In my last year of high school and so scared of adulthood. Been sheltered all my life and hate it. I’m so angry at myself for being so weak. Underweight and so anxious.
How do I change this and make sure I’m not one right now?
I need to be strong if I am to become a husband and father.
48 comments
How to avoid it, you say – ‘damn, I ain’t going to be no infantile man’
And then you action that.
So you’re 50% there, keep up the good work.
Acknowledgement and self awareness is always half the solution.
Find good mentors, exercise regularly, read up on what you’re interested in, invest in your family and friends. You’ll be okay 👍🏼
How do u strengthen any other muscle? I’d talk to someone professionally. Idk if it helps or not, but over the years (I’m 41) I’ve come to realize that performance precedes confidence. Two things I know for sure: confidence has to be earned, and you will make mistakes. How u react to those mistakes will make or break u. If u adapt, they will mold u into a diamond. If u cave in the face of mistakes, and say “oh my god I knew I sucked at this, I’m so bad… Yada, yada, yada” they will crush you. Adopt a can do attitude that stems from the willingness to grow from mistakes, and do your best.
I’m a small dude with anxiety issues too. Those things don’t make you infantile. Get tested for your mental health, work out with limited expectation, take care of your needs (food, sleep, etc.).
Honestly get off Reddit is a good first step lmao
Intuitively you should have a feel for what is good and what brings you down. Lay off the porn and antidepressants, limit video games as much as possible. Get enough sunlight every day, go outside and move your body 3-5x a week. Limit the processed foods and shoot for single ingredient whole foods. Lift heavy things, develop a strong reading habit. Pick an uncomfortable hobby/sport and stick with it to develop mental fortitude. Seek out and build a community with like minded guys. Boxing gyms and Muay Thai can be a great place to build your circle.
Ultimately, be careful listening to strangers online. Find some older men irl that you know, trust and respect, then follow their lead. You’ll find your footing
Whoa, it sounds like you’re internalizing a lot of expectations from society. My advice is to make a list of achievable goals every 6 months and work at them.
“Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be… The measure of a person, of a hero… is how well they succeed at being who they are.” -Avengers endgame
I’m fat (244lbs), I’m slow (ran a 15:33 mile today)…. But I’m happy with my life.
Lots of good advice here. I’ll add something less obvious. Don’t worry about succeeding or failing, just try. Whatever it is, just try.
I can relate as I was both underweight and anxious throughout my teenage years (anxiety didn’t go away but rears its head every now and then). Took me a while to feel confident and somewhat capable but if I could do it again I’d eat more protein rich foods and do more push ups for starters. I used to scoff at the “jocks” back then but now I know better: body and mind are one. Don’t overthink it man. You know what to do.
wtf 😂, go live and enjoy your life young man.
Do shit. More importantly, decide to do shit. Infants are infants because they haven’t experienced anything beyond what their parents or teachers have decided for them. So they are inexperienced and only know how to react to stimuli others have catered for them.
So just go out and do shit. You’ll probably do it wrong. You’ll learn not to make that mistake again. So then you’ll make a different mistake. Which you’ll learn from. So you can go screw up again.
Eventually, you’ve either made every possible mistake and are perfect, or you’ve stopped worrying about making mistakes and become a man.
Either way, all it really takes is just doing stuff.
So OP – when was the last time you did something new and crazy, entirely of your own volition?
Don’t worry about the wife and kids right now, that’s a lot of expectation to put on yourself out of high school.
You’re about to come into a lot more freedom than you’re used to. Focus on using it wisely. Hit the gym, explore hobbies, take the time to find a job that sets you up well from the start with benefits and a 401k. Invest money.
If you focus on yourself and bettering you for your sake, the friends and romance will come to you.
Being underweight and having anxiety have nothing to do with being infantilized or being a man. What matters is whether you show up when times are tough. And whether you are taking the steps to make yourself into the person you want to be.
Here’s a secret: most men are faking it. I don’t care whether they’re 18 or 50. People who aren’t sheltered have anxiety and are underweight, just for different reasons than you.
Here’s another secret: you’ll never be your ideal self. Know why? Because the more you accomplish, the more your goal posts will move. The sooner you embrace inadequacy and failure, reframing them into opportunities for growth, the better off you’ll be. It’s only through that process that you find peace and confidence in yourself, knowing you are enough even if you’re not perfect.
