In all honesty, your writing and personality has really been paramount in my life. I've still got an enormously long way to go, but I'm getting there one day at a time :)

Keep up the amazing work!

-R

Sebastian: Thanks. Wow. That was really cool to read. Some thoughts:

"It felt like I was continuously searching for a silver bullet to magically fix everything, and carry me to the goals that I wanted to accomplish." -> The good news and bad news is that there's almost never a silver bullet. So, you can safely stop looking for and start picking up 1% edges, 2% edges here and there. Trend upwards and establish little good habits, a better environment around you, and so on. R covers this when he says, "Make sure that all the small steps you take are taking you in the right direction. For me, this meant to change my habits to align with my principles and goals. A little bit at a time, over a long period, and you'll always win."

"In my case, I was constantly taking the easy way out of situations (work, personal, and otherwise) to escape blame, at the cost of my integrity." -> Yes! You're in charge. Of everything. Even if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility. Take responsibility even if you didn't create the mess. Then you fix things.

"Work hard for what you want. I previously felt like doing just enough to get by was okay. I didn't realize that you really have to give everything you do 100% of your effort." -> I mostly agree here as well, consistent effort is incredibly valuable. On the flipside, don't beat yourself up for down days. It happens. (Well, beat yourself up if it's conducive to getting what you want, but it seems like it's actually not helpful)

I wrote back to R and asked him if I could repost this here, his reply:

Sure! Feel free to repost this however you want--it's the least I can do. On a somewhat related note: one of the first things I did which really helped me break out of the mode I was in before I started all these changes was to talk with my friends about what I wanted to do. Just sharing it gave me a ton of motivation to keep working towards the goals, establishing the habits, etc.

That's dawning on me more and more. External accountability outperforms internal accountability in the short run consistently. Now, that's no excuse not to build internal accountability (willpower, habits, discipline, etc) - but if you want to perform better in the short term, get yourself some external accountability. At the same time, keep developing internals, don't rely on the external solely. But lots of progress can be made with external accountability.

Thanks R. Man, that was cool email. Reading that made my day.