seriousjay

Day 34. Figured I'd post since I haven't in a while. Other than a potentially disastrous situation that I was able to help avoid at work, nothing too crazy went on this past week. Going to Niagara Falls today with a friend. Tomorrow going for my favourite hike ever. Things are good.

Includes no gaming, porn or coffee. Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

30 days and still going strong. Woot!!!!

It seems like you're piling on way too much all at once. Commit to doing a single activity per week. It doesn't matter for how long. Just commit to doing one thing per week. If that's even too much, then commit to once per month. Figure out the schedule that will actually get you moving in the right direction. It's better to plan a little bit and actually do it, than plan a lot and do nothing at all. Regardless of your situation, you can only start from where you are. You need to figure out where that is and go from there. Good luck!

This. Check out this video: https://gamequitters.com/how-the-sunk-cost-fallacy-keeps-you-playing-games/

I share your disclaimer, just for transparency's sake. Yes, I believe it is. You can't really control what your kids do at a friend's house or school, but you can absolutely influence their values. It needs to start at a very early age though. You need to teach them good values and principles. Once they reach an age where you can communicate with them verbally, I believe the process of teaching them those values and principles needs to begin. Before they have anything to compare what you're teaching them to. In my mind, that will greatly increase the chances that when they confront something that conflicts with those values, they will either reject it, or at least ask you about it. The key for me is that if your child does do something you don't want them to do, to not get upset at them for it. After all, they are a kid. It is your job as a parent to talk to them about that thing and see if you can help them understand why doing that thing isn't beneficial for them. This goes for everything, not just video games. The biggest thing is that this needs to start early. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to teach them the things you want them to learn, as they will eventually learn to do things a certain way on their own, whether you want them to or not.

OK so some notes about my current goals: Short term goals: - determine at least 1 solo activity I can do in my spare time that isn't on the computer.. something that is more than just a time waster - get to 180 lbs Medium term goals: - get married by 35 Long term goals: - figure out what to do with my life professionally Some weekly things I want to do: - one hike a week - cook one meal a week - read one chapter of Becoming a Supple Leopard - read one chapter of a personal development book On the fence stuff: - reading a novel (could be the solo activity) - geocaching - spend time writing How I am going to try to accomplish these things: Solo activity: Just going to boil down to trying new things. Geocaching doesn't seem to be working out for me. I've gone out 4 times now and it hasn't felt that interesting at any point really. I'm going to try to do it a couple more times but this one seems like a dud. I might need to look over the hobby ideas guide from GQ again to try to come up with more ideas for this. Get to 180 lbs: This one is very easy to turn into a SMART goal. In general, you're looking to lose about 1 pound a week. I'm currently about 215, which means 35 weeks to achieve this, or about 9 months. I am very well on my way to achieving this, as I am going to the gym 4 times a week and have cleaned up my eating habits considerably. Furthermore, the 1 hike per week is contributing as well. I don't think it will take me 9 months to complete this, which is exciting! Married by 35: This is mostly spelled out for me. I either need to try online dating or continue with my social activities every week. It's a little slow going so far but I imagine it'll ramp up as I continue to make more friends. I probably will try online dating again at some point though. I'm not really sure when. It'll probably coincide with how my weight loss goes. I want to slim down a little bit more before I engage in this.. preferably want to hit a waistline of about 38 or 40 first. It isn't out of shame, but I want to actually look the part of someone who is taking health and fitness as seriously as I say I am. Anyways, I figure to be married by 35, I need to enter into a very serious relationship by next summer or so. Professional life: This one is a bit tough for me. I'm not even really sure how to go about this. The only real idea I've had to this point is becoming an author. I figure I might discover something to be passionate about as I continue my social and outdoor activities as well. I just don't have much of a plan for this right now. I suppose I could start by setting aside some time every week to try my hand at writing for now and see where that goes. Weekly stuff: This is just a matter of scheduling time at some point in the week to do those things. My week would probably look something like this: Mondays: 1 hour gym Tuesdays: 2.5 hours volleyball Wednesdays: 2-3 hours hike Thursdays: 1 hour gym Fridays: 1 hour gym, read Supple Leopard Saturdays: cook a meal, writing Sundays: 1 hour gym, reading personal development book, 1-2 hours geocaching There will be some social activities thrown in there that will throw this off a bit but this would be the general plan. Well that's about what I've got for goal setting for now. I'd welcome any input on anything I've put down here. EDIT: I think it would help to define what my professional life would look like. Or at least, what my professional life should enable: Essentially, I would like to be wanting for nothing, be able to spend sufficient time with family and friends, not worry about how much things cost. This doesn't necessarily mean having the biggest house, the most expensive car, or anything like that, but a comfortable life where my family can focus on being together and constantly improving ourselves instead of worrying how to pay the bills.

