Late to the reply on this, oops. I might go more in-depth and make a post on it after 1 full year of doing it but I pretty much just looked at myself and sorted out some bare-minimum goals to start off:
1: get a new job that I didn't actively dread going to every day
2: Eat at least 2000 calories a day
3: Go outside as often as possible and get some physical activity every day
4: Socialize as often as possible
It's very bare minimum but that's where I was at when I started the whole plan. I really lucked out with number 1, I got a job in a kitchen with a very friendly environment where everyone is constantly being pushed (constructively) to improve. Adopting that kind of mindset had a lot of downstream effects on the rest of the plan, and getting staff meal every day and going on foraging hikes for ingredients meant I was more often than not achieving numbers 2-4 and getting paid for it.
As time went on I would do check-ins whenever I had the chance and update/add new goals. If I was consistently not achieving a goal I'd set I would figure out why and change that goal. If I was constantly succeeding I would take it off of the list of goals and celebrate in some way. The list of goals is much bigger and very different now (and a lot less vague) than the one I started out with. The "Phases" essentially just deal with scope: Phase one is trying to construct a scaffold off of which I can build on later with phase two, and is mainly dealing with improving my physical and mental health directly.
A key part of this that helped me was breaking the sort of "all or nothing" mentality I had before where if I didn't succeed right away I'd convince myself I couldn't do it. I eventually stopped seeing these "failures" as setbacks and instead saw them as opportunities to analyze why I wasn't achieving what I'd set out to achieve. Most of the time it was just a matter of trying again over and over until I didn't have to try anymore.
Also this one's probably slightly cringe but since one of my goals now is "stop caring about being weird/cringe" I'll say it anyway: some of the Volition quotes from Disco Elysium actually make for really great motivators/reminders. The amount of times I've said "stay the course. You'll make it someday" and "you've made it this far, it's just a bit farther now" to myself is quite high
I'm entering month 11 of something I'm half-jokingly calling "The Radical Reconstruction of the Self", which is way less dramatic than the name sounds. It's more or less just a structured plan to get myself back on my feet and working towards becoming a version of myself I actually enjoy being. In that time I've made so much progress regarding both my physical and mental health (though it hasn't been without any setbacks or struggles) that I feel like I'm nearly ready to move on to phase two. This really excites me, because it feels like (prior to starting the RRS) I had spent years trying and failing to even get to the point I was at six months ago. I can look back on the past year and be genuinely proud of myself and what I've accomplished, which is something I can't say about previous years.
For too long I have been in a protracted struggle with myself and my brainworms. HOWEVER, through the power of unrelenting hope and LOTS of hard work, it is a struggle I intend to win.
Alright which one of you dastardly bears performed the ritual on all hallows eve to bring me back from the dead?? As soon as I find my knife it's over for ye
Real talk though I've missed poasting here. Had a rough couple of years where I withdrew from everything before hitting a solid upward trajectory last spring. Doing much better since then but there's been one particularly massive hexagon-shaped hole in my heart that needs to be filled
VOLITION [Easy: Failure]Don't worry... We will find the real communist someday