Ed

This journal has 2 main purposes 1. I'm still learning (you never stop). But I have learnt a few things that hopefully will help you. 2. This is the selfish reason. To have a place to keep myself accountable. This thread probably won't be updated daily, but I plan to put something in here at least once a week. What Did I Work On Today? There's one thing you need to be working on everyday. Regardless of how old you are. Fitness. I have to admit I'm out of shape at the moment. I've been slacking off lately. There's more flab around my belly than I'd like. After reading Kyle's Thousand Mile thread I decided I'd go for a mile run. I haven't gone for a run for a while. I used to have to run 2.4km (1.5mi) in under 11 minutes. It used to be part of my job, I'll talk about that another time. Running is enjoyable but I tend to avoid it these days. Not the best exercise for your knees. I got a respectable time: While that might seem like a good time to you, it's slow compared to the speed I used to run. Maintaining your fitness standards is much easier than improving them. I'm not upset about it, just acknowledging I can do better when I'm fit. And notice that I'm not comparing my speeds to anyone else. Competition has it's place and it can be a great motivator to get you fitter. As long as you're comparing yourself to someone roughly the same level. If you're at the stage you can only do a slow walk that's fine too. That's doing way better than sitting on the couch watching reality TV. On the way back from my run I stopped off at the bar. No, not the one that sells beer, but the ones you can do chin-ups.... Or pull-ups...... I'm really not sure what they're officially called. Anyway, I jumped and grabbed the bar. Pulled myself up 5 times. I want to get it to 10 in a row before the end of January. Then before I went home, I took this photo:

It's weird what gets noticed and what doesn't. You can spend ages writing a post that's you think is excellent and it gets ignored. Then you can write a trashy click-bait list post about the modern man and it gets more attention than all your recent posts. (My 27 Ways to be a Modern Man rebuttal took about 30 min to finish) I'm happy if anything I write helps you out. I'd be reluctant to call it advice though. I'm still very much an amateur at copywriting. I merely notice connections sometimes.

Some people use religion to take away their own responsibility. I'm not religious, but I like the saying "God helps those who help themselves" And I'm sure different churches are going to have different levels of encouraging personal responsibility. It won't be too difficult to catch yourself when you give up responsibility in your writing. What will be a little more difficult, is catching yourself doing it in your self-talk. And that's where it really counts. But now that you're aware of it, you're going to start noticing it more and more. It's important to take responsibility for your actions. Sometimes things don't go as planned. In those cases ask yourself if there was anything you could have changed. If there was something you could have done: Acknowledge it,Plan what you'll do differently next timeMove onOf course there will be times when there's nothing you could have done to prevent something. In either case it's important to learn from the experience and move on. Improving yourself won't be easy. But that doesn't mean it won't be a fun and exciting journey. Ps. You can make a new account with any free email service ie. Gmail.com, Outlook.com, gmx.com etc.. P.p.s. I wrote about the 6 steps to make your games inaccessible here. (It's about LoL, but you can use the steps for Steam too)

Happy birthday for tomorrow. You want to be the sort of man who takes charge of his life before it's too late? Of course you do, but something's holding you back. It's probably not what you expect. Maybe it's soda. Maybe it's video games. But, there's a much greater force that's preventing you from becoming the great man you want and know you can become. (We know you can do it) And that's the language you use to talk to yourself. Examine the choices you made in your short post. Notice any similarities between them? Yep, they're all talked about as if they are external events. As if they're things you had no control over. Notice how you didn't say "I chose to install Steam". You told us (and yourself) that Steam installed your games. Unless Steam has suddenly gained sentience it was something you chose to do. Re-read your post. Be objectionable, calm, (like a scientist). Can you find 2 other places where you chose to relinquish your accountability? Ps. If you're interested in looking into this subject deeper, look up "Locus of Control" P.p.s. The fact that your posting on this forum already proves you're making progress.

Every time I hear Boney M I remember the movie Touching the Void. Great movie. As for sleeping, it's not too bad to occasionally reduce your amount of sleep. Obviously it's better to get regular sleep. But sometimes you'll have projects that take priority over sleep for a short amount of time. Deliberately missing out on sleep should only be a strategy used for the rare time sensitive situation. If it's part of your everyday routine then it's not a great long term solution.