Day 28! I've been reading my journal on and off for the last couple of weeks (finished page 6 just now). I find it fascinating how I am now able to recognize that certain feelings I had before had more to do with what video games have done to my mind rather than something from real life. Just as an example, this passage: I was always looking to do something dramatic in the past and then expecting to receive great praise for it. I mean, part of that was definitely a need for validation, but I think another significant part of it was that video games operate the same way. You get dramatic things happening on a regular basis. I think I've done a very good job to this point of lowering the bar for what to expect on a day-to-day basis. I'll probably post more later today as I wanted to figure out some concrete goals to work towards and post them here. I just wanted to get this particular observation down for now.

Day 27. So today I made the conscious decision that when we go to the restaurant we planned to go to, that I would allow myself to break my calorie budget for tonight. I went over my budget by about 1100 calories and the food went down well enough, but I felt like crap shortly after. Could barely move. I have no idea how this didn't bother me before. I had even planned for this by eating relatively light for most of the day. I definitely won't be doing this again. I think it's getting close to the time where I would like to set a few concrete goals for myself to work towards. I don't think I'm spinning my wheels at the moment. It's not even that I feel particularly directionless. The things I've been doing HAVE been towards a specific purpose. I think just the act of setting the goals and creating a plan to achieve them should help me focus my efforts a little bit better. Maybe open my eyes to something that I may not have realized yet. I think it might also be time to re-evaluate the things I've been wanting to do and getting rid of the baggage. For example, I haven't gone searching for a geocache in a while. It's been on my mind, but I've never felt particularly motivated to go out and do it. I might just be giving up too soon, and I'll probably set some time aside on Sunday to search for another one. I'm just not really feeling it right now. Lastly, any thoughts that this might be a "fake" attempt to change my lifestyle yet again are pretty much completely gone. It really does feel like I'll be successful this time.

Day 26. First rough day. I crashed pretty hard at work. Felt physically weak and exhausted, which ended up turning into mental fatigue after the physical symptoms disappeared. Didn't have much choice but to ride it out and started feeling temptations a little stronger than previously. Probably due to the perceived fatigue. Around 3:30 I started feeling back to pretty much normal. I've had this happen before but never really paid as much attention to it as I did today. Very strange how it all unfolded honestly. I'm chalking this up to just normal back-to-work exhaustion, especially considering how much I've ramped up my physical activity over the past few weeks. If it persists after next week, will need to re-examine things to find the cause. Not really a whole lot else to add. My dad and his kids came back from Ukraine and as I expected, it isn't annoying to me like it was last time they were here. I'm actually enjoying having them around. Looking forward to more of that. I think on Sunday I will go back to the Gate of India. It isn't quite 1 month but close enough!

When it comes to the couples thing, it's all a matter of preference I suppose! Some people do in fact want to see each other as often as possible. However, science seems to indicate that some amount of separation is both healthy and necessary. There's a lot of articles about it on Google if you're interested in further research. This seems to hold true for regular friendships as well, as I found out recently! Haha.

