In this video Samir Gardner argues that quitting porn and masturbation by sheer willpower is ineffective and often leads to repeated cycles of relapse. He shares his own experience of delaying help due to ego and shame, then uses a boxing analogy to illustrate how a coach can expose blind spots and accelerate progress far beyond solo effort. Gardner outlines what to look for in a coach—personal experience with the issue, non‑judgmental attitude, and the ability to give specific feedback—while noting that traditional therapy may reduce shame but often misses the root cause. He presents a testimonial from a former client, John, who benefited from his coaching after therapy. Gardner offers a free 25‑minute anonymous “root‑cause deep‑dive” session as a low‑pressure entry point, emphasizing that the goal is to identify underlying drivers of porn use rather than just imposing stricter rules. Throughout, he stresses that seeking help does not mean relinquishing personal responsibility, but rather adding informed guidance to one’s own effort. The video ends with a plug for a separate video on using blockers effectively.
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Admitting the problem feels worse than actually struggling with it. Feels like a hit to your ego. And this video is the line between healthy self-reliance and isolation. I remember for myself when I first asked for help, I remember vividly I was in my room and there was this one guy on YouTube I really loved and he would give very good NoFap tips. And I thought in the back of my mind, if I ask for help, then I'm weak. I'm like a loser. I had this self-image of myself that I'm just someone that's strong, disciplined, and is gonna go after it. So I really delayed making a decision of asking for help. I just hesitated for so long. Now, this issue is not black and white. I believe that solving problems by yourself, carrying the responsibility, and just overall protecting your harvest can be healthy. You can really make a lot of progress by yourself. But think about it like boxing. I've done martial arts. If you do martial arts, you can learn a lot by yourself just by throwing punches on a punching bag, maybe watching a few YouTube videos there and there, understanding the basics, the footwork. But the big con, and this is a big consequence of just doing it by yourself is that blind spots can remain unchallenged. You can't see the flaws, the mistakes that you're doing just by yourself. The boxing coach might come in and tell you, okay, this is exactly what you need to improve. Okay, this is why you can't throw punches the right way. Okay, this is what you can do. So next time you fight someone, you'll actually be good. But when you're by yourself, you cannot know these things. So when you have the boxing coach, you can make progress 10 times, maybe even 100 times faster. I'm not exaggerating, simply because the moment you'll make a mistake, the coach will tell you, here's the mistake you're making, here's what you can do better. And that way you can constantly have a momentum of improving and improving and improving. Because the problem is, when you're by yourself, you might make a rule like, okay, I'll never watch porn again, I'm not gonna go on social media and just, and just get triggered again. And then maybe you break it, you relapse again, then you make a stricter rule. Okay, I'll never watch porn for the rest of my life. I'll Never do this. But then you repeat and you repeat that same cycle. And the issue is not like weakness. You are probably disciplined in other areas of your life. For most people that I coach, they're consistent with the gym, they're consistent with eating healthy, they're consistent with prayers. They don't party, they don't drink alcohol, they don't do the bad habits. But the problem is that you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. And sorry to say that, but that's what we call insanity. It's when you think that just trying harder, just trying the new short-term technique of keeping yourself busy, putting your phone outside of your bedroom, putting that blocker will maybe solve it. But then the cycle is you go a few days without it, a few weeks, maybe a few months without it, but then you keep on coming back to it. And look, asking for help does not mean that you just give all of your life and all of your problems and all of your control to someone else. Like the boxing example I gave you, it does not mean that you just Stop boxing and someone boxes for you. It's that you do the same amount of work, but you have someone constantly helping you by giving you feedback, by pointing you in the right direction. So instead of just going towards the direction that gives you a little bit of progress, you go towards the direction with the same speed, but that gives you a ton of progress. And let's face it, this topic is very taboo. It is normal to feel embarrassed. I felt so embarrassed. I never talked about it to my family. I was hiding it from everyone. Asking for help. Really meant to me, and I had a big ego at that time, that you're weak, you're not who you claim to be, you're not this productive, soon-to-be successful person as you think you are. But it's by asking for help, obviously not from everyone, you want to pick carefully, and we're going to go over that. But by asking for help from the right person, that you will see your blind spots finally. Now, if you're actually looking for help, here's how you can actually see who can actually help you. Now, of course, I offer help myself. So I'm going to try to not be biased, even though I highly recommend joining my coaching. The first thing I would suggest is that you have someone that can actually