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How do you stop hating yourself?

BlueMoon

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Haven't read all the advice here but in my experience what really helped was looking myself in the eye in the mirror each morning and telling myself over and over again:

1. [your name] I love you no matter what.
2. [your name] I forgive you for everything.
3. [your name] I promise you that xyz.

Sounds trivial but you'd be surprised how many people (including myself) got very emotional the first couple of times doing this. We are taught many things in life but learning how to love ourselves was never part of the curriculum.
 

babyballer

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Haven't read all the advice here but in my experience what really helped was looking myself in the eye in the mirror each morning and telling myself over and over again:

1. [your name] I love you no matter what.
2. [your name] I forgive you for everything.
3. [your name] I promise you that xyz.

Sounds trivial but you'd be surprised how many people (including myself) got very emotional the first couple of times doing this. We are taught many things in life but learning how to love ourselves was never part of the curriculum.

Sorry but I think if you get emotional just by saying these to yourself, you definitely have an estrogen imbalance. Check your E2 levels.
 

BlindSide

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Because you focus on the PROBLEM.

You automatically focus on the problem (My net worth is ZERO! Where do I even start!?!?), instead of the plan (how do I make $1 million? What systems and processes do I need? What pain points can I solve?)

It's easy to focus on the problem when starting from legit scarcity. Human nature and all that.

HOWEVER...

The mindset needs to be the same as the $10 million example. Focus on the PLAN, not the PROBLEM.

Why would the mindset be different starting from zero? There's no rational reason why the mindset should be different, but it is, because of EMOTIONS due to MINDSET.

I would argue that the mindset of focusing on the PLAN is even more important starting from zero!

You can use this for everything in life.

Wow, @404profound. I definitely can resonate with some things you have posted first off, so thank you for being open. When things like this are asked, you aren't the only one receiving help. And @MidwestLandlord and others have dropped some extremely valuable insight.

I think a lot of people feel like this. It really just goes to show that no matter who looks like they are just killing it at life, there are always ebbs and flows. And like the quote above says, it's all about how you attack once you feel like this.

You mentioned in one of your responses that you felt much more determined in college. I really think the core of this is because you were successful at something, AND your life was structured.

You had a plan, and you weren't just following through on it. You were GOOD at following through on it. That's what makes the change in my book. You weren't just wandering through the days with no course of action... you were taking control (even when a lot of your life is scheduled with things like classes, practices, etc).

Lots of great advice in here, and I really think you have everything in here to completely change your life around. It's just about what you do with it. Adopt a mindset of not caring what others think, make a plan, and start getting some wins under your belt.

Since you were an all-American athlete, you know what it takes to win.

Also: You might consider turning this thread into it's own form of progress thread. I bet a lot of people who have given you advice would really be glad to see you start to turn things around in terms of mindset.

Just my 2 cents.
 

sparechange

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Vanesco

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This condition can bring a person to depression and to rash acts. If you yourself cannot cope with that, it is better to apply to a professional.
 

ManlyMansNegator

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Simple:

Always believe you are the best, constant reaffirmation worked for me.
 

Xirtam

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I am at a point where I despise myself for still being a slave. I've been trying for multiple years to figure out how to solve real problems and start a business, and I've only fallen flat on my face.

How do people maintain self-esteem? How do you dust yourself off and regain confidence?

One simple thing that I have learned and that helps me when I feel the same way is to start smiling and if no one is around, I start laughing. I know it seems silly, but I read a book (sorry I forget which one) that stated that our brains really can't make a distinction between reality and fiction and that the brain just supports us by following along with what we tell it and by what we believe. For example, if I am angry my brain will compliment me with other angry thoughts and may respond with physical reactions like a stomach ache, loss of appetite, depression, headache etc. Now, this is the interesting bit: If I start to smile and continue to do so (may be a bit weird at first), my brain interprets my smile as me being happy and will give me "good" feelings to support me. Laughing works too.

