If you’ve been around the Porn Reboot program for some time you’ve probably seen me write about reboot capital before.
However, I’ve never dedicated a post to explaining what reboot capital is. It’s a foundational part of the porn addiction recovery – reboot system so I want to help you understand what it is and the role it plays.
Reboot capital is the way I look at building up your life so you can stay off pornography and masturbation. These parts of life are what allow you to wake up each morning and face the day, feeling full of joy and purpose. The five areas of life where you need to build reboot capital are:
Mental
Social
Spiritual
Physical
Emotional
Disconnection from any one of these five areas leads you back to a slip in your out-of-control behavior. Reconnection is not only the path back to these areas of your life, but also the antidote to letting them go. The pain you experience exists when you’re out of sync in one or more of these areas. The stronger you build up these five areas of your life, the more fulfilled you’ll feel and the less likely you are to return to pornography.
Reboot capital is the concept I use to keep all of them in check. Just as a person needs capital when they start a business, a man needs capital to stay afloat when ending his behavior with porn and masturbation.
When you deplete capital in any of these five areas, you begin a subtle but sure spiral toward a slip. But when all five areas are working together, you experience contentment, fulfillment, and balance in your life.
Ending your out-of-control behavior doesn’t mean life becomes amazing forever. You must always monitor and ensure each area has sufficient capital flowing into it to keep you moving forward when times get tough. And times will inevitably get tough, brother, because that’s the way life happens.
Over the next few days I’m going to take a deep dive into how to build reboot capital in these five areas. To stay off pornography for life and rewire your brain without fear of returning to your behavior, you must heal, nurture, and develop each of them. Learning how to stop porn addiction and check back in a few days to read more about the building mental reboot capital.
If you aren’t sure what standards are, you’re far from alone. The way I see it is if values and principles are the building blocks of your life, then standards are the final structure you’re working toward. Developing a strong set of standards is crucial if you want to be successful in your reboot.
There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding the terms values, principles, and standards. People often think they’re the same thing. While all three are similar and related, there are unique differences that separate them, too.
Values are your long-lasting beliefs on certain issues that are important to you. They are essentially the foundation of your principles. Some examples of values are things like compassion, integrity, generosity, and patience.
Principles, on the other hand, are indisputable, unchanging rules that are based on your values. For instance, principles are things like treating others the way you want to be treated, or not getting involved with women in your workplace.
Standards are actions and behaviors that you expect yourself to live up to based on your values and principles. This includes working hard, being rigorously honest, committing to your physical well-being, supporting your family, and so on.
I notice that people tend to adopt values, principles, or standards because they sound cool. Maybe a cool influencer or someone you look up to in life said them. However, if that value, principle, or standard doesn’t actually align with your truth, it won’t hold up over time. These things are all very personal and aren’t something you simply pick up from someone else.
Everyone has a different way of thinking and believing. Each person’s value system is shaped by a variety of factors like the area they were born in, the society they were raised in, the family and friends they grew up around, and more.
At first, you inevitably adopt the values, principles, and standards of those around you. But over time, you may start to recognize where those things don’t truly align with your thoughts and beliefs. You develop your own set of values, principles, and standards as you grow up, a set that works for you.
How do values, principles, and standards play a role in ending your out-of-control behavior with pornography and masturbation? Some of these things will have to do with your path in the Porn Addiction Recovery – Reboot system. For example, going to the strip club with your buddies used to not be that big of a deal. But now you’ll likely need to adopt a new standard that eliminates things like this from your life.
Additionally, people who don’t struggle with compulsive sexual behaviors generally have a bit more leeway in their lives. They may be able to push the limits of their adherence to principles without much thought or consequence. But if you find yourself out of alignment with your values, principles, and standards, you’ll also find yourself at a greater risk of slipping or relapsing.
This is the result of living dishonestly. Going against your values, principles, and standards, or adopting them from someone else instead of determining them for yourself, is dishonest. You’re the only one who can decide what path is right for you. If you choose to live by someone else’s standards, you’ll forever live a substandard life.
I want you to keep a few things in mind as you begin to consider the framework within which you want to live your life after you reboot:
You must create personal standards that you adhere to at all times. You cannot live a directionless life if you want to reboot successfully. Your standards inform your entire life, from the job you take to the people you spend time with. If you don’t have standards, you’ll be left to the whims of wherever life blows you.
