I Hate My Life: Simple Strategies to End Hopelessness and Self Loathing for Good

I Hate Myself and I Don’t Know Why or What To Do

If you’re overwhelmed by feelings of self loathing and hopelessness, I have good news.

You’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with you.

Despite the fake smiles and exaggerated lifestyles that proliferate your social media feeds, hating your life at times isn’t just normal, it’s inescapable. It’s a part of the human condition whether we want to admit it or not.

Everyone, at some point in their life, has looked in the mirror and hated the person they saw. No one, no matter how successful or accomplished they might be, is immune to these feelings and emotions.

Robert Downey Jr., arguably one of the most famous and successful actors of the decade, spent years struggling with a cocaine addiction that landed him in prison. He hated his life and attempted to numb this hate with one of the most addicting substances on the planet. Yet today, he lives an almost unimaginable life.

Jim Carrey, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling all spent apart of their early lives broke, depressed, and overwhelmed by financial and personal challenges until they made the decision to commit to their journeys and create the success they enjoy today.

Heck, even Oprah, an apparent paragon of self love, struggled immensely during her early life. She was a victim of sexual abuse, racism, and discrimination and has talked openly about how much she hated herself as a young woman.

We all have goals we failed to achieve. Standards and ideals we failed to live up to. Things we wish we had or hadn’t done. Mistakes we wish we could undo. And this is just part of what it is to be human. We all wake up some days and think to ourselves, “What’s the point? Is there any purpose to this at all?”

In fact, while conducting research for this article, Google said phrases like “I really hate my life right now”, “I hate my fucking life”, “I hate myself”, and “self loathing” generate over 100,000 searches per month. And that number is growing every month.

Short bouts of self-loathing are an inevitable part of the human condition, but you get to decide whether they are weak and fleeting emotions or your default state.

The difference between successful, happy, fulfilled people and those mired in an almost absolute hatred for their lives is that successful people know how to use these negative thoughts and emotions as a guide to the life they want. They’ve learned to rewrite the script.

Successful people don’t settle at “I really hate my life right now.” Instead, they say, “I really hate my life right now…so what am I going to do about it?”

When the world feels like a chaotic shit storm with no reprieve in sight, you can enter into the eye of the storm and come out the other side stronger, better, and happier for it. If you hate yourself or hate your life, you’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with feeling this way temporarily, but it doesn’t have to stay this way indefinitely.

In this guide, I’m going to layout the actionable steps you can take today to hate yourself and your life a lot less. It won’t necessarily be easy and you will never eradicate your self loathing entirely, but you can make these emotions less dominant. You can whip them into submission and use them as a springboard to the life you really want.

And I’m going to show you how to do it. Shall we begin?

Understanding Self-Loathing: What It Is and Why You Feel It

When caught in the grips of self loathing, it’s easy to assume that you are the problem. That you’re just a terrible person who is incapable of getting better or experiencing joy. That somehow, the emotions you’re feeling are all your fault and you deserve to feel this way because you’re a terrible person.

But these assumptions are unfounded.

In the same way that depression is not a disease in and of itself but rather a symptom of a deeper cause, when you wake up and say, “I hate my life so much”, this feeling is not the problem itself. It’s simply a signal to your brain that something needs to change.

If you were to take a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted person and drop them into your life, they would hate their life too. Within a few weeks, their cheery disposition would be replaced by bitterness and their lust for life with a dull throbbing numbness, as if they’d just taken a hit of novocaine. Not because they are a bad person. But because they are living life day in day out in such a way that breeds self-loathing.

Ultimately, self loathing and self hatred is nothing more than a sign that something in your life isn’t working and needs your immediate attention.

It doesn’t mean anything about your abilities or lack of abilities. It simply means that the patterns, environment and behaviors you have adopted are not conducive to happiness, aliveness and self love.

And often, these toxic behaviors and patterns were not ones that were consciously chosen by you. Merely traps into which you unwittingly fell overtime.

Right now, without your consent or awareness, there is a billion-dollar war being waged for your very soul, time and attention.

From the moment you were born until now, you have been inundated with lies and half-truths about what it means to have a “well-lived life”. You’ve been unwittingly subjected to billion-dollar ad campaigns that have warped and perverted your view of the world and your very sense of self.