Tony Robbins said something that stuck with me; he said that (paraphrased) you cannot be mad, anxious, and in a bad mood while also being grateful. So when I feel depressed and the other feelings mentioned above, I start thinking of things that I am grateful for and while I am focusing on these, I feel better :)
 
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The Abundant Man

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LightHouse

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@404profound There is lots of great advice and perspective here.

Now it is your turn to let us know how things have changed and where you are at now...
 
D

Deleted50669

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@404profound There is lots of great advice and perspective here.

Now it is your turn to let us know how things have changed and where you are at now...

Fair enough.

I am still hating every moment of life, from sun up to sun down, but for different reasons. I have a target, Ihave been taking action every day towards it (building an application and learning javascript / Node on a very deep level). The problem for me is the conflict that continues to strengthen between my job and my pursuit outside of ny job. The more progress I make with programming, the more I feel dead inside at work. I have probably applied to 300+ jobs since starting there to no avail. So where I am at in sum is a hollow resentful shell of a person striving to do something with high impact in the programming sphere, hopefully before I off myself.
 
D

Deleted50669

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Full disclaimer: not a therapist

I did not like myself. Now I love myself like a son.

You need to come to terms with whatever is bothering you about yourself and you need to get past it. Forgive yourself and move on.

Then practice appreciation and reframe things in a positive way.

Appreciate where you're at now but strive for more. You will never get anywhere if you chose to beat yourself up.

If your fear is being mediocre, then stop being mediocre. Stop doing mediocre sh*t and thinking in a mediocre way. Its so easy to just roll over and let the waves of life dictate which direction you go in. There's nothing extraordinary about that.

You need to stop believing that you don't have control. A lot of people relinquish responsibility because it's the path of least resistance. You can't go wrong when nothing is your fault, you know? It's the worlds fault!

If I appear insensitive or ignorant, so be it. I'm just stating how I feel about sh*t, coming from a background of complete helplessness and mediocrity.

Be stoic and keep your chin up - even if your life "sucks", [chances are] it's nothing compared to the hardships some people have been through historically. Your ancestors have put in an enormous amount of sacrifice just for you to be here. So be strong and make incremental moves in a positive direction until they compound.

Everything is temporary, including life - don't waste it

And don't even talk about that suicide bullshit - you are doing everyone, including yourself, a disservice. The world doesn't need another one of these stories.

It needs more "used to hate myself, now I love myself" stories.

It needs more stories about someone talking about offing themselves on a forum but then going on to do huge sh*t in the world in a matter of years. That's a way cooler story.

Just make the choice to believe, and abandon your former identity - just let him go.

Your personality is just a reflection of the beliefs and ideas of all the people you've been exposed to throughout your life.

Here on FLF, you have the choice to subscribe to better quality ideas and outlooks than the ones you have been traditionally prescribed.

Make the conscious, responsible decision to choose love over fear.

There are two people in this world - people that believe they can do it, and people that believe they can't. They are both usually right.
Come try to sync a Vuex getter on a Node API and tell me which one you are.
 

Mr.Brandtastic

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How do people maintain self-esteem? How do you dust yourself off and regain confidence?

Like most things in life, it's never so simple. Take for example losing weight. Let's say you weigh a whopping 400 pounds. It's unreasonable to say, "I'm going to lose all the weight in one day" or even "I'm going to lose all the weight in one week." It took you years to put on that weight, you should expect it will take a long period (at least several months) of time for the weight to come off.

Can you remember how you were as a small child? Did you hate yourself? I bet the answer is no. Even though you didn't understand the world at all, you didn't hate it. You were curious. You were happy. At some point in adolescence or adulthood, bad habits started to form. Bad habits are the cause of so much of the world's misery.

So I can only speak from experience of how I started to like myself:

1) Take personal responsibility for the choices I make, I control my universe.

2) Write a journal (as some people stated above, strange, I thought I was the only one) of all the things I'm grateful for. Literally everything. This helps put things in perspective and helps to defeat ECS (entitled crybaby syndrome). I don't look at it every day but when I get frustrated or angry I look at it.