There's been a noticeably sharp increase in your posting frequency and quality. The teaser video idea is great, like a free mini advertisement. It made me think about this video: https://youtu.be/l1ffFe8wXpo He talks about opening loops in the headline, and then closing them within the post. He started talking about an alligator whereas you introduced a penguin. I'm expecting LifeScienceMentor.com to smash some records in December.

I'd usually suggest martial arts training, especially where you spar and there's a real chance of feeling pain. Unfortunately you've stated this isn't an option at the moment. So other suggestions, roughly ranked from most physically dangerous to least: Skydiving Bungee jump Go to a gun range and shoot some targets Paintball Karaoke Join Toastmasters and give a speech The bottom two are probably the ones I find the most scary. I think as you get older your craving for adrenaline reduces slightly but it doesn't totally go away.

If you want to have any sort of financial success, you're going to have to take a critical look at your attitude towards money. Is your current attitude towards money driving you towards your goals? Or is it giving you a convenient excuse to give up before you even start? Do you see anything wrong with providing something of value and in return being rewarded for it? For example if someone provides a valuable service such as linen cleaning shouldn't they expect to receive money for their service? While some people who get rich do it by ripping people off, they are going to be over-represented in the media. There's a couple of reasons for this. First being that an honest trader, making an honest living, just doesn't have much drama. At least not when compared to a story about someone who tricks old people into giving up their life savings. Secondly, in general the media is aimed at the lowest common denominator ie. lazy, unambitious people. Which message do you think a lazy person would rather hear 1. "People get rich by cheating other people, therefore you're a good person if you're poor" or 2. "It's up to you to put the hard work in, if you're poor, it's your responsibility to fix it". Hard work is not something that sells well. How many fitness products are advertised as quick or easy...The average couch potato doesn't want their TV telling them that they have the power to do something about it. That would require effort. They would rather be told that it's not their fault, that way they can continue blaming other people for their situation. Thirdly, don't trust the media too much. They don't give balanced accounts of what really happens. They often have an agenda. Stories appear totally different when they leave certain details out. Or they misrepresent statistics. Or even just outright lie, as they've been shown to do with a few high profile cases over the last year. It sounds like you're heading in the right direction. But it would be a good idea to take a critical look at some of your attitudes, where they came from and why. And ask yourself if they're still valid. And more importantly, ask yourself if those attitudes are driving you to where you want to be.

Good to see you here too. I signed up towards the start, just haven't had the time to post much lately. You could try disconnecting your modem and moving it to a different room. I can't remember where I read it but the idea is to put physical barriers in your way so it's easier to do the work rather than procrastinate. Of course if you want to procrastinate by reading about procrastination you could read this classic Wait But Why post

https://youtu.be/2ef8dMOu3s8 This is the audio from a chat I had with Cam over Skype. We talk about my 52 in 52 weeks projects, video game addiction, the secret to facing your fears and more.

I've found if I'm working on my computer it's hard to not "quickly" look at a site. Most of the time I don't really need to be on the internet, so to combat this temptation I go downstairs and switch off my wireless modem. So now if I want to get back on the internet I have to stop what I'm doing, walk downstairs and then turn the modem back on.

I'm in Queensland, occasionally I visit family in Melbourne.

?I see nothing wrong with gaming in moderation. But chances are, if you're on the GameQuitters forum you're probably not someone who plays games in moderation. I know I'm not. If you were to be completely honest with yourself, do you think you could keep gaming in moderation? Or do you think it will end in an infinite series of "I'll just play one more game"? In regards to not being able to find anything to replace gaming with, I'd encourage you to get Cam's 60 Hobby Ideas e-book. Pick one activity and try it out. It doesn't have to be anything you find challenging. You don't have to make any commitment to doing it regularly. Just once to try out something new.

