[NeedAdvice] I feel like a trapped laboratory rat.

I was in a very, very similar situation about 1-2 years ago. I don't know if this will help you but here's how I got out of here. First step: acceptance. Full acceptance and taking 100% responsibility of my life. I was in the situation because of my own wrong doing. we ALWAYS have a choice to at least how we react to things. I chose to be a victim (aka not having control + focusing on the negative of any bad situation). I recognized that I was at fault, not 5%, not 50% but 100% of my shitty situation. And then I accepted the situation fully without feeling bad about it. "Okay, I buried myself in this hole."

Next step: Asking myself what do I really want out of life. Drifting aimlessly didn't seem like a good option, it was what brought me in this hole in the first place. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do with my life. "I want to create unique and artful video games and to inspire people by the use of this medium".

Next step: Asking myself how and what should I do to achieve this goal. I broke down this big goal into smaller ones, until they could be accomplished in weeks or months. I then devised a plan to turn these smaller goals into habits. And I started implementing those habits slowly.

Extra step: every time I would fail (and it happened countless time) I would STOP myself immediately from thinking "Oh this is it! Old me again. I failed and now I am back to square one" NO NO NO. No victim thinking allowed here. Instead I focused on "Why did I fail ? How could I do these better next time ? What did I learn from this" You can even write it down in a journal if you want.

It's very human to feel negative and there is even a sort of comforting aspect to negative thinking. Because when you are depressed you don't push yourself too hard, you stay in your comfort zone. It's neither bad or good, but it gets in the way to accomplish bigger things and feel happy. So you have to choose. You can always choose how you react to things.

As I said, maybe this will help you, maybe this won't. It's up to you. And what I did wasn't new or groundbreaking. Several other people apply this principles, and even write about them with more clarity than I did. You might want to look more into self-help content. This won't be easy or even quick but know that this is a possibility you always have regardless on your circumstances.

Nothing is wrong with you. Should you ignore this and keep pressing on ? It depends: do you want to stay in the comfort of your familiar life or do you want to push yourself to get more out of your life ? It's up to you.

/r/getdisciplined Thread