3) This might be the most important, what is a bad day for you? Determine it succinctly. Writing it down is better. A bad day for most people should be a lazy day, where they wanted to do so many things, but sat on the couch all day eating Doritos and watching Netflix. What is a good day? One where you read, go to the gym, eat right, work on business, talk to x number of people, etc.? Determine that. Now try to move towards having good days all while reducing bad days. Remember, bad habits won't always be broken tomorrow. Don't expect it. But start replacing them with good habits so you can have good days.

4) Create a daily agenda. Some people don't like this but honestly I like this a lot. It reduces anxiety and helps me to create less bad days. Organize your life in such a way that excludes bad habits. They'll leak in a little. But the more organized you are, the more you will get accomplished, the more good days you will have. Let's say now you have 6 bad days for 1 good day. You need to learn to do the inverse over time (let's say 2-3 months realistically) so you can have 6 good days to 1 bad day. Or even better, no bad days.

It's long but I hoped this helped. I can't snap my fingers and break a depression spell. Just as I can't snap them to make someone lose 50 pounds overnight. It's going to be a grind and a daily process. Which sounds hard but to me, it's like breathing, it's automatic.
 
D

Deleted50669

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Another thread I'm never coming back to again

Good luck changing anything about your life with an attitude like that

A bunch of people here are trying to help your whiny a$$ and you can't even bother yourself to press the thanks button under the posts. People are posting paragraphs here and you just respond with 2-3 sentences of ME ME ME

You probably hate yourself because you're a self centered narcissist without an appreciation for reciprocation

Whatever

Less competition for people like me who actually do sh*t with their time instead of mope around on forums about hating themselves

Get help
No, I'm pissed of because people are still reviving this thread long after it was retired, and every time I see it again it gets me down. I've tried to move on from that part of my life, but this F*ckin thread keeps bringing it back up.

I don't care if you're offended that I didn't click a goddamn like button. I've been writing code for hours a day in the purpose of helping others. Whatever preconceived notions you have about my character are based on my posting to this thread, so I truly don't care of your opinion of me. If you look back through it you'd see many times I was conversant with people helping me and am grateful they did so. But now people seem to be reviving it just to bring me down again.
 

simplymoto

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Keep a gratitude journal to remind yourself of all the awesome in your life. Limit yourself to three things you HAVE to get done each day and then make sure you do them. You can do more, but make sure you do the three big ones. Then you'll start to feel momentum. Focus on one thing until you're successful. Unsubscribe from all the lists pushing new bright shiny objects. I'm not there yet either and I've failed a ton. But I have my dream and I'm not giving up on it. Make sure your end goal is clear also. That really helps when things get tough.

Thank you Lara, I am an overacheiver and sometimes I don't feel the achievement, and at times I've tried to write journals and it helps, it shows how much I have achieved from where I've started.

"How do you stop hating yourself?"

I've found that you cannot stop thoughts. You can only redirect them. So prepare some mental constructs ahead of time - identify some things that, when you think about them, you feel really good. It could be a memory, a future goal, a beautiful place, whatever. When you find yourself thinking any negative thought (why can't I succeed, I'm a failure, I must be stupid, I'm too impatient, I'm out of time, I'll never make it, etc.) simply redirect your attention to those good-feeling thoughts you prepared. Immerse yourself in the thought/image/movie (see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, etc.) and let it shift your emotions. Once you do that, it will be easier to take the next step - positive action in the direction you desire.

Thanks Acorns, yes this helps. I have some childhood fear, when I was growing up I move to a new city where they speak a different dialect, and I was laugh at for not knowing it, and nowadays when I meet people who's from that city or people who speak the dialect and have nervous attacks, I know it's very silly compared to the life and death fear others have, but sometimes I direct it away by thinking happy thoughts, it's not always successful but it does help.
 
