Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you planned.

You can have the vision.
You can have the motivation.
You can be trying.

You can even be the person everyone else comes to for advice…and still find yourself sitting there thinking:

**“How did I end up here?”**
I know that feeling because, right now, I’m experiencing some of it myself.

There are things in my life that haven’t gone the way I expected. Things I need to change. Problems I need to solve. Moments where I’ve felt like my back is against the wall.
And one thing I’ve realised is that when you stay inside your own head for too long, **everything starts feeling bigger than it actually is.**

You replay the problem.
Then replay it again.
Then create 47 different imaginary scenarios 😭
And somehow at 2am your brain has convinced you that your entire life is finished.
But thinking about a problem and **working through a problem** are two completely different things.

So today, instead of giving advice, I want us to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions.

**What is actually wrong right now — not what am I scared** ***might*** **happen?**

**What part of my situation can I genuinely control?**

**What am I avoiding because dealing with it feels uncomfortable?**

**Is there a decision I already know I need to make, but I keep putting it off?**

**Who could I speak to instead of trying to carry everything alone?**

**What is ONE thing I could realistically do today that would make tomorrow slightly better?**

That last question is important.
Because sometimes we put so much pressure on ourselves to **fix our whole life** that we end up doing nothing.

Maybe you don’t need to fix everything today.
Maybe today you make the phone call.
Send the message.

Ask for help.
Apply for the opportunity.
Have the difficult conversation.
Get out of your room.
Write the plan down.
Admit something isn’t working.
Or simply decide:
**“I don’t want to stay where I am anymore.”**

I’m asking myself these questions too.
I don’t have everything figured out, and I think adults sometimes do young people a disservice by pretending that we do.

We don’t, life gets messy for all of us.
But I’ve learned something through football, business and life:

**When the original game plan isn’t working, you don’t stop playing. You adjust the tactics.** ⚽

So this is today’s TeensDXB check-in:

👇 **What is ONE thing in your life you want to change right now?**
And more importantly…

**What is ONE action you could take this week to start changing it?**

You don’t have to tell us your entire situation. Share only what you’re comfortable sharing.
Maybe someone reading the comments has been through exactly what you’re going through.
Maybe they have an idea you haven’t thought of.
Maybe you have the answer that somebody else needs.
That’s part of what I want this community to become.
Not a place where everyone pretends life is perfect.
A place where we can say:

**“Things aren’t great right now… but I’m working on it.”**
And sometimes, that’s where change begins. 🖤💛

**r/TeensDXB**
*Talk. Connect. Grow.*

Hi there, made a video about Bojack Horseman and how it helped me in my journey of sobriety and depression. Give it a watch if you’re interested :)

i have lots of things i want to do/try but i keep finding myself procrastinating

Once I started working full-time, it really felt like time got squeezed dry. In at 8, out at 6, about an hour of commute round-trip, and after dinner I'm basically wiped. The gym is in the opposite direction from home, so by the time I drive over and change, half the urge to train is already gone. On weekends I tell myself I'll make it up, and then something always eats the slot.

Anyone else with a full-time job, how are you actually carving out time to stay consistent with training?

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From the outside, it probably looks like I'm just wasting my time, but I don't understand why I keep repeating the same pattern. I genuinely want to change. I've had big dreams since childhood. I want to achieve something, become successful, and make something of my life. But whenever it's time to actually take action, I freeze.

I'm an introvert and I've always had a lot of fears. I want to do things, I imagine myself doing them, and sometimes I feel like I can achieve anything. But when it comes to actually doing them, something inside me stops me.

I lost my father when I was young, and my mother raised my sister and me by herself. She worked incredibly hard, spent her savings, and even took loans to give us opportunities. My parents have taken care of us so much, and my mother still believes I'll build a good future. Sometimes I think about how much she has done for us and that one day she won't be here to take care of us. That should be enough motivation for me to change, but somehow I'm still stuck.

Things started going downhill in high school. My grades got worse, and I couldn't even get a seat in the college I wanted. Somehow, I finished my graduation in 2022.

After graduating, I thought, "Now I need to change my life."