Last secret: you are already enough. The only person you should change for at this point is yourself. Because you see your own potential and you want to realize it. It doesn’t have to be a big glorious thing. But an opportunity to be just 1% better tomorrow. Just keep focusing on that and you’ll be alright!
Read the book “the problem of the puer aeternus” by Marie von Franz. Only book that helped me grow up.
Basically you seek comfort above all else, you probably have some mother wound. I’ve been there, I’m still crawling out. But it’s possible. It will require you to face some really hard, emotional shit. But if you survive you will be a better man for it.
Go thru struggles that you can handle. Everyone is always surprised with what they can handle, but also, some get permanently injured. Do more eat less. Then you’re hungry. Work out with your body as a weight till your tired but not sore and do it daily. Take cold showers for the hype energy that gives you on the morning. You become more and it feels great as you go thru the journey.
Take it easy on yourself. I think you’ll eventually learn that most every adult is just 2-3 kids in a trench-coat figuring it out to the best of their ability.
Get out into the world. Get a job with coworkers from different backgrounds that works with the general public. I think exposure will help cure some of the anxiety and weakness you feel.
Get curious about the people in your life. Pay attention to their priorities, anxieties, goals, etc. and think of how they relate to yours and why they may be similar / different. People will surprise you in the best ways.
Make a ton of friends. Nothing makes me feel more secure than knowing I have people to lean on, and nothing makes me feel better than being able to help when a friend needs it.
Given your asking for advice from men over 30, who may have a bit of life experience behind us, I will say your asking a bunch of different questions here.
First, get off the manosphere. Rogan, Tate, Huberman, all those jackasses are kids themselves. Go find some real men to look up to. Some good examples. Stop being angry with yourself, it isn’t productive. Instead of moping, you need to realize that your future is dictated largely by your behavior and actions you make every day.
“Does this decision I’m about to make bring me closer to, or further away from what I want?”, and then act.
As for the underweight thing, just give it a good 20 years and you’ll be struggling not to go the other way haha. It will solve itself in time.
Your character and reputation will cast a shadow greater than your physique will.
I believe to achieve that requires the synergy of the body and mind.
A balanced diet of proteins (can be vegetarian through beans and protein rich veggies) and complex carbohydrates.
My core exercises were squats, pull ups (if you have a set up for it), push ups, core exercises, and deadlifts. It can help to find a physical activity you enjoy that has mechanical motion helps to develop other muscles through compound motions. Swimming is a great example.
Find time to read— make reading lists and annual reading goals— it doesn’t have to be binge reading. It doesn’t have to be self help. You can read a fun book and a developmental/nonfiction book simultaneously.
Try out different hobbies. Enrich yourself with the possibility for many interests. Your hobbies will sustain you when you hit your 30s.
Try to be easy on yourself. You are not a masterpiece, you are a collage.
You can train a body. You can develop a mind. You have to earn the heart.
Small steps to competence in something. No one was born knowing how to rebuild an engine, but I bet you can learn to turn a wrench. No one built a house to code without first learning how to hammer a nail.
The most competent men among us learned one step at a time. Small gains for big change.
It really depends on how you learn as well, but I am definitely a mixed learning person, as you can’t hammer a nail by reading about it, but you can possibly learn the difference between what makes a galvanized nail correct for some applications.
Whatever you do, don’t be angry at yourself for being scared. This is both counterproductive and unreasonable. If you are scared, it’s because you are smart enough to have a sense of how complex life can be. And yeah, it’s overwhelming at times.
Adulthood is not something you feel, or suddenly “become”. It is one foot in front of the other. Adulting is what you do. It means doing things that are hard, or that you don’t want to do, because you know you should. It means making difficult choices. It doesn’t mean becoming “hard” or “strong”. It definitely doesn’t mean knowing everything.
There’s an old saw about how being fearless is just stupidity. Being brave is being afraid – and doing it anyway.
Start by finding ways to incentivize yourself to do adulting activities. A certain amount of leisure in return for making that doctor’s appointment, for example. Figuring out car insurance? That’s a bowl of ice cream. A difficult conversation that needs to be had? Watch mindless TV for an hour.