That's exactly what I've been making a point of. I feel like I've been doing a good job of slowing things down and letting things happen naturally and I've found that I'm STILL trying to force things and make them move too quickly. As heavy gamers, we are used to the timescale of a video game. You can experience the entire lifetime of a virtual character in a matter of 200 hours. That's just over a week of real life! So, our perception of how fast things should be going, or how fast we should be making progress, etc. is all very warped and distorted. Just as an example, I learned yesterday that new couples "should" typically see each other 1-2 nights a week. That's like.. nothing, but apparently that's what science says is a healthy amount of interaction. We just need to slow ourselves the hell down and let things happen more naturally. That takes a lot of time and especially patience. This may have been my downfall in my last "serious" attempt at quitting games. I was doing something different every single night of the week almost and just completely burned out on it. I am allowing myself a lot of downtime and time to just do nothing this time around, and it's working much better. ?

The bolded was me a long time ago. My accountability partner suggested that it was a loss of identity, and he was probably very correct. The vast majority of our existence for many of us is intricately connected to video games. If you remove that, it's like ripping out a large piece of ourselves. That gap is something that has to be filled with other things. Activities, relationships, work, whatever. You just need to find other things that say "this is who I am". It's possible that you simply haven't been able to find many things that you deeply connect with quite yet. Don't worry though! Just keep exploring the world and all it has to offer and you'll definitely find something to be passionate about! ?

Hey man, thanks for that! Lots of good advice there. I've also been reading a little about this on Google and the main takeaway for me is that every person is unique. There is no "one size fits all" approach to friendships. Some people want to talk and hang out with you frequently, while others think nothing of seeing you every month or even longer. The trick I guess is to identify which type of friend you have. The second thing is that I think I'm still just trying to do things too fast, as you suggested. I've got to learn to take things more slowly and allow things to happen in a more natural way instead of just trying to force things. And that's something I'm just going to have to keep reminding myself of. There are plenty of people in the world and you can't be good friends with all of them. However, as long as I keep trying and meeting new people, eventually I will meet the ones who are meant to be my closest friends. Thanks again! This helped a lot. ?

Day 20. OK so.. I seem to be pretty good at meeting people for the first time, but.. just what the hell do you do when you actually make a friend? I always seem to manage to alienate people once I get to know them. I'm pretty sure I'm trying too hard and coming off as needy or desperate or whatever, but isn't the purpose of having friends to.. you know.. hang out and have fun? I always feel like if I don't talk to people or hang out with them often enough, they'll think I've forgotten about them or don't care about them. However, when I do what I usually do, it seems to come off as I mentioned before. I really need some help with this.

Nice! I'm on a streak myself, though I'm not really sure how long. It's been nearly two weeks however.

I'd love to be able to play video games in moderation some day, if only to be able to say I've truly conquered them in my own way. However, video games have no place in my dream life. I won't ever allow my children to play them, for example - and I will make sure they understand why. Don't ever fool yourself into thinking you're "over it" because you're only interested in one game only. I was the same. Guess what? Once you get bored of that "one game", you find another one to latch on to. This is a very dangerous mindset that can lead to a total relapse.

Congrats! It's tough to move on sometimes, especially after you've invested so much. Cam has a great video about that here: This is extremely relevant when it comes to quitting video games because a lot of people fear losing what they've invested so much money, and especially time and emotion into. However, it is necessary for us to let go of that attachment to move on to bigger and better things. Cam has a LOT of great videos on his Youtube channel, I strongly recommend checking them out!

Day 19. I went to Gate of India today and man I didn't realize how much I missed it. It was great! I plan to go there again after 30, 60 and 90 days. It makes for an excellent reward! I also did a lot of shopping today for more presentable clothing for dating purposes. It's a little frustrating to go through so much work but I also understand the importance of looking your best, especially on a first date. I see it very much as a self respect thing at least as much as respecting the person you're seeing. If you're willing to look like a mess on a date, just how much do you care about other things? Or yourself even? I'd say the clothing people wear says a lot about what they think of themselves personally. It was a little pricey but I'm sure it'll pay off in the long run! Lastly, my knees are starting to feel a lot better as well! I've been having some serious lateral mobility issues because my knees were hurting so much, especially after strenuous activity. However, it seems like my body has done whatever it needed to do to adjust to my increased physical activity. This is REALLY nice because my mobility felt so restricted during this time. It'll be nice to be able to move around properly again! It'll also especially be nice to not have to hold myself back as much as well. I'd have liked to do a little more than I've been doing but didn't want to push it too far, just in case. Maybe I'll go to 2 hikes a week now!