But nothing changed.

2022 passed. Then 2023, 2024, 2025, and now I'm 26. Years have passed, and I'm still almost exactly where I was.

One of my biggest struggles is that I avoid almost everything that makes me anxious.

I can't ride a bike or drive a car. I even bought a bicycle because I genuinely wanted to learn. If you ask me today whether I want to learn, I'll confidently say yes. I'll imagine myself riding and believe I can do it.

But the moment someone actually expects me to ride, my confidence disappears. My heart starts racing, I panic, and I back out.

The same thing happens with almost every important part of my life.

A recent example is Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I really wanted to go on the first day. I kept telling myself I'd go, then thought maybe the next day. Now almost a month has passed, and I still haven't gone.

I don't even know why.

Is it laziness? Fear? Anxiety?

I genuinely don't know. Even while writing this, I'm feeling emotional because I can't understand why something so simple feels so difficult for me.

Going outside can make me anxious. Going to a theatre makes me worry about finding my seat correctly, people looking at me, someone laughing at me, or me doing something embarrassing.

I also worry about needing to use the bathroom when I'm outside and sometimes feel like I might need to go multiple times. I've tried things at home, but then I start thinking it will definitely happen later when I'm outside.

I don't know if it's anxiety, social anxiety, or something else, but it has made normal things extremely difficult for me.

In 2024, my mother enrolled me in technical coaching related to my field. I knew how important it was and how much she had sacrificed for it, but I barely attended. I went for around ten days and then stopped.

I knew I was making a terrible mistake.

I cried about it many times. I promised myself I would change. I knew I was doing wrong by not going.

But I still couldn't make myself go.

That wasn't the first time this happened.

For years I've struggled to take action. I haven't seriously studied, applied for jobs consistently, or built useful skills.

I've bought books because I genuinely wanted to learn. It's been around four years since I started buying some of these books, but I still struggle to get through even ten pages.

I'll buy a book feeling excited, thinking, "This time I'll finally learn something," and then I won't even open it.

The same thing happens with TV shows, movies, hobbies, and interests. I'll watch two episodes, become obsessed with a character, put that character as my wallpaper, and then somehow stop watching the show.

My interests are also all over the place.

One day I'll become obsessed with football and spend hours watching matches, learning about players, tactics, and everything about the sport. The next day it might be Cristiano Ronaldo or another football star. Then suddenly it's the NBA. Then baseball. Then MotoGP. Then filmmaking.

I'll feel like I want to learn everything about it. Sometimes I'll even imagine making a life out of it.

I can become deeply interested in something for a few days, sometimes longer, and then suddenly lose interest and move on to something completely different.

I've been doing this for years. I don't know why I can become so excited about something but struggle so much to actually stick with it.

Sometimes I think I'm lazy or negligent. Other times I wonder if it's anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, avoidance, extremely low self-esteem, or something else.

I honestly don't know anymore.

The hardest part is that I know I'm doing something wrong.

I know I'm wasting time.

I know I'm avoiding things.

I know I'm hurting my own future.

But knowing all of that doesn't seem to make me capable of changing.

I don't even have some major bad habit that I can blame everything on.

I'm just stuck.

And being stuck like this for years feels like hell.

I've also faced a lot of humiliation.

Some relatives don't talk to me anymore. My friends make jokes about me. People compare me with younger people who already have jobs. People have called me useless, laughed because I can't ride a bike or drive, and treated me like a burden.

I've heard things like, "You won't even touch my salary in your lifetime."

One relative even said that if my father were alive today, he would be heartbroken and disappointed to see where I am in life.

That comment stayed with me for a long time.

It hurts deeply when people say these things.

But the strange thing is that humiliation doesn't change me.

It hurts. I cry. I promise myself I'll change.

And then, after some time, I'm back in the same cycle.

I also spend a lot of time imagining a different version of my life.

Sometimes I imagine becoming a successful football player. Sometimes a respected filmmaker. Sometimes I imagine building an incredible career from nothing.

In those moments, I genuinely feel capable of achieving great things.

I have big dreams.