All this said, I wouldn’t be a kid again for all the tea in China. I love being an adult (55 right now), and I’ve found ways to make my life fun and rewarding. But in with those rewards there are some things you’ll have to figure out how to do.
Time to hit the gym, bud. Follow a good workout routine like Starting Strength. Stick with it. If you stick with the gym consistently and become physically strong, you will also develop other things.
Anxiety is not weakness. It’s your body responding to something that feels threatening. You’ve got to learn from it and befriend it. There’s wisdom in it.
Lmao the way dating is these days, if you don’t already have a gf, you’re not gonna be a husband or a father lmao 🤣
Go do a marital art with a strong close group dynamic.
Determine what a holistic approach to being a strong man requires. Don’t follow a path of toxic masculinity.
Embrace responsibility.
All the guys that would consider infantile have no responsibility or consistently run from it. Work the job, marry the girl and have kids. The immense pressure and weight of a family is light if you love to serve the ones you love.
You already are avoiding it by being self aware. A truly sheltered and infantile man would have no idea what’s he’s walking into in adulthood. Underweight is an easy fix, just eat more, anxiety may need some professional help but it may also subside just by addressing your other hangups you have.
The only advice I can give is to hit the gym, take care of your teeth, manage your credit and debt well. If you somehow manage to completely fuck everything else up at least you’ll always be able to bounce back easier if you manage these things.
Being infantile has nothing to do with your size or appearance and everything to do with your skills and confidence. If you don’t want to feel like a child I’d recommend looking up an adulting checklist of skills and building on them one at a time. Can you do your own online banking and pay bills? Can you do you own laundry? Can you cook for yourself?
I’m well aware that appearance has an impact on confidence. Seems like a lot of commenters have got you covered there.
Last thing, you’re in high school being anxious about being a husband and a father. I can’t speak for everyone else here, but after 25 is when I started to think about adulting. Take a deep breath and cut yourself some slack, you’re doing just fine.
First do human shit.
Listen to stories. Tell stories. Learn how to build and tend a fire. Learn how to cook For your self and others. Take long walks through nature. Sit and observe animals.
Learn rope craft, learn how to knit, how to weave, how to sew. All these things are skills that you start, you learn simple steps, then you practice, over and over, for years.
The next thing is your body, start one of the ancient somatic training practices. Yoga, Tai Chi, Calisthenics. Develop the practice. Do it every day. Find people to teach you.
After 3-5 years of learning skills, cooking, listening and telling stories, working your body, you’ll be a competent person and people will know they can depend on you.
It sounds like you’re worried that adult life is like junior high school but worse. In my experience, the opposite is true. In junior high I had to deal with guys who bullied me for not being just like them. But in the many decades since then, I’ve never once been intimidated by another man. Despite being pretty skinny for many years, and never being in a fight in my life.
Anyone who tells you you need fighting skills to be a successful man is misinformed, in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with learning any sport you like, but there’s nothing wrong with learning no sports at all (as long as you spend some time every day moving your body—even just walking can keep you in healthy condition).
The important things in life are not gender-role determined. Put your energy into being a good person, not a good man. Pursue your strengths and joys, and build up your weak spots (or learn how to work around them). If you’re determined to be a good partner and parent, the most important skill is patience (I know that because it’s where I most often fail). But also remember that you don’t need to be a partner or a parent to be a good person. You can be good all by yourself. And when you understand that, you can be of more value to others.
Learn about assertive behauviour and learn social skillsand self confidence .
Try the book no more me nice Guy.
You live. You grow. You adapt.
Try to take charge where it matters, but accept that life will change you in ways you never expected.
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Stop sitting around and being worried and just do shit. Lotta of pointless negative self talk in this post. Why be mad at yourself and sit around saying “you piece of shit, you haven’t done this, you’re weak,” when you can just say “I want to do X and it’ll be good for me, I’m going to go do it,” and then get off the couch and go do it. You’re a young man, the world is your oyster and your potential for growth and experience is nearly unlimited. You get to set your own course and choose your own path.
Just go out into the world and learn. I was just like that (even if I was unaware). I ultimately ended up joining the marines and that really toughened me up.
As an ag teacher who mentors many young men, I will say that the most important things in my opinion are to always be learning, working or loving. I firmly believe that idle hands do the devils work. More often than not simply reading about something, learning a new skill, or showing your love and gratitude for others will not only make you a better man but also a better friend, family member and partner.