And now, those companies are making billions more by capitalizing on your feelings of inadequacy and hopelessness. Porn, video games, TV shows, movies, social media, alcohol, and drugs are all billion-dollar industries that generate massive profits by making it easy for you to escape life.

With one hand, they elicit feelings of fear and hopelessness, making you say things like, “Wow, I wish my life could be like that.” or “I’ll never be as handsome/heroic/rich/successful/happy as that guy.” And with the other, they offer you a temporary “solution”.

“You’re right” they say, “You’ll never be like that guy or date that kind of woman…But if you’ll just buy our product, you can forget all about your worries and escape from the void (at least, until the “high” wears off and you need to come back for another fix the next day).”

And so, when we fall into society’s traps–things like instant gratification, escapism, consumerism, –we don’t know how to break free and reclaim the happiness that is our birthright.

Right now, I want you to look at your life. Look at the habits, patterns, and routines that play out on a weekly basis and ask yourself, “What is the root cause of the toxic emotions I am experiencing? In what ways have I become a victim of the Billion Dollar War.”

Maybe you’re trapped in self-destructive tendencies. Doing drugs, drinking alcohol, watching way too much porn, excessive video gaming or binge-watching TV every night to distract yourself from an abysmal existence.

Maybe you aren’t the problem. It could be that you’re in a depressing environment–surrounded by low quality people in crappy living conditions in an unexciting location.

You might be feeling alone and isolated with no close familial, social, or romantic relationships and, as a result, you feel unloved and unaccepted. You think, “No one will love me for who I am so why even bother?”

However, after coaching hundreds of men and indirectly working with thousands more, I’ve noticed that the root cause of self-loathing is not drug addiction or bad living conditions or a lack of love..but a lack of meaning and purpose.

From “I Hate My Life So Much” to “I Love My Life”: How to Stop Hating Your Life with The Power of Adventure and Wonder

The first, and most important step you can take to escape your hate for life and develop an indomitable lust for living is to embrace the hero’s journey and make the decision today that you will not waste another second of your finite existence wallowing in self-pity and self loathing.

Decide to engage in life and find a journey that is worth going on. That is worth fighting for with every waking hour. A struggle that is worth the price you will have to pay.

Human life, all life really, has always been defined by one thing: Progress.

We are hardwired to explore, to create, to face and conquer challenges, to go to battle with enemies external and internal. We are hardwired to crave a journey, to crave adventure, to crave challenge.

This is why movies like Star Wars, Harry Potter and The Avengers resonate so deeply with their audiences. They are tales of challenge, of struggle, of a journey and a battle between good and evil. The natural state of the human-animal is one of struggle and progress. Yet as a society, many are stuck in the struggle and as result, default to stagnation.

Our innate desire to be bold, take risks, and go all out during this one life is suppressed and beaten out of us from the moment we reach the age of 10.

Parents, teachers, and other authority figures instruct us to “Play it safe” to “Be realistic” to “Be grateful for what you have.”

But these claims don’t breed heroic adventures, only mediocrity.

A tame life, a life void of challenge and tribulation is no life at all. It is merely an existence.

As Theodore Roosevelt said,

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

If you hate your life, it is time for you to step into the arena. To commit to the hero’s journey. To embrace the challenges of life instead of running from them. To prove yourself. To suffer defeat and revel in victory. To live so intently that your blood pulses with excitement dammit!

Today, I want you to commit to embracing your first step in this journey.

It doesn’t have to be some grand sweeping gesture. You don’t need to walk into the office and give your boss a single finger salute (or maybe you do). You don’t need to move to a new city (not yet, at least) or abandon your current relationships.

You simply need to start a journey, any journey.

It could be something as simple as picking up a new hobby like playing the guitar, writing fiction, painting, or martial arts and reconnecting with the process of mastery and the beauty of progress.

Or it could be something as huge as reinventing yourself from the ground up, moving to a new city or country, embracing a new career, mastering your romantic and social life, and transforming yourself into a strong grounded man.