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D

Deleted50669

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I am new here but i can confirm that what @StompingAcorns said. It is working and it is a validate method. While i was drug addict in my early years and i participate in a closed rehabilitation facilities we did therapy groups. One of the subject was that we couldn't stand our thoughts who keep on coming in our head when we see other junkies and raise the feeling inside us to inject our selfs once more. For example. i was having 2 years clean of drugs but while i was walking i saw a syringe right front me, the feeling to go find some heroine and make my head light again was raised in instance. My therapist told me...it was syringe fault for my thoughts? or mine because i let my self in those thoughts? Another user said that when she are near trees she remember how she hiding her cocaine in trees routes. So what? Are she going to blame all the trees she finds front of her for the rest of her life? Yes you can redirect your thoughts in something that you find that helps you, you can create new memories and actually go out and make new memories. By creating new memories you can redirect your thoughts in something beautiful. When my mom told me what her favorite flower was, anytime i see that flower or any flower i choose to remember her. Now i see a syringe and i choose to think how i used to feed a kitten, not what i did as a stupid young boy. I used that method, i am still doing it and im 14 years off to drugs while all my past friends are dead or near to death. I hope you understand. I know that my English is horrible but i went only two years in English lessons, i have learned English only from movies subtitles and music through years. You will find the way to lift your spirits. :)
#threadnecro
 

balilife

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I am at a point where I despise myself for still being a slave. I've been trying for multiple years to figure out how to solve real problems and start a business, and I've only fallen flat on my face.

How do people maintain self-esteem? How do you dust yourself off and regain confidence?
 
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Entre Eyes

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People like Madonna have written Children's Books! That should motivate anyone.

Heard of Embarrassing Niches? These people have problems with a credit card in their hand...good odds to make a sale.

Why do so many people blog about blogging? Because new people come online every single day and they need hosting, autoresponders, many tools that will pay you.

You do not have to be an expert..you can interview one. Assist one that teaches you their business from the inside.

The list is endless. You do not hate yourself you hate your present scenario.

Colonel Sanders was around 65 and started KFC.

I used to hate the fact I always wanted the Mentor/Education I could not afford but sometimes you can still learn from observing very closely what they do for themselves.

There are a whole lot more problems than Successes but that also means the odds of Success for those that love the challenge improves. :)
 
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Kevin88660

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I am at a point where I despise myself for still being a slave. I've been trying for multiple years to figure out how to solve real problems and start a business, and I've only fallen flat on my face.

How do people maintain self-esteem? How do you dust yourself off and regain confidence?
This is where I beg to differ from the “feel good abt yourself “ mindset

I think one should have a vague healthy confidence that one will eventually realise his ambition and not live a life of mediocrity.

But on a MiCRO level One should be humble and paranoid about their imperfection.

The people I saw who have their shits together are insecure and paranoid about not being good. Exactly the opposite of being confident.

Why bother to chew glass and improve if everything feels so good at the moment?
 

Jon L

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@404profound ... I'm curious how you feel about things now, if you still hate yourself as much, what changed, and what it was that made the change happen?
 

lunga ngcobo

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I am at a point where I despise myself for still being a slave. I've been trying for multiple years to figure out how to solve real problems and start a business, and I've only fallen flat on my face.

How do people maintain self-esteem? How do you dust yourself off and regain confidence?
Besides millions of money. What else would make you truly happy? think about this for a few days and you will realize that you don't need to have millions to start enjoying life.

For Mj it was moving to a sunny city. Notice that he didn't yet have millions but that shift in his life gave him more courage and hope to reach his goals. as he said " I felt rich" even though he had nothing

For me it was living on a sea side apartment in a multi racial neighborhood. I could be happy by just standing on my balcony and watching the ocean waves, feeling the breeze and socializing with all races. No money spent, besides my rent.

If you think about it you will realize that none of these goals require millions but once you achieve them, you will begin to build momentum to reach a bigger goal.

Your current problems is thinking that all your happiness will come in a bang. you feel that the only time you will feel happy is when you make millions.

Have small targets and milestones where you reward yourself for reaching a certain goal. But make sure that your reward doesn't cripple your progress.
 

timza522

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for me, myself, i been to that situation, and here is how i solve my internal think, or self talk.

first, learn to forgive yourself.

1. there are many good speaker on ted talk, after watch, hear many people, it will come across that disappointed is part of human. So it is very normal to feel that way, nothing wrong. Watch and hear how they solve it, how they think of that situation.