relate. Have they struggled with this themselves? Now, the reason why this is important is that, do you want to ask for business advice or career advice from someone who's never done business or has never had the career that you want to have? No. And the reason why is that the person that did actually do the business you want to do or did actually went for the career that you want, went through the same struggle, went through the same little bottlenecks. Maybe they got rejected and you're facing the same rejection in that career or in that business. And therefore they can help you with the little things that will allow you to one day be successful. For example, one of my students, John, in his testimonial video that we recorded together, he went through traditional therapy and there's nothing wrong with that. There's great therapists out there and they're qualified in what they do. But then the problem with them is that oftentimes they do not understand the problems the same way that me and you understand. They see it as, well, just reduce the shame about it. You shouldn't feel so much shame. And to a certain extent, they're right. Like, if you reduce the shame and guilt that you feel about it, you will feel better. But then that doesn't go to the root of the problem. So it kind of almost feels weird to also talk about it because they haven't been through the same thing. Second thing you want to go over is that, are they judgmental? Of course, no one will really judge you like upfront, just like start judging you and say like, Why do you have this desire? I hope not. Most people will understand you. But then the question is, in the back of their minds, will they be criticizing you? Now, that's a skill that a coach must have. Now, this is very important because if you don't truly open up to the coach— and by opening up, I don't mean that you just lay down all of your traumas on him. You don't necessarily need to do that. But the more information the coach has on you, the easier it will be for him To personalize his approach to you. That's what I do with my students. With my students, we really allow them to just share these details about their lives if they want to. We don't necessarily push them. Sometimes it takes time for them to just get comfortable, which is normal. And that's why the coaching isn't just like a 1-week program. It's obviously much longer than that so they can really open up if they want to. So we have more information about them. We know, okay, this is why this guy struggles. Okay. this thing happened to him and it has an influence on him. Okay, this guy desires this. So for you now, you can just ask yourself, what is one step that I could take? Because you might not be comfortable getting a coach or getting professional help right away, but you can start small. For example, in the boxing analogy, when I did martial arts, I just went and I did classes, learned kickboxing, I learned jiu-jitsu, and I was sparring other people. And I learned a lot that way. And sometimes the coach would give me feedback, but because we were a lot of people, They obviously couldn't just give like one-on-one help. But then as I got more comfortable with the gym and I really liked the coaches and I really liked the people there, I then paid for one-on-one coaching there so I could get better. So you don't need to go all in right away. What I would suggest is that you talk to someone been there before. It can be just a friend, it can be a coach, someone that's obviously free from porn and masturbation, and you ask them a question, you share them a bit of your situation. You don't need to lay out everything so you can see what helped them really move on. And see how you can apply to your situation. That's why recently I actually started doing free 25-minute root cause deep dive session where we dive deeper into your situation. You can be fully anonymous, you can keep it fully private. You can ask me to not record the call. And just for 25 minutes, we will really dive deeper into your situation to really see what are these blind spots? What are the things you actually need to work on so that you can actually quit and understand why you have that desire? what we call the root cause. Now you might be thinking, okay, what's the catch? And look, I'll be completely honest. I do have obviously a coaching program, but there's no pressure. It's not a sales call where you have to just join the program right away. Not at all. This is just 25 minutes. There's no strings attached because from my perspective, from my faith, for me to just offer that by itself, I believe I will get rewarded by God. And of course, if you wanna join the coaching, then also we can talk about that, but there's no pressure at all. And this is a great opportunity for you to finally just take one step And get some form of help just for 25 minutes. There's nothing more after that. Maybe I'll suggest some YouTube videos to watch after the call, and you can ask me any questions on that call. Now, you just wanna ask yourself, going about this on my own, going about this by myself, trying to quit by myself, is it teaching you something new? Are you actually going to get different results now? Is it going to help you quit forever? Or is it going to just lead you to the same cycle where you make progress, you maybe abstain from porn and masturbation for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, to just go back to the same exact maybe binge or the same exact cycle over and over again, like it's been happening maybe for the last few years. I also made a video about blockers and how you can actually use them to your advantage. Just click here and I'll see you guys in the next video.