The antidote to self-hatred is fun, adventure, and challenge, all which increase your overall aliveness. But remember, these adventures and challenges don’t need to be serious. If you’re feeling stuck in the throes of hopelessness and self-loathing, start small. Make the journey fun and enjoyable.

Instead of coming home and immediately turning to the bottle or the television, go on Meetups.com and find at least three fun activities you could join two or three times a week. Instead of sedating your loneliness with porn and compulsive masturbation, go out into the real world and learn how to start socializing with and eventually dating women you like.

Go explore your town and surrounding area and try out new coffee shops and restaurants every week. Go on SkillShare and pick a new skill to learn every month. Read biographies about the most inspiring individuals in history, people who suffered from depression and adversity like you and I have never known. Create a bucket list and commit to completing one item from your life every 3-6 months.

Do something, anything to inject more fun, adventure and challenge into your life.

When you are creating, exploring, and progressing, even in small ways, you create an emotional, mental, and spiritual environment where hopelessness and self-loathing cannot thrive and you will have taken your first step to replacing the thought, “I hate my life so much” with “I love my life more than I ever thought possible”.

Are you ready to create a life you LOVE and become a strong grounded man who lives life to the fullest?

Then I want to invite you to join the elite community filled with 800+ of my most engaged and successful readers, The Secrets of the Top 1% of Men. You’ll get access to exclusive content and strategies that I’ve learned after going from broke and hating my life to building a successful business, building an abundant dating life, interviewing 400+ of the world’s top performers and transforming my life from the inside out.

You’ll get tapped into your own “band of brothers” and get bi-weekly group coaching calls where you can work through your biggest challenges together to assist you on your hero’s journey.

Just click here to claim your free 7-day trial and get started today!

Now, back to the article.

How to Stop Hating Your Life Today: Simple Strategies to Hack Away the Roots of Self Loathing and Free Yourself from Your Destructive Mind

Although purposelessness and lack of progress are the two most common and powerful reasons why you might say, “I hate myself”, they are not the only causes.

Often, self loathing is a sign that you have neglected one of the foundational pillars of your life. That you have you have allowed the business and insanity of modern life to interfere with the most basic acts of self care and personal maintenance.

To begin hacking away at the roots of your self-hatred and free yourself from the prison of your own emotions, you must address and maintain these foundational pillars.

Namely, your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

1. Unleash the Human Animal and Reconnect with Your Primal Self

You cannot truly love yourself and enjoy the pinnacles of the human experience in an unhealthy body.

Obesity, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and lack of movement are all frequent culprits in self hatred. Simply put, if you aren’t taking care of your body and making progress as a human animal, you will not love yourself at the highest levels.

But this doesn’t mean that you need to pump iron for 20 hours a week like Arnold or commit to running a marathon every month. In fact, the basic principles of physical self-care are actually simple.

1. Sleep at Least 7.5 Hours a Night to Recharge Your Batteries and Wake Up Ready to Conquer the Day

That’s right. If you want to hate yourself less, you should start by sleeping more. Sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on your cognitive and physical health and makes it impossible for you to function at the highest levels.

Commit to getting 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night so you have the energy to embark on new journeys. Sleep deprivation also depletes your testosterone which makes you less decisive and driven.

Black out your room, turn your thermostat down, get an air purifier, invest in a comfortable mattress, and keep a consistent sleep schedule. If you do nothing else but fix your sleep, you will be amazed by how quickly your mood and emotions improve.

2. Eat More Whole Foods and Cut Back on the B.S. to Fuel Your Body Like a Finely Tuned Machine

No. You don’t need to go 100% paleo, gluten free, or keto to hate yourself less. I won’t even tell you to give up sugar or processed foods if you genuinely enjoy them and they bring joy to your life.

Instead, my recommendation is simple.

Eat more whole foods from the earth and reduce the amount of processed foods you eat. Did it grow from the earth without pesticides or from a lab?

By eating a diet consisting of 80% organic whole foods (fruits, vegetables, and meat), and 20% in comfort foods, you will have more energy, cut down your body fat, and feel 20X better than you do today.

Start small and work your way up. If your eating habits are out of control, then don’t try to overhaul your diet overnight. Instead, simply commit to drinking one green smoothie a day or skipping breakfast and late night meals and practicing intermittent fasting in the mornings.

