9 Things That Make You a Weak Man and Drain Your Masculinity

Most of us guys read comic books and watched superhero movies when we were young.

Why?

Because these guys weren’t weak. They made us say:

“I want to be like that guy.”

Every man wants to feel strong, powerful and dominant, whether that be in his career, his finances, or his love life.

We all want masculine power and drive.

But many of us are lacking that. Many of us are lacking that because we indulge in things that prevent us from being the men we are meant to be, making us weak men.

Or as Arnold Schwarzenegger would put it: “girlie men!”.

What are these things? Below, I list 9 factors preventing you from being the man you are meant to be, why they do so, and how to get these out of your life for good.

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Let’s begin:

Consumerism

The average person living today has more disposable time and more disposable income than their ancestors have dreamed of.

With that extra time comes the increased spending on consumer goods of all sorts, shapes, and sizes.

Translation: more money to spend = more junk in your house.

When I say “consumerism”, I don’t mean the occasional purchase of this or that. I’m talking about the excessive, overbearing, and consistent purchase of goods and services that offer absolutely zero return on your money.

Think of all the useless junk you have cluttering up your home. Clothes you don’t wear, electronics you don’t use, things you don’t need.

It all adds up.

And I get it. We all buy stuff we used at one point. It brought us comfort, it brought us enjoyment, it brought us pleasure.

But it doesn’t serve us now.

Just give it away.

Why it makes you a weak man: Every time you buy something, you are displacing money from your pockets and putting it in the pockets of another.

If you want to do so, it’s a fair trade. But if you have a compulsion or an addiction to doing so, you are literally giving away your power to people who don’t give a shit about you.

Money is a form of communication.

Consumerism makes you a weak man not only because you’re giving away your purchasing power but because you’re depleting your own power in the process and getting little in return.

How to avoid it: Force yourself to stick to a weekly or monthly budget. If you want to up the ante, have a friend keep you accountable. Eventually, you will have to learn to reign in your spending and create discernment.

Whenever you buy something, especially something that takes up physical space in your home, ask yourself: “do I REALLY need this?”

Here’s more insight on the virtues of minimalism:

Being Sedentary

American and Western culture is a sedentary and boxed in culture.

Think about it: we spend most of our time sitting down at a screen for hours a day, in a hunched over posture.

We then spend more of our time in a car (sitting) in a car (box, rather) stuck in traffic.

Finally we come home and…sit in front of the TV or computer for hours.

Being sedentary is making you a weak man and a big fucking softie.

Why it makes you a weak man: We human beings were made to move. We still have the same genetics, same DNA, as our hunter-gatherer ancestors. They did not sit down all day staring at a screen.

When your muscles, heart, and lungs aren’t used – they atrophy, literally making you weak.

How to avoid it: Sign up for a gym membership, a couple of yoga classes, or do calisthenics at home. Go for a run, go for a swim. Whatever you do, get up and move more.

Start slow and build up. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

High Body Fat

Following from the last point of getting up and moving more, a high body fat percentage comes hand and glove with a sedentary lifestyle.

High body fat is also devastating for men because it is a signal to the body to produce more estrogen, which is mainly known as a female hormone.

Estrogen encourages more fat to be deposited under the skin. More fat under the skin signals higher levels of estrogen. It is a vicious cycle.

Why it makes you a weak man: Higher levels of estrogen create lower levels of testosterone, which is as we all know – the god hormone.

You are literally becoming less of a man when you have high estrogen and low testosterone.

How to avoid it: Again, get moving. Get in the gym and start lifting some heavy weights. Weightlifting encourages testosterone production.

Excessive Social Media Use

Social media is an incredible tool. It helps us connect with people we haven’t talked to in a while and meet new ones. It helps Unstoppable Rise in spreading the message of self-actualization for motivated individuals.

But it’s just that – a tool. When you’re done, you put it away. These days, it is close to impossible to do so for many people.

The average social media user spends 50 minutes a day on a site like Facebook. That’s just an average. Some people spend even more! Fifty minutes doesn’t sound like a lot…but it’s close to an hour. You spend 8 of them working and the other 6-8 sleeping, so….

The question to ask is… what are people doing on sites like Facebook? What do people normally do on sites like these? Let’s see…

• Scroll the news feed looking for “entertainment”
• “Like” stuff/Comment
• Stalk exes
• Creep on girls (and guys)
• Look endlessly at “highlight reel” photos

Will these activities lead to a more fulfilling life?

I doubt it.

Why it makes you a weak man: Ask yourself: when was the last time you encountered something truly groundbreaking on social media? Other than a link to a piece of content that will actually change your life, I’m willing to bet almost never.

Spending massive amount of time on something that has little or no return on investment is just a step above gambling.

You are giving away your power.

All of those “50 minutes” a day – they add up. Imagine if you spent that time on doing something that will make you better off in the long run? Where would you be a year from now? Five years from now?

It also doesn’t do a lot of favors for your mental state.

After spending a lot of time on social media, people report the following:

• Greater feelings of anxiety
• Increased instances of depression
• Sharp feelings of envy
• Pervasive and persistent feelings of isolation

If you’re using social media as a “dick measuring contest”, you are setting yourself up for failure.

There will always be someone more jacked, more loaded, more handsome, who seems to have a better life than you.

You are rewarded (validated) for posting content that other people will “like” and approve of. This can turn into an addiction quickly.

How to avoid it: The only prescription for a bad social media habit or even addiction is just time away. You’ll have to find some way to disconnect from these for a while before you use them again (fully). I’d recommend going on a dopamine detox.

