The struggle of finding things to do to get over a breakup as a guy. How do you find something that actually makes you happy after a breakup? It’s not an easy task. When you have been broken up with a girl, it’s really tough to get back on your feet because starting from scratch after a breakup is a vastly different experience for both genders. Of course, trying new things in life to get over the breakup is the best strategy you can employ, but there are some reasons why it’s not as easy as it sounds, so let’s talk about those.

Hey guys, welcome back to the Breakup Corner, I’m Andi Galster, and here I teach men how to move on from their ex-girlfriend. So, if you have just broken up with a woman, independent of who broke up with each other, I guarantee you that your post-breakup experiences will be extremely different. First of all, it’s quite likely that your ex-girlfriend will naturally socialize more than you will, which should be a hint for you to also be more outgoing on purpose.

But more than that, women always lift each other up. I’m sure you’re familiar with the memes of women always saying “you’re gorgeous, girl”, “you go girl”, etc and then next to it are two guys who are completely honest with each other and totally talking down to each other, “bro, you’ve gotten fat…”… “Yea, I know bro”… So a woman will naturally be told lots of great things after the breakup. She’ll be told that breaking up with you was the best thing in the world. She will be empowered like crazy to chase her own freedom, to think of nobody but herself, to enjoy life, and so on. 

And of course, to a degree these ideas aren’t wrong at all, though women take it too far at times. 

Obviously, breakups are painful and the reasonable thing would be to be honest with yourself about how you feel after a breakup, rather than painting an unrealistically happy picture of how great life is all of a sudden. But anyway, it’s what women do, and it’s what men generally don’t do. So, you will naturally live more in reality after the breakup. You will face reality much quicker than a woman will after a breakup.

Instead of boasting about how great life is, or your best friends telling you that your life is awesome, it’ll be obvious to you, and perhaps also your friends, that the truth is that you’re suffering a lot. So your breakup will be grounded more in reality. You will have to face the music, so to speak. This is why women often reach out to their exes only after months when they finally have to face the consequences of the breakup themselves. But, you have to face the consequences right now. You’re alone. You’re lonely. And you don’t know what to do with your life. But, the bigger problem is that figuring out what to do with your life is extremely difficult as a man.

If we compare a man and a woman going through a breakup, and both having to re-invent their lives, it will be much harder for the man to do so. Not just because of all the empowerment speech that women pull off, but more so, because well, when you have to be more realistic about what things you’re actually achieving in your life, then that obviously means that you will be more easily disappointed with a lot of the new things that you’ll be spending your time on. Let’s take the most obvious, and best example: 

Going to the gym. Becoming as attractive as possible. Becoming healthy. Learning, maintaining, or regaining discipline. And depending on where you live, and your personal preferences, your goal may be to obtain a lean but athletic body type, or bulking up and becoming muscular to the point where women can’t possibly ignore how attractive your discipline is. 

If you’re a woman who starts to hit the gym, well, your main goal will probably just be to become slightly more firm, maybe lose a little bit of weight. But generally speaking, you will gain the instant reward: As soon as you go to the gym, you will be praised. Most likely, many men will instantly find you attractive. On average, I’d say I’m more into skinny women, but even I will find curvy women at the gym attractive. So as a woman, you will immediately get your confidence and self-esteem boost as soon as you hit the gym. More importantly, you will not NEED TO work excessively to become attractive. Going to the gym will automatically feel great to you, and every visit at the gym will instantly be rewarding to you. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, not every woman is naturally slim, but on average, most women going to the gym instantly get the instant gratification and validation.

Now let’s look at your experience: When you hit the gym, your goal is most likely to gain muscle, perhaps burn fat, or do both at the same time. Instantly, nothing is in your favor. Burning fat to the degree that your muscles look defined will likely be a minimum 2 month-long project. Likewise, building muscles is an even longer-term endeavor. When you start from scratch with workout, you’re about to gain the most minimal muscle growth after 2 months, but don’t kid yourself, it’ll be very miniscule muscle growth. You’ll see a little bit that you’re working out.

But real muscle definition probably takes 6-12 months depending on how hard you go at it. So that means that you will have to spend a lot of time fighting to remain disciplined to see results in your workout goal. I used to be a skinny type man for most of my life, so going from skinny to somewhat muscular was a 2-year project. If you’re similarly never been muscular, you will probably have to go through many months of working without seeing any results. This kind of lack of positive feedback while working out is a good metaphor for breakup differences between men and women. 

It certainly can’t be generalized to every new activity that you might pursue after a breakup, but roughly speaking, as a woman you will often be rewarded near instantly, whereas as a man, nobody is going to lift you up and see your progress unless you actually reached your goal or are getting fairly close to it. A woman who’s hitting the gym will be seen as a brave, beautiful woman who knows her worth, and so on. A guy who’s hitting the gym and looks like a stick figure will hardly be taken seriously.

A woman who starts working on a business idea will immediately be praised, I guarantee you, there’ll even be droves of women who will put her on podcasts, lists of inspiring businesswomen, and so on. It’s super common for example, to have these lists of inspiring Filipinas in the Philippines… Of women, who really haven’t achieved much, aside from having the courage to try hard at something. Which, of course, credit where credit is due for their bravery. But outcomes obviously matter more than the courage to start an endeavor.