Make your changes small and manageable until you are eating a diet that fuels your body to tackle new challenges.

Remember, any progress is better than no progress and you don’t have to be perfect to get started.

3. Move Your Body Every Day to Eradicate Anxiety, Build Resilience, and Tap Into Your Inner Beast

For at least 30 minutes a day you must move your damn body. Humans are meant to move and be active, not sit stationary for the majority of the day.

It doesn’t matter if you lift weights, play a sport, run outside, train martial arts, or just walk outside while listening to your favorite music or audiobook. Just get off the couch and get moving for half an hour a day.

Again, the key to making this habit stick (in the beginning) is to start small and do something you enjoy. Don’t make exercise harder than it needs to be.

If you hate going to the gym, don’t go. Walk outside or play a game of frisbee or volleyball instead.

It doesn’t matter how you move, only that you move every single day and stay connected to your primal side.

2. Sharpen Your Mind to Gain Clarity and Beat the Profit Hungry Corporations Stealing Your Freedom and Happiness 

The human brain is hardwired to learn and adapt. It’s an integral part of our species’ evolution and is one of the primary reasons why we sit at the top of the food chain today.

Yet the culprits behind the Billion Dollar war have spent decades tirelessly inventing new and creative ways to prevent us from following our instincts and keep us sedated with a stream of entertainment that neither expands our minds nor sharpens our intellects.

Luckily, with a few simple shifts in the way you spend your time, you can regain control of your mind, become smarter and wiser, and unlock your potential to build the life you desire.

1. Read More to Expose Yourself to New Thoughts, Ideas, and Strategies for Living Your Best Life

With a $2 library card, you gain immediate and unfettered access to (quite literally) hundreds of thousands of years of human experience and insight.

Whatever challenge you are facing, whatever goals you’ve set, whatever you want to do or achieve, someone else has done the hard work for you and uncovered the exact system you need to follow. All that’s left is for you to find that system and implement it in your own life.

Reading is, without a doubt, one of the most important habits you can adopt and will allow you make massive and rapid changes in the quality of your life.

To get started, commit to reading only five pages a day. No more, no less. You don’t need to read for 60 minutes a day or even 30 minutes a day. You simply need to make this habit a priority and consistently expose yourself to new thoughts and ideas.

If you don’t know where to start, click here to get access to my list of the 50+ books that every man should read.

2. Be Intentional in Your Consumption of Information to Eradicate Overwhelm and “Gamify” Your Growth

Listen. Personal development and growth don’t always have to be hard.

In fact, some good epiphanies can come from movies, TV shows, and video games if you are aware and looking for valuable insights.

Instead of binge-watching nonsense reality TV and senseless seasons of addicting shows, watch shows that tell a great story and follow a strong character from whom you can learn. There are countless lessons and strategies to be learned from movies and TV, but only if you are conscious about it.

By being intentional in your consumption and exclusively consuming entertainment that has some benefit to your personal growth, you can transform an otherwise negative habit (wasting time staring at a screen) into a value added activity for personal growth.

To get started, be sure to check out my list of the 100+ movies every man must watch.

3. Pick a New Skill and Master it To Adopt a Growth Mindset

One of the most powerful ways to hate yourself less is to internalize the growth mindset–the belief that any skill, talent, ability, or result can be achieved by almost anyone–is to pick a skill you’ve been wanting to learn and commit to mastering it. There is a direct correlation between someone who pities themself in self hatred and self loathing and their unwillingness to learn new things and grow as a person.

You can apply this mindset to anything from an instrument, cooking french cuisine, a language, a martial art, a new business skillset like copywriting or sales. It doesn’t matter what the specific skill is, only that you commit to the process of mastery.

Because mastery in any area of your life will trickle down into other areas. It will teach you that any skill, habit, and ability can be achieved with enough time, patience, and commitment to the process.

So much joy in life is found in the mastery of different skill sets that you went on a journey on and overcame big challenges.

3. Honor Your Emotions, Embrace Self Love, and Excise the Parasites from Your Life

If you hate your life, then I can all but guarantee that you have allowed your emotional health to go unchecked for years or possibly even decades.

