How is the calendar method for those of you who have done the tracker as well? Sometimes watching the closer you get, or the slowness of how long it seems to take, to reach a goal, you can not help but fail. Sometimes it seems like too big of a goal.
I thought this was just me that uses this, good to know it is an actual thing! I know what you mean, it does seem to go slower when you watch the dates. Any advice off someone that has made this work would be great.
Calendar method has been great for me! Here's why I decided to get rid of my counters and switch to a calendar: - When I fail, I feel like I'm "starting over at square one," but that is a lie. Ignoring (whether consciously or subconsciously) all of the growth you've experienced during your recent streak is dangerous. It leads you to believe, little by little, every time you fail, that there is no point in getting back up again. - I feel like a calendar is a much more accurate representation of my growth. For example, I would say I probably MOed about 20 times in November. In December, that number dropped down to 4. That is a hugeeee change. But when I lost my 23 day streak in mid December, I didn't see it that way. All I saw was that, while I had made some growth, I was still failing and still starting all over again. - Personally, I don't like rehashing my current relapse for everyone on the forums to see. Don't get me wrong -- that's really awesome and effective for some people. But at this point, I have a few APs who know my story really well, so talking to them is better. Without a counter that everyone can see, I don't feel the need to "explain myself" every time I fail. While it's important to have accountability (and I do, with my APs, as you well know lol), I think it can be kind of harmful to some people to have so many different opinions from so many different people. For me, it's a bit overwhelming sometimes, and I just want to retreat and say "I know what I'm doing, leave me alone." Which isn't healthy. So for me, not having counters and focusing on APs rather than the whole community is a healthier balance. So here's what I do with my calendar method. When I slip, I write it down. I write down the extent of the slip, how many times, etc.... For example, one day on my calendar might say: "PMO (3)" which means I MOed 3 times, while watching P. Whereas another day might say: "MO (1) no fantasy, no porn," or "yes fantasy, no porn, yes psubs" or something like that, which means... well, that's pretty straight forward, I think. And then at the end of the month, I add up the total MOs, one total for all of them and one total for just the ones that involved porn. The cool thing about having a calendar, also, is that you can still count your "streak" if you want to. I can still go see what my longest streak has been and if I've beaten it yet, but I'm not consciously focused on that every day. I'm just kind of living my life and not really "focused" on how well I'm doing with NoFap. For example, I had a super big slip.... yesterday? Two days ago? See, I can't even remember at the moment. But right now, I don't feel like "Aw, man, I'm only on day one/two again... *sigh*" I just feel like today is a new day and I've done well today.