I've read The Slight Edge and Gorilla Mindset. I thoroughly recommend both of them. Mike Cernovich can be somewhat controversial, especially on Twitter. I like his content but I can understand why some people might not. There isn't anything in Gorilla Mindset that anyone should find controversial. It's a great book with solid advice. Two books I would say are similar in content to Gorilla Mindset are Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. They're books I would recommend, however both of them are huge. Even if you're a fast reader it will take you a significant amount of time to finish them. That's one thing I think is great about Gorilla Mindset, it's much shorter, meaning you can easily start applying the concepts to your life right away. Just bought Hooked by Nir Eyal. Sounds interesting but it might be a while before i get around to reading it.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - I really enjoyed it, it's also available for free from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35The Copywriter's Handbook by Robert Bly - Great book for learning how to sell with your writingDefending the Undefendable by Walter Block - Thanks to Zane for the recommendation, it was an interesting bookElon Musk by Ashlee Vance - Great look into the journey of ElonZero to One by Peter Thiel - Interesting book but I didn't find it that useful.Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazi - Great book on how to network effectively. I highly recommend this one

Thanks for the link Cam. ?Years of practice I've always read a lot and even as a teenager while other guys were complaining about reading a 200 page book, I was reading 400-600 page books for fun. There have been a few books that have taken me longer than a week but some are shorter so it averages out. I don't find it to be a huge challenge to read a book a week, the challenge comes in writing a review that I'm happy with.

I started gaming on the Atari 2600. Back then the games were kind of repetitive, but as a kid that didn't matter. I couldn't get enough, I'd be able to clock Space Invaders more than 3 times in a row. As a teenager I fed more than a small amount of my pocket money into arcade machines such as Mortal Kombat and numerous others. But it wasn't until consoles such as the playstation came out that gaming became a problem. Games used to have engaging stories, you'd want to get to the next level to find out what happens next. And it was more than once that I would get home from work and sit down to play for a couple of hours. Next thing I knew the sun was coming up and it was time to go to work again. Fortunately games used to have an ending so once I had finished a game there wasn't a lot of reasons to keep playing. Years later World of Warcraft came out. I loved the other Blizzard games but I didn't see how playing as one character would be as entertaining as their strategy games. It was a few years later that I decided to give it a try. Big mistake, I became addicted and while I wasn't as drawn in as other people all other areas of my life stagnated. What woke me up was as the time living with a flatmate who was obsessed to the point that was all he did. WoW was all he talked about. He would get angry about a small change in the game when patches came out. I did not want to become someone who would rage about something that happened in an imaginary world. I quit soon after. I'd still occasionally play console games but I promised myself I would no longer play online games that never end. A few years later, I was living in the house that I bought with my girlfriend. Like all relationships, there were ups and downs. After a while I decided I would play WoW in my spare time. Some people drink to hide away from their problems, I'm ashamed to admit that I hid away from life in video games. Problems don't go away just because you hide from them. After a while I typed in /played and saw a huge chunk of my life had gone into this pointless game. I uninstalled and started dealing with my problems in our relationship like I should have already been doing. We broke up later due to reasons unrelated to gaming. I came to the same conclusions Cam has come to when it comes to avoiding video game addiction. I stopped completely and vowed never to take it up again. I've had a few times where I thought I could just play a little. Some people can do it in moderation, and I see no problem with that. But when I start with video games I don't stop. The only solution that works for me is to avoid them altogether. Looking forward to contributing to this forum. Ed

?Congratulations on finishing War and Peace, there's not too many people who can say they've finished it. I tried reading it once, I think I was 14 or 15. I put a decent effort in, but after around 100 pages I gave up. I've added Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block to my reading list.

4 books that I would recommend to anyone: Slight Edge by Jeff OlsenSwitch by Chip and Dan HeathThink and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (just make sure it's not rewritten by someone else)Choose Yourself by James Altucher5 Fiction books I've enjoyed: 1984 by George OrwellLord of the Flies by William GoldingThe Walking Drum by Louis L'AmourFight Club by Chuck PalahniukCatch 22 by Joseph Heller4 Books to read if you want to become a writer: On Writing by Stephen KingWired for Story by Lisa CronWar of Art by Stephen PressfieldWrite, Publish, Repeat by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truent