One standard I know I have violated from my relationships in the past, both friendships and with women was I did not put in effort to build and maintain them. I was passive and waited for the other person to make a move rather than take initiative and leadership to show interest in building those relationships. I didn’t have a genuine interest to take on that responsibility. I have been relying on hope for a long time to have those deep relationships I want, but it never happened. I didn’t take responsibility. While I don’t currently have friends and had a relationship with a woman in years, the one main standard I don’t want to keep violating is being passive and not taking an effort and interest to build and maintain those relationships.

@Aaron Frater It's a bad habit, but we need to learn to overcome that. I realized it bleeds into other areas of life.

In the relationships that I had in the past, I didn’t want to disappoint others, dishonest about how I felt or about my views on certain things, and I under expressed to keep the peace and seem neutral instead of negative or strongly opinionated. In my relationships in my past, especially with girls, I didn’t really express myself as much as I should have or was honest with them in favor of not upsetting them. If I was honest and expressive, I probably would have ended those relationships sooner and created and deepened relationships that are right and fulfilling for me. While I may not have any close relationships with others outside of my family. I can start with people at work. Today, when a couple of coworkers asked me if my company would hire me for a full-time position (with a salary and benefits), I told honestly them only if I move up in seniority with a raise. I have been in a lower position for more than 2 years and haven’t gotten a raise at all.

I set a boundary with my boss when I was about to work overtime at the end of one week a more than couple of weeks ago this month. I am a contractor, and I am not allowed to work above 40 hours, and I had to finish a last-minute sample prep to send out to another lab. He said during our meeting I need to prepare another batch of samples even though our meeting was late in the afternoon, the sample prep was going to take a little more than 2 hours to prepare, and I had 30 minutes until I was about to work 40 hours and I knew I was not going to get paid overtime or at all over 40 hours. I told him; I want to let you know that this will push me over 40 hours for this week. He said you will work less next week then. I said that works. I ended up leaving early at the end of the following week. I felt better that I asserted myself in that situation or I would have felt resentment towards him.

@Andy Wallam That wall of silence is always the toughest to sit through. It sounds like you handled it like a pro.

@Prateek G Exactly. I also started journaling examples of how I lived by core values that day I want to work on.

@Andy Wallam Procrastination is my problem. I found that structure is key, otherwise I can’t get things done.

The realization I had was I was not proactive with finding ways to cut costs from eating takeout, and to make time to learn about finance. I get takeout when I don’t really have other options for meals to cook.

@Daniel Munro It's best for me to start small.