The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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I'm naturally very disagreeable and aggressive and had the opposite problem of being "too reserved", my parents got called to pick me up from school for getting in trouble so many times that at one point they just gave up and told the teachers to deal with it.
However, I was exposed to a lot of people from the opposite side of the temperament spectrum in college and work because I pursued a very "nerdy" STEM field. Here's what I think the easily identifyable failure modes of "nerds" are.
Stop thinking you are a nerdy guy, seriously. Of course, there are clusters of people along certain dimensions which is why stereotypes exist. But those stereotypes are descriptions, not prescriptions.
If you are a heterodox thinker in any capacity, you will soon realize that is is extremely easy to find yourself outside of one of those clusters.
A lot of people get programmed by their surrounding cultural landscape into pretending to be things they are not. Ask yourself, are you really reserved? Or do you just think that's how others expect you to act and as a result, you act that way? Are you really a nerd? Or do you just wear glasses?
Try formulating a strong sense of identity along the lines of; {I believe in X} {I want Y} {I do Z} {My values are ABC}. Instead of I {I am a X}. It's a worthwhile exercise because it's extremely unlikely that you aren't pretending at least a little bit or your values/wants might not be yours but might be imported from elsewhere.
Once you have a strong grasp of who you actually are, it's much easier to be unapologetic about your beliefs, ideas and wants, because they rest on strong foundations.
Start lifting. Don't listen to the doubters or naysayers or "dadbod" propaganda, the benefits of having additional muscle mass are so lopsided in their favor, you would really need to go well out of your way to justify not lifting once you are aware of the upsides (This link is the tip of the iceberg).
Having some muscles not changes your mental state in the way you are aiming, it will also change how others act around you. Some people will naturally take a submissive role in their interactions with you if you are bigger than them and eliminate the need to be assertive/unreserved. (This might not work as well if you are short).
Wildcard. Maybe you are a pussified version of yourself because you have low Testosterone, or too much prolactin, or whatever. A large chunk of your mood and demeanor especially in the negative direction is neurochemically modulated. (Look into Andrew Hubermans work.)
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