30 day short term goal achieved!

Hello,

This is my form of celebration post, since I can only post here with 30+ days. I past the 30 day mark last night.

It has been a rough journey for many, many years. I've had some times were I've done well. But more times where I haven't done well.

At times before I would try to ignore it. There are times I have past 30 days by ignoring it and not thinking about it.

This time, it's been my focus front and center, and it still is. My next short term goal is to pass 40 days. I still need to determine exactly what date and time I need to pass to pass the 40 day mark.

I won't say this 30 days has been easy but it hasn't been too difficult overall. It has been more difficult the last few days and there have been more urges for MO or PMO and thoughts/fantasy. I've also had more dreams lately but no nocturnal emissions I believe. Today I also believe that my dopamine was low and I could feel the addicted feeling. My system was craving dopamine I believe and I was feeling the pressure that could have led me to MO or PMO. I think I was able to get my dopamine levels up through healthy alternatives since I don't feel that addicted feeling now at the end of the day.

I will continue to do what got me here to 30+ days.

That has been ...

1. Almost daily posting to my journal. As well as reading and posting to my accountability group thread and their support.

2. Focusing on my "Challenges Completed" goals. These have been short term goals for me and they have helped me not lose focus of where I am. It has helped me not forget and become careless and fail in a weak moment when I may be off guard.

3. A focus on getting dopamine from alternative/healthy sources. Fortunately, I have a friend who has been going to the gym almost daily for years. I started to go with him, now 3 or 4 times per week. These significantly tiring workouts are a great healthy source of dopamine. There are lists available online of the different sources of dopamine. This focus on dopamine is due to the fact that sexual things and P and PMO are can be big sources of dopamine. So I believe we often fail to PMO because we are really craving dopamine and P and PMO will provide a lot of dopamine quickly. This is what makes it so difficult to avoid P and PMO because we fall to the quickest and easiest source of lots of dopamine.

These have been huge factors in this 30 days. But I thank God for helping me get here also. And I thank God for the information and support I've found here on NoFap and other places online.

I have a long way to go but I feel I'm off to the best 30 days I've had in a while. My goal now is 40 days. I need to keep focused on it and not lose sight of my short term goals. My overall goal is to never look at P again. But this won't happen unless I can get to day 40 and then continue to meet my short term goals from there.

Well, as I said I'm really happy to be able to post this here since I have 30+ days now. I hope this could be a help or benefit to someone on your journey to recovery.

 

@Kurz The "Challenges Completed" is the section in my signature. I saw others have it and I decided to add it to mine this time. It has the number of days and then you underline that day when you've completed it.

Now my goal is passing day 40. I need to make it past day 40.

I decided to focus on this because I know I'm goal oriented. These short term goals help me because if I look at my goal as 90 days or more, it can be far out and it is easier for me to forget about it. But for the next 7 or 8 days, my goal will be to get past day 40. Then I will renew my short term goal to pass day 50. But for now, I will just focus on passing day 40.