You must recognize that standards are not the same thing as goals. Many men mistake standards for goals, but they’re different things. Standards are not ideals to work toward achieving in the future; they are things that drive the course of your life in each moment of every day. You should run every decision through your list of standards before following through with it.
Your standards are yours and yours alone, and you cannot impose them on others. Again, values, principles, and standards are all very personal things. You cannot move through life expecting everyone to adhere to your approach. This only sets you up for failure and lasting resentment. Live by your standards and leave others to behave as they see fit.
Standards are for personal fulfillment, not for impressing other people. Do not outline standards you think will “look good” to others. This is only another form of dishonesty. Outline standards that leave you feeling personally fulfilled. They should be a framework for living that lets you put your head on the pillow at night knowing you’ve been true to yourself throughout the day.
Ultimately, the most important part of living a successful life is ensuring that your thoughts and actions align with your beliefs. Developing and living by a strong set of standards is the most efficient and effective way to do this. If you want to be successful in the Porn Reboot program, setting these standards now is a crucial part of the process.
When a brother joins the Porn Reboot Intensive program, we always start with a welcome call.
I want to get to know this brother and begin documenting his experience. One of the first things we do is establish expectations that men have when they arrive at our program. What do they want to accomplish? What does their life look like without porn? How do they anticipate getting to that point?
I do this because I want to ensure that we can support you in your journey. While I know that the Porn Reboot system works for the men who apply it, I want to make sure that your plans align with how the system is laid out. I want to see whether your expectations will be met or whether another approach to controlling your behavior is better suited for you.
Developing patience is one of the most common expectations I hear from our potential brothers. Their behavior with porn, sex, and masturbation has finely tuned their need for instant gratification. This leads to significant problems with impatience and a short temper. They want to know whether Porn Reboot can help them develop their patience.
Something most brothers don’t realize, though, is that their compulsive sexual behavior also warps their experience of time. Consider how often you’ve said, “I’m only going to watch porn for a half-hour,” but then find yourself still opening tabs three hours later. You have no idea where that time went, you only know that it’s gone.
This same time warp occurs when you start separating from porn, sex, and masturbation. I see men with around a month and a half in the program convinced they’re in the maintenance stage of their reboot. In reality, they’re still in the early stage of the process. It feels like it’s been months when it’s only been a few weeks.
It’s frustrating to realize how much work it takes to fully rewire your brain. Since you’ve geared yourself for instant gratification, the idea that it takes time to reboot is a foreign concept. You don’t get the benefits of a porn-free life without some hard work and patience.
I like to use the example of a gardener planting a garden. He understands that, while his plants begin to grow as soon as he plants the seed, he won’t see the results for quite some time. He will not see a sprout, a branch, a leaf, or a fruit for many days after placing those seeds. But he trusts that by putting in the work, from planting to watering to waiting, his plants will grow with time.
The same goes for your porn addiction recovery. It may not seem like you’re making progress, but the change begins from the moment you implement some reboot principles. Even when you continue struggling with slips and relapses, the reboot process is in place.
The path to patience in your reboot is paved with bricks that say “progress not perfection.” Your success in the Pornography Addiction Treatment program likely does not mean complete abstinence. But it does mean showing up to work on time, spending evenings with your family, and taking time to better yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually.
Developing patience in your reboot is a slow process, too, but even recognizing the need for it is a step in the right direction. It’s difficult and easy to get agitated. Think of the gardener when bugs and pests begin to infiltrate his newly-sprouted seedlings. He must get frustrated, too. But he still trusts the process and recognizes that every garden comes with its troubles.
As you accept the inevitable presence of pests and move toward their removal, you’ll find yourself closer to patience. Your newfound outlook will flower into the fruits of confidence, diligence, self-esteem, self-awareness, self-compassion, and more. These fruits are available even during the early reboot stage, brother. All it takes is some work and dedication.
Developing patience is an important aspect of your reboot and the Porn Addiction Counseling system will help you get there. Just like the gardener, though, you must recognize that while it won’t happen all at once, you’re already well on your way there.