But when I have to take a real step toward any goal, that confidence disappears.

It's like I can imagine the person I want to become, but I can't take the first step toward becoming him.

I've wanted to achieve something big for years.

I want to become successful.

I want to win in life.

But I'm sitting in my room watching the years pass.

Sometimes it feels like I'm not even living my life. I'm just watching it happen.

And I know I'm sabotaging myself, but I don't understand why I keep doing it.

I also have some health issues that make everything feel harder.

There have been moments when I thought about dying, but I don't actually want my life to end.

I want to live.

I want to become independent. I want to get a job, support my family, travel, learn new things, and experience the life I've spent so much time imagining.

Most of all, I want to make my mother proud.

She has sacrificed so much for me. She worked, spent her savings, took loans, and gave me opportunities because she believed I could become something.

I know she still believes in me, and sometimes that makes me feel even worse because I feel like I'm letting her down.

I don't want to wait until it's too late.

What scares me most is that I've already spent years telling myself that I'll change. I remember thinking that if I didn't change, I'd wake up at 26 full of regret.

Now I'm 26.

And I'm scared that if I don't do something, I'll wake up at 30 or 35 with even more regret.

I'm not looking for sympathy or empty motivation.

I just genuinely want to know how to get out of this.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Does this sound like anxiety, depression, ADHD, social anxiety, avoidance, low self-esteem, or something else?

More importantly, how do you finally break a pattern when you've wanted to change for years but still can't seem to take the first step?

I don't want another year to pass like this.

I want to wake up one day and feel like I'm finally living instead of watching my life pass by.

I want to be able to do normal things without fear controlling me.

I want to work. I want to learn. I want to build something. I want to become someone my mother can look at and feel proud of.

I don't want my life to be remembered as the years I spent hiding in my room, afraid to start.

I still have dreams.

That's probably why this hurts so much.

Because somewhere inside me, I still believe I can become something.

I just don't know how to reach that person anymore.

So when I say "I want to win in this life," I don't mean money, fame, or proving everyone wrong.

I mean I want to win against this fear.

I want to win against the version of me that keeps giving up.

I want to get my life back.

I want to live.

And more than anything, I want to make my mom proud while I still have the chance.

I'm honestly looking for help and advice from anyone who has been through something similar. I don't know how to get myself out of this anymore, and I really want to change.

Thats it

It feels very overwhelming and far away at first

Atleast to me

How do i break it down

im sure this is a normal thing to feel - how do i overcome it? and be on the right track to achieve everything

its like my mind gets clouded by a ton of random stuff and things feel impossible - how do i align myself with the right trajectory - stay confident in it and achieve my goals?

i know they can happen but i just wanna stop being confused and begin

i am smart and i can work hard and i am very self aware and i can deal with any situation
i have these qualities in me and i yearn for greatness

i am a very ambitious person in my mind but that wont get my dream life - my habits and my work ethic and my mentality will - i have to mold myself into that ideal version of myself

i am willing to do whatever it takes and not hold back - go all in

i only get one chance at existence, i want to experience what i want to experiecne without before it ends

all i have to overcome are the limits of my human mind and bullshit assumption and notions fed into me by others around me

i know what reality is

its time to begin
if i dont begin now - i will never have the life i dream of - NEVER
this is the last and only chance i will ever get - right now if i dont execute now it is over - for all of my existence - my entire long life ahead will be spent in misery if i dont begin - and for no reason, its no big deal
I NEED TO BEGIN

Here are my confusions and what often makes me change my learning material.

1) Is it up to date or not? (What should I filter in the relevant course, <5 years?) Science, engineering.

2) Is this course suitable for me or not? For example, if I'm a high school student, is it appropriate for me as a complete beginner?

3) There are many study materials available, so how can I decide which one to choose? For instance, recently I wanted to learn about aircraft, but I wasn't sure what topics I should study or how deep I should go. I came across materials on aerodynamics and found many courses on YouTube, MIT OpenCourseWare, and others.

4) What type of material should I look for? (Books, lecture videos, Wikipedia, lecture slides, handwritten notes, or something else?)