If you need help with Internet monitoring, Freedom is a great choice for anyone who is serious and looking for a reputable and solid blocker. Right now, they’re offering a 25% discount on their yearly and lifetime plans, so now is a great time to join if you haven’t already.

Smart Phone (Over)Use

Like social media, smart phones are a great tool. Used wrongly and they’re another convenient method of distraction.

Imagine going to a restaurant and witnessing a table full of people all gazing down at their phones, no one talking.

Have you been a witness to this behavior? I have.

It is a sad sight.

What are they doing?

• Going on a social media site
• Texting a friend incessantly
• Reading a random news story

Why it makes you a weak man: Real life is not just a series of UPs. There will be periods of inevitable boredom. Every time you seek refuge in the screen of a smart phone, you’re making it easier to hide from “reality”.

Don’t want to talk to someone? Pull out your smart phone.

Don’t want to interact at a party? Pull out your smart phone.

Don’t want to feel bored waiting in line getting food? Pull out your smart phone.

This constant stimulation decreases your ability to stay in present moment and accept life for what it is.

It becomes a habit to run away from your problems instead of facing them head on. It may seem like something soooo small and insignificant…but how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Soon, small challenges become big ones all because of your inability to cope with them.

How to avoid it: Limit your smartphone use. When you feel yourself becoming really bored – embrace it.

Spending Time At a Bad Job

If there’s anything worse than wasting time, it’s wasting time at a “bad job”. A bad job meets these criteria:

• Little room for advancement or growth
• Lack of respect from peers and management
• Uninspiring work environment
• Little to no opportunity to engage in challenging and stimulating work

Why it makes you a weak man: We spend a majority of our waking hours thinking about, planning for, and doing work.

You will become the people you spend most of your time around.

If your co-workers and work environment don’t support your goals, you will become just like them for better or for worse.

If a place of employment does not get you closer to your goals, you need to get out of that place like it was a building on fire.

How to avoid it: If you are young, chances are – you have no kids and no mortgage.

If that’s the case, start hustling. Get your career pointed in the direction you want. That may be looking for another job or even starting your own business.

Complaining

We all hate that guy who just goes on and on about how his life sucks. He drains the joy out of the room and always carries around negative energy.

He bitches about the weather. He bitches about the government. He bitches about how he was such a “nice guy” and the woman he pined for sidelined him.

Why it makes you a weak man: Complaining does three things to your mental state:

• It puts you in the victim position, making you powerless
• It shifts your attention away from what’s going right to what’s going wrong
• It pushes away people who would be willing to help you

How to avoid it: Being a complainer isn’t something you fix overnight. It requires a whole paradigm shift that’s beyond the scope of this article (I would know, I used to be one). BUT… you should realize that most of what happened in your life was your fault. You may not have directly affected it, but you are responsible for your reaction to it.

Realize that complaining is a habit. Like any habit, it can be changed.

You may not have been dealt a “fair hand” but…get over it. Life is tough for everyone.

Your self-destructive tendencies push people and good situations away from you.

Explicit Content

If you’re a frequent visitor of explicit sites (you know which ones)….. I’d recommend you put a stop to it. 

I’m not really that interested in the “morality” or the “ethics” of watching pornography (whole other discussion) but the effects on concentration, attention, and present-moment awareness.

Internet porn use is a dimmer switch on your motivation, your productivity, and your ability to connect with others. This sounds crazy, but here’s why…

Why it makes you a weak man: Like drugs, porn works heavily on the brain’s natural reward system and does vast damage to a man’s psychology.

In our brain, there is a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine regulates motivation and goal-seeking behavior.

When the brain experiences high spikes in dopamine regularly, it down-regulates the number of dopamine receptors for dopamine to attach to. This means you will experience less pleasure over time doing the same activities.

It also affects how your body uses testosterone (the god hormone).

Beyond that, you are training yourself to be a passive observer and a voyeur in a sense.

How to avoid it: In Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, there’s an overlooked chapter about “sexual transmutation”.

In today’s hyper-sexual climate, this may be seen as “prudish” or “antiquated”…but it’s actually one of the most important parts of the book.

Here’s the truth: without sexual energy, there would be no life in the universe. It’s the reason any of us are here.

As a man, you have a deep desire for sex that is fueled by testosterone.

When you funnel this sexual desire into achievement, that is sexual transmutation.

Simply put, this desire makes you strive for the things in life (money, power) that are more likely to attract a mate.

But if you funnel this power into artificial channels like watching porn, you end up depleting yourself of that “cutting through power” that a man needs to ascend and succeed in the world.

There are communities like the NoFap movement where guys do a “90-day reboot” to sexually reset and rewire their brain from the very damaging effects of Internet pornography. During the reboot period, many guys have reported the following:

• Increased energy
• Increased self-discipline
• Increased desire to talk to women
• …and loads more

Try it for yourself.

“The Easy Way Out”

This one is more intangible, but it still affects things like every thing else.

We are descendants from the top dogs, the alpha males. Most men in history didn’t get to reproduce.

A man literally had to fight his way to the top in order to get a chance to procreate. Luckily, we don’t live in that world anymore, but that programming is still with us.

Men’s brains in particular are geared towards competition and dominance as a default setting. You can decide to “opt out” of this quest for self-improvement, but I guarantee you will feel dead inside.

Human beings (and men in particular) thrive on challenge and the chance to step up.

If iron isn’t sharpened, it will get dull. You are the blade and life is the whetstone. Get sharpening.

How to avoid it: Start getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself.

These are just a very, very small selection of things that make you a weak man. If you find yourself having problems in one of these areas, fixing just one of them will change your life to a massive degree.

Are you going to do it? Let me know in the comments.