solely responsible for your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and the more conscious control you exert over your own lifestyle, the stronger your position will become.
 

Through mindlessness you've  allowed self defeating behavioral patterns to become deeply entrenched,  and these entrenched patterns form the basis of your current weakness.  Therefore, the project of behavior modification has as it end goal a new lifestyle more congruent with your identity as a man.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."-Aristotle
 

Thoughts, feelings, and willpower are three of the most important inputs  that lead to behavior. We will examine each of these inputs (in  separate posts) to see how you can modify them in your favor.
 

The Way We Are

"When you think a thought it structures your world." Dr. Steven C. Hayes
 

Reflect for a moment on how many sources of maladaptive beliefs  indoctrinate you on a daily basis--television, the internet, video  games, movies, and the news media all feed narratives and ideologies  everyday--most of which are detrimental to development of a strong  character. Why? Because they all reinforce a hedonistic lifestyle, and  they're all sources of immediate gratification and escape.
 

Through the impact of all of these sources of misinformation you have  unwittingly indoctrinated yourself into a defective belief system. The  following is a quote from David Wong, editor of Cracked.com, from an  article titled How the Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World:
 
"The world demands more. So, so much more. How have we gotten to  adulthood and failed to realize this? Why would our expectations of the  world be so off? I blame the montages. Five breezy minutes, from sucking  at karate to being great at karate, from morbid obesity to trim, from  geeky girl to prom queen, from terrible garage band to awesome rock  band.

In the real world, the winners of the All Valley Karate  Championship in The Karate Kid would be the kids who had been at it  since they were in elementary school. The kids who act like douchebags  because their parents made them skip video games and days out with their  friends and birthday parties so they could practice, practice,  practice." David Wong
 

How many of you have actively gone out and searched for new and better beliefs? Even those of you that have been failing for years how  many of you have seriously tried to change your mindset? I would  venture to say that not very many of you have. Why? Because of  entitlement. You feel like you shouldn't have to. You feel like rewards  should magically come down from heaven just because of who you are.
 

If lesson number one was that you're responsible for your failings, then  lesson number two is that nobody owes you a thing. You must be willing  to submit yourself to the painful process of improvement to increase the  odds in your favor. Because increasing the odds in their favor is all  anyone can do.
 

The Way Forward

Now is the time to change all that. Now is that the time to search out  and adopt beliefs that will strengthen you and give you the power and  motivation you need to do what a man needs to do in the world. I'm not  writing about repeating fluffy self affirming phrases to yourself such  as I'm okay, I'm worthwhile, I'm lovable--that isn't going to do  you any good. There is no rational basis for you to believe those  positive self-affirmations when everything in your life shows that you  are deficient.
 

I'm writing about the core beliefs that actively shape your  worldview. These beliefs are the ones that you should target for  change.You need to engage in a project of belief realignment.  That is, the process of introducing new a whole new mindset to take  place of the older maladaptive one. The current belief structure you  have in your mind has failed you, and its time for a new one--one that  empowers you and compels you forward toward action.
 

You've already begun that process by reading the first post in this  series. The fundamental tenets of the philosophy you should seek to find  and adopt are as follows:
 

• It empowers you as an individual, and helps you focus on ways that you could be improving right now.
• It takes into account your identity as a man and as a human being
• It gives you a rational way to deal with the inevitable pain and discomfort of change
• If focuses your mind on productive endeavors that benefit yourself and others

The process of changing strong underlying beliefs, and the habits of mind that they generate begins by saturating your  mind with new, useful beliefs. Right now, your mind is chock full of  the wrong stuff--stuff that's been reinforced by years failure. The  heart of the issue is that you have taken the wrong thoughts to be  literally true.
 

What you need to do then is very simple. Disrupt your beliefs! How? By  picking up everything on becoming a better person that fits with the  criteria outlined above, reading it, taking notes on it, and integrating  it into how you behave every day. By degrees you will begin to notice  an enormous change in the way you see the world.

The key is to fire off the right  neurons over and over again so that they form the basis of your new  beliefs. Rather than the weak and pathetic beliefs that currently haunt  your mind, your new automatic thoughts will reflect correct principles of action.

How do people learn any  Martial Art such as Boxing, Wrestling, or Jiu-Jitsu? They practice the  movements involved in their art over and over again until the moves  become second nature. The same is true with beliefs, you must practice  them over and over again (by reading about them, writing about them, and  contemplating them) before they begin to take root.

Short Recommended reading (articles and speeches):
6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person
Self Made Men by Frederick Douglass
The Common Denominator of Success

Short Recommended Reading (books):
A New Guide to Rational Living
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Discourses and Selected Writing
Meditations