@Jordan Tan yo I feel this. I'm trying to make some big changes in how I orient my life, and the main thing carrying me through is trying to stick to a strict daily schedule. Sometimes, though, it feels kind of empty, like is there any meaning in what I'm doing or am I just finding a way to distract myself by stuffing my time full of tasks? In terms of being hard on yourself one thing that's helped me is trying to move away from the attitude of "if you can't do 100% you may as well not do it." If I get up a little late and don't have time for a full workout, for example, me from a year ago would have packed it in and felt really bad about it. Me today figures out what I can do in the shortened time. Then I resolve to try a bit more the next day. Gonna check out the vids Trinley posted below too see how they intersect with this issue of cultivating genuine resolve.

Thanks @Trinley Goldenberg Hi everyone. From a material standpoint my life is fine: stable job that affords a good work life balance and enough money to do what I want. I also have a close group of friends I've known for a while who are all mostly in the same situation. However, recently, I've found myself in a bit of a crisis. My job is not creatively fulfilling. Most of my time outside of work has been spent gaming, typically in a discord call with my friends. For a while this was fine, but now I feel like the floor has dropped out from under me. I get no joy out of gaming anymore, it just feels like pressing buttons with no actual stimulation, and I feel like my personal relationships are possibly shallower than I previously perceived, or maybe I haven't been able to bring as much to them. Over the past couple weeks I've cut out games completely and have started pursuing creative hobbies again - writing, teaching myself violin, reading, drawing, and I'm trying to get a 5 year plan going to make a creative pursuit my means of living. I guess the main issue with motivation comes from the fear that I can pour all this energy into these things but it won't matter to anyone but me, and I won't be able to change my work. I try to tell myself that even if it just enriches me on an individual level it's worth doing, but it's hard. I also feel like most of my friends probably won't understand this, like they seem fine with working and using their free time on entertainment. Or maybe they would understand but the response might be something like "that's cool," without much deeper engagement. Maybe I'm not trusting them enough though.