You have de-prioritized your own feelings and emotions and unconsciously decided that other people’s agendas are more important than your own. But you can take action to reverse this trend today, and it all starts with a few simple habits.

1. Eliminate the Energy Vampires from Your Life and Cut Out Shitty People

I’m going to be blunt. If you hate yourself, your life is probably filled with shitty people who probably hate themselves too. People who don’t deserve your time, attention, and energy. You know that they aren’t good for you or your life, yet you continue to associate with them out of obligation and fear.

Enough.

If someone isn’t actively adding value to your life, they are taking value and preventing you from becoming the person you need to be.

You don’t need permission or an excuse to cut these people out of your life. But cut them out you must.

Take stock of your social connections. How many of your friends drain you and steal your energy? How many of them consistently take value without giving anything in return.

Identify the vampires in your life and commit to cutting them out or, at the very least, reducing your exposure to them. If you do nothing else, do this. You’ll be amazed by how quickly your life improves when you aren’t surrounded by miserable people who drag you down into their misery.

2. Learn to Say “No” and Stop Doing Things You Hate

As children, we were raised to be “Yes Men”. We were told to do something and we did it. We didn’t have a say in the matter.

But you’re not a child anymore and you don’t have to do things that you hate to appease other people.

To reclaim control of your life and love yourself, you must learn to say “No” (and mean it) 3x more frequently than you do right now.

Stop worrying about what other people think of you and prioritize your own damn life.

You don’t have to say yes every time a friend asks for a favor or a manager asks you to stay late. Get into the habit of saying “Yes” only when there is something that you 1) Really want to do 2) Adds value to your life or is the ethical thing to do (e.g. When your grandmother asks you to come over for dinner once a month).

3. Cut Back on Social Media to Eliminate Inadequacy and End Comparison Syndrome

One of the most common reasons that people hate their lives is that they are focused on the lives of other people.

They look at the success, luxury and love enjoyed (or at least, allegedly enjoyed) by other people and immediately feel as if they are insufficient to achieve the goals they’ve set.

They compare themselves to entrepreneurs and successful people on social media (without ever knowing the story behind their success). They compare their girlfriends to the hot Instagram models who fill their feeds.

But comparison is like a poison. There will always be someone better than you and, no matter how hard you try, you cannot be the best at everything you do.

Studies have clearly shown that there is a direct correlation between high social media use and anxiety, depression, and hopelessness.

Instead, focus on your life, your progress, and your goals and forget about what other people are doing. As simple as this may sound, I promise you, it will have a profound impact on your life and happiness.

4. Go Deeper Within and Become a Spiritual Badass

If you have a specific definition of spirituality to which you subscribe that’s great. However, what I mean when I use the word “spiritual” is a deeper connection to yourself, to the world and the people who share it with you.

All too often, we myopically focus on our health, finances, or relationships while neglecting our connection with the world around us. We forget what’s really important and allow society’s expectations and toxic standards to stunt our spiritual growth. If you want to learn how to stop hating your life…this is how you fix this.

1. Express Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain and Find the Good in Every Situation

Decades of psychological studies have revealed an interesting truth:

The quality of your life is not determined by what happens to you, but rather the stories you tell yourself about the things that happen in your life.

This is why two people, stuck in the exact same situation, can have two remarkably different mindsets and attitudes about their life.

To begin the process of changing the story, I encourage you to adopt a regular gratitude practice. It doesn’t need to be a daily habit when you’re just getting started, simply a regular activity to which you are committed.

Just once a week, write down, in detail, everything that you’re grateful for. Studies from Harvard Medical School have shown that a regular gratitude practice can increase your happiness, decrease anxiety, and greatly improve your quality of life.

Keep it simple. When you hate your life, it’s easy to say, “I have nothing to be grateful for at all!” but you and I both know this isn’t true.

You have a bed, you have a roof over your head, you have access to the internet, you’re likely not scared for your life at night living in a war torn city. You likely had a good meal just a few hours ago and you probably have at least one person in your life that makes you smile.

Think about those things at least once a week. Fall into a state of deep gratitude. And I promise you, your life will feel a lot calmer and give you a more peaceful mind.