I mentor of mine explained once that there is no such thing as remaining in the same place. If you don’t actively challenge yourself to become a better man, someone out there is, which means you are falling behind. You’re young and introspective enough to see you need to do something to become what you aspire to be, which is the first step.
You don’t need to be strong.
You need to be responsible for yourself. You need to learn to take care of yourself.
Exercise for YOU. Go places for YOU. Learn an instrument FOR YOU. In general if you start doing things for you and no one else you’ll break that cycle.
It took me decades to figure it out – but this is my ‘new season’ of life and I’ve never felt better (now in my 40’s).
Stop with this alpha guy podcast bullshit and you will be fine.
Join the military.
Take on a hard job. Physical labor that also grows practical skills.
An Adult kung fu or similar class will get you in tune with your body and give you confidence you won’t panic in a brawl.
For anxiety, see a therapist.
And remember strength is about will, not muscle.
Join the military
You need to be confident, live real experiences in life, and have a community of friends, that’s what you need. Being strong comes from that stuff, don’t mistake some superficial presentation of “strength” like muscles with actual mental-emotional stability. But, do workout regularly. Is there a reason you didn’t really do anything throughout high school? Why didn’t you get involved with any teams or clubs or anything?
Do stuff, learn stuff, listen, ask questions, have respect, be humble.
Don’t hate and doubt yourself. Instead realise that you’re at the beginning of a journey.
I’ve made lots of mistakes but I don’t regret anything in my life. I’m happy with how life is going. Try to live every day so that you can say you did your best.
And if you want to watch something positive about life and masculinity my favourite movies for that are The Worlds Fastest Indian and The Magnificent Seven (the 1960s version not the shitty remake).
Step one is release the anger. Accept where you are, and plan to be where you want to be. Then take steps to move there with reasonable goals. Being angry at yourself will keep you locked in a box. I was a moderately sheltered non-athletic kid, now at 40 I’ve submitted mountains, heli-ski, and am more muscular than I ever have been.
A huge part of that was to end the comparisons. I was afraid to try some activities cuz I would be worse than my peers. Now I try everything & im a surprisingly quick study. Other than basketball which I totally suck at lol, I can do most athletic activities & do with my kids.
Good luck, just don’t be angry about it, be excited to improve!
Do what needs to be done even if you don’t want to and do what is right even if you’re scared. That solves like 98% of problems or situations in life.
join the army
Slow down. Have grace and patience with yourself. At your age, you need eat clean, study, exercise your body, sleep, and learn to work hard but be gentle with your mindset.
It is easier to set your mental systems up to make you driven toward something rather than driven away from something. The difference is the way we say things to ourselves for example “I am angry at myself for being weak” versus “I am going to do this thing to figure out what my strengths are.” I know it seems stupid but it works.
That voice in your head can be poisonous. Take the time to really listen to yourself. Would you let that voice that is telling you all those negative things say those things to someone you love? No, you wouldn’t. Make that voice in your head be kind to you. Instead of allowing it to tell you all the things that you are not make it a voice of the father figure you want your kids to have. Taking the time to be kind to yourself is showing love for the people that love you.
Now the other part of mind set is goal setting and habit forming. Choose well defined short term goals that allow you to know what to do day to day that are difficult but achievable. Then build habits around them. Make it like brushing your teeth. You just do it.
It takes 21 days to commit to a new habit. It takes 7 to break a habit. Learn to pick habits stick to them and layer them on top of each other like a bricklayer. This will build a positive feedback system in your life. You will also have more opportunity to figure out who you are.
Things you can do are: If you feel weak or small go to a gym and workout or do some sparring and rolling at a martial arts gym. You might make some friends and learn something about yourself.
Another thing, Motivation is great to get you interested and started in something but discipline and sacrifice are the work horses in making change in your life. Get to know them early and learn to wield them like a swordsman.
Do note, discipline and sacrifice are not infinite. You need to adjust your short term goals such that they are difficult but achievable. You don’t want to burn out. You need to think “how do I keep this up for 3 years or more?” Find barriers to habit compliance and find ways to either remove them or work around them. The fewer times you have to use discipline the more likely you are to build the habit and keep it.