2. for me, MJ book help me this, failure and just part of process. everyone need to face, according to the books , many people been to hard time, but once time passed by no one will care, it just part of story. So it is a process, Remember, Failure is just another process.

3. book like Mel robbins, life coach also good book, change your internal think, sometime, disappoint, sad, angry, come from Fear, or your childhood experience, or passed experience, u need to find what reason it is and change the way you look at thing.

4. most of all, learn to accepted. disappoint, unhappy, is part of human. try to accepted, forgive yourself failure is ok, it is really ok.

5. self talk, when u find this situation again, u just talk to yourself that, it just another process that we all need to face. make this smaller and smaller issue, one day u will wake up it will totally gone of your mind.

hope u good luck !

tim
 

Brewmacker

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Pure acceptance of the moment my friend. I know you are talking about "hating yourself", but lets call it out for what it most likely is, anxiety and depression.

Right now I am in a low point, borderline depressed and I am late every day to work because I cant face getting out of bed and facing the day. Yesterday I made it to work at 13.00, so yeah the anxiety is somewhat crippling and I am not my own biggest fan at the moment.

Sounds pretty miserable right? Haha. It is, but the fact is, and what you are doing well is you are recognizing it. These are the steps that work for me, and I hope this can help someone too:

1st step: Recognize It, Accept It and Own It!

I know this is a pain body reaction to loneliness, I know it is not going away today, but I see it for what it is, my mind trying to dominate my emotions.

2nd Step: Wait it out, This Too Shall Pass!

I ignore my thoughts as best I can and focus my energy outward. Give as much value you can afford to those around you even though it is really hard sometimes. It is hard, but prevents you from dwelling based upon the real direct emotion/problem and possibly diluting it with all the negative thoughts you will get whilst you are spiraling. Hold on for dear life and ride it out.

3rd Step: Assessment, WTF Happened?

This maybe a moment of clarity between depressive states. For me at least my episodes are getting far less frequent. I am not a psychologist, but these steps have helped me a lot.

The last time I felt depression was when I read MJs Unscripted and that was in May, this was full two full days on the couch with the curtains closed just looking at the ceiling numb. When it passed I assessed the cause of the (in this case it was somewhat obvious as you all probably know). WTF have I done with my life??? What am I going to do now?


4th Step: Reaction - Accept it, Change it or Fight it.

These steps I learned from practicing Tai Chi for over two years. But since, I have saw these laws applied so many times to all different aspects of life.

Accept it: Accept your situation/issue, that there is nothing you can do about it. Own it, or choose walk away from it.
Change it: This means being flexible to the situation. Change your circumstances and be the master of your destiny.
Fight it: Resist your situation, challenge it and take direct action against it.

Different problems require different Reactions to address them. Only you can choose that based on Step 3 and your own preference.
(For example: Cancer, you cant change the fact it is there, but you can Fight it or Accept it. Whereas in human interaction (e.g. an inadequate boss) it is more political to try and change it or accept it, rather than to fight it head on).


5th Step: Implement and iterate

Iteration after implementation in my experience is mostly always required, but it is really difficult to recognize and address this before dropped back into Step 1 and 2. I havent mastered it yet.
Depression is a subtle F*cker that creeps out of know where, and can be building for a period of months before it hits you and throws you on your back.

It gets better and better every time you loop though the steps, and attacks come less and less frequently as more internal issues are dealt with.


Conclusion
A book to read if you haven't already, is the "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I do not agree with everything in his book, but I would be lying if I said it hasn't changed my life for the better. It will help you recognize that those moments you hate yourself, is not "your self" but an uncontrolled mind dominating you into submission. It is hard work to practice this self control, but well worth it.

After proof reading, apologies for the epilogue haha. Today it is all feeling pretty horribly fresh, and I hope I can help someone out of it faster than I can help myself.
 
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Jon L

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I'm not the pussy I used to be. Moved to California two months ago, making well over six figures doing machine learning and database tuning. Working on three apps on the side. Haven't worn a shirt in like two weeks lol
That's quite cool. What was it that brought about that change?
 

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