2. Shift Your Focus to Those Around You and the Impact You Can Have

Suffering is only possible when you are focused on yourself. When you focus on your life, on your problems, on your shit…suffering is inevitable. Because there’s always more to be desired and there will always be another level that feels just out of reach.

However, when you flip this script and focus on others, even in small ways, everything changes.

If you hate your life right now, find a way you can help someone today and see how you feel.

Go volunteer with the homeless. Give money to a stranger. Commit a random act of kindness. Get perspective on your life and challenges and you will quickly realize that, no matter how much you might hate your life, there is someone else somewhere in the world who would literally kill to have the life you live today.

An antidote to suffering is kindness and appreciation. And the more kindness you give and appreciation you have, the less you will suffer.

3. Understand this Statement: “There Is Nothing Good or Bad, But Thinking Makes it So” 

Bad things are going to happen to you. You will face challenges, you will face setbacks, you will face pain, suffering, and heartbreak on this journey called life. You cannot go through life trying to avoid these things. They are apart of the deal.

The factor that will determine the overall quality of your life is not the number of good or bad events that you experience…but how you choose to respond to them.

And the most powerful belief that you can adopt to love yourself and love your life is this:

“Life is happening for me, not to me.”

We’ve all experienced something that felt “bad” in the moment–a breakup, or the loss of a job, or a failed business venture–only to look back months or years later and realize that it was the absolute best thing that could have ever happened to us.

That break up freed us from a toxic relationship and helped us find the person we really loved.

Losing that job allowed you to start your own business and make more money while doing something you love.

Failing at your new business venture taught you valuable lessons that you can carry forward to bigger and better opportunities.

What if you shifted your mindset and adopted the belief that everything in your life was set up to lead you to the exact results you desire? What if everything “bad” in your life was simply a stepping stone on which you had to walk before you could get to the life you really want?

When you can truly internalize this concept and believe it, everything will change. When something “bad” happens, you will see it as a sign, as the start of a brand new journey and adventure unfolding before you.

By adopting this belief, you become unstoppable. Setbacks become the catalyst for growth, learning, and improvement. Failures are seen as a good thing and the opportunity to learn and pivot so you can succeed later. Nothing “bad’ ever keeps you down. Instead, you’re like a highly trained fighter…you learn from every hit you take and change your strategy until you stand victorious.

Make no mistake about it. You will still experience pain…but you will no longer suffer because you know that there is no such thing as a “bad” event. There are only opportunities for growth and pathways to eventual success.

When you can find the opportunities and the good in every seemingly “bad” situation, your life will change in ways you cannot imagine.

How to Stop Hating Your Life for Good: Embrace YOUR Authentic Journey for a Memorable and Worthwhile Life

This article is your call to adventure. The beginning of your new life. The first step to transform your inner dialogue from “I hate myself” to “I love myself”. From self loathing and hopelessness to spiritual liberation and becoming a force to be reckoned with.

My hope is that this will inspire you to get started on a journey, any journey, no matter how big or small. To start making progress in your life. To find a reason to wake up and something greater to strive for.

You are not here on this planet to live a banal existence defined by escapism, mediocrity and fear.

You are here to do something. To make a mark, to leave a legacy, to drink deep from the cup of life until it runs dry.

This is your opportunity to say “Enough is enough” and make this life mean something.

Pick one of the strategies I shared in this guide and get started.

Create a snowball of positive momentum and honor yourself for any progress, no matter how small it may be.

And most of all, be patient. You didn’t fall into this hole overnight and you won’t climb out of it overnight either.

It will take time.

But it will be worth it because your life is worth it.

Do you want my help?

Then click here to watch my new client orientation to learn more about becoming a stronger Grounded Man, breaking free from nice guy behaviors, and creating a powerful social circle of likeminded men and a high quality romantic relationship.

Not only will you get tapped into your own “band of brothers” in my elite community of men, but you’ll also have access to the best damn course training available for men as well as weekly group calls with my team of transformative coaches. No whiny boys, complainers or dabblers, for serious men only.

If you’re ready to push the boundaries of what’s possible in your life and become the man you’ve always wanted to be. This is the fastest way to do it.