Meanwhile, if you decide to start a new business, people may pay vague attention to it, but nobody is going to praise you to the heavens, and unless you actually achieve big success with the business, nobody will have a care in the world to highlight you on some sort of business-related podcast, and so on. As a man, you also won’t be attractive to any women unless you are already visibly on your way towards becoming financially successful. 

There are many other examples where men have to put in the effort and will only be rewarded once they hit the finish line, whereas women will often already be praised and celebrated while they are in the process, and even more often, whether a woman hits her goal or not, she’s already perceived to be worthy of love and attention. But not so much as a man. When you try out new things after a breakup, you will need to fight through the lows and valleys, and nobody is going to support you on that journey except for perhaps your closest friends.

This is why re-inventing yourself as a man is so frustrating after a breakup and it’s extremely tempting to give up. How many guys have had a breakup, decided to start going to the gym, but then gave up after 3 months, or maybe even a shorter time? I’m sure there are more men than you can count, and you can’t even blame them, or call them lazy. Sure, they could have been more diligent, but it’s understandable to see where their frustrations came from. Life as a man is simply harder because your success in health, wealth, and social circles determines your happiness with women. 

As such, breakups are the worst experience for men because you have already fallen to the lowest point you could possibly imagine, and to get back what you have lost, you have to put in tremendous effort without gaining any reward for months or possibly even years. Whether you find happiness in love again depends on many factors, and working as hard as possible is only one.

There are, of course, other factors such as sheer good timing or luck, that still play a role in your likelihood of finding happiness in love and life again. Meanwhile, as a woman, realistically, if she doesn’t let herself go like crazy, she could find another relatively decent boyfriend in a year from now without any trouble. 

This difference in breakup experience is extremely demotivating. It makes finding things to do after a breakup a struggle to remain motivated. Nobody enjoys trying out new things in life that we’re not good at. Failure is a frustrating life experience. And as a man, failure hits you much harder than a woman. The consequence of being a failure as a man means to be forever alone. As such, it’s easy to become complacent, give up hope, or simply lose interest in new endeavors when you don’t get results as fast as you’d like.

Add to this all the pain of the breakup itself, and you’re bound to feel defeated, weak, and just want to give up many times. I know that it is extremely difficult to go through your breakup, and perhaps everything that I just told you sounds extremely disheartening, but I want to encourage you to not give up. And I am a strong believer of finding solutions to problems, and always seeing everything like a glass half full.

Hardships in life aren’t always pleasant and at times, we feel like there’s no other way but to give up, at least temporarily, and try again at another time. But the pain that you are going through right now is also a call to greatness. For me, the best part of being a man is this harsh reality that nothing in life is given for free to us. I am a bit of an arrogant person, I have to admit. I’m a high achiever. I don’t like being mediocre, and I really don’t like seeing my own limitations. When I feel like I’m reaching my limitations, or when I don’t feel good enough, I tend to fight, and fight, and keep on fighting. It’s probably not always healthy and it has a little bit to do with my upbringing from my childhood, but I think generally, this mindset is a powerful one that most men can resonate with. 

While the need to always be at our best, and the requirement or expectation of men to work and fight extremely hard to obtain our goals, can be a bit burdensome at times, it’s also extremely rewarding when we finally are making progress. Competence feels good as a man. Discipline is something that you can be extremely proud of. And remaining headstrong and not giving up easily is rewarding in the long-run. And ultimately, it’s the only way to find your way back to happiness in life, and eventually in love.

Right now, you may still be lonely, heartbroken, perhaps you miss your ex-girlfriend and a part of you may wish to be as easily rewarded by praise as your ex-girlfriend. But by finding things to do and sticking to them, you will be proud of yourself in a few months from now. The best thing that you can do right now is to pick 2 or 3 goals that you want to define as your new north star, to create a new life plan and craft a vision of where you want to go. What type of man do you want to become? What will make you inspiring to others, and what are the qualities that women will appreciate in you in the future? 

Set some new goals and stick to your habits that bring you closer to these aspirations. You will probably have setbacks and moments of frustration because you will not be reaping the rewards right away, but if you stick to your plans, you’ll find that you can learn many things about yourself that help you grow beyond your current comfort zone.

The pain that you are feeling right now because of the breakup, and the strength that you’ll find in your new endeavors will teach you the degree to which you can find new strength, inspiration and self-esteem beyond what you thought possible before the breakup and especially right now. And in half a year from now, or perhaps in a year from now, you will have transformed yourself into a brand new man who will be extremely successful and attractive.

Your breakup pain right now is an opportunity to make a commitment to yourself and stick to your decision and learn the tools of the trade required to achieve success in life. So good luck with finding new things that you will enjoy, and if you feel like giving up because you don’t see any immediate fun, progress, or reward, give yourself a little bit of extra time before you give up or try out another activity to pursue. Sometimes it takes time to warm up with a new endeavor. I have faith that you’ll make great progress with that mindset.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you this time.