Day 18. I have to say I'm really grateful for the My Fitness Pal app. I've been using it to track my calorie intake and it's really helped me control my eating. I'm also surprised sometimes at how energy dense certain foods are, like hamburger patties. I used to eat AT LEAST two of those in one meal if they were home made. The other nice thing about the app is it also tracks the major micro nutrients as well, like vitamin A and C, as well as what the recommended daily intake is. As I get more used to using these features, I think I'll really put myself in a good spot nutrition wise. I'm also starting to enjoy cooking a bit. I've made it a point to properly cook at least one meal a week, which I will do tomorrow (chicken parm), but I've also been preparing some stuff like hot dogs (the actual sausage variety) as well. I've also come to discover I'm not as inept socially as I thought. I really had to force myself to see things through an objective lens to come to that conclusion, but I think I've got a good handle on the basics. At a minimum, I know what people want: they want to feel respected, listened to, not just heard, they want to be made to feel good, and not constantly surrounded in drama and negativity. Well, most people at least. I still sometimes say things that I perceive to come off in an unintended way, and I also tend to draw a blank at times when coming up with things to say, but I think that will improve as I practice and prepare more. I've been reading Ramit Sethi's guide to social skills again, and if there's anything I've learned from it, it's that preparation is a pretty important part of handling social situations. So I'll need to prepare answers to common questions. Additionally, he had a nice tip with respect to coming up with things to talk about: check tabloid headlines and what's trending on Facebook and Twitter. These are things people are most commonly paying attention to. I may not necessarily care about any of it, but it would be good to have an at least working knowledge of what's going on in the world. Lastly, I think it would be a good idea to remind myself of things that I've been doing recently. For example, two nights ago I helped my cousin install a window in my house. These types of things can be useful conversation material depending on the situation. All in all things are going really good so far. --- On a somewhat more serious note, I've been trying to come up with some kind of internal reason to keep myself going when things really start to get tough. A few nights ago, when I discovered that strong feeling that I am actually capable of doing this, I had some "movies" running through my head of what my life might look like in the future. The most vivid one for me was my future wedding. I had a very strong emotional attachment to that. I think that's what this is all about for me, right now. I do not want to live my life alone. I want an amazing partner to share my experiences with, and partake in hers as well. Without that, I don't see much point in living. Obviously, this is not the "end game". This is just my current major goal and milestone. Now I just have to figure out what I need to do to get there. The other really important thing to me, right now, is my health and fitness. I do not, under any circumstances, want to be "cared and felt sorry for" when I get really old. I'd rather just be dead. I mean no disrespect whatsoever to people in this position, but the thought of having to be tended to and wheeled around is abhorrent to me. In order to accomplish that, I must make the necessary sacrifices right now, and I think I am well on track to make that happen. The main reason this is hard to use as a reason to keep going is because there isn't any real specific goal in mind when it comes to this. I know what I need to do, I'm just not sure what the end result really looks like. So, I just have a hard time visualizing in my mind some kind of movie or story that I can get attached to. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that. It's good to be able to put this stuff down somewhere so I can review it later.

If you can muster the self control to do so, if you are home alone and feel the urges to game setting in, just walk outside for a bit! That's my strategy for dealing with very intense cravings. I've used it a couple times already and it works great.

Day 16. In chapter 2 of The Willpower Instinct, one of the willpower challenges was identifying the "instinct that needs to be restrained". I figured I'd jot some notes about that down here. - the part of me that craves instant gratification - the part of me that expects things to happen near instantly as is often the case in video games - the part of me that seems to believe any time spent not making progress is wasted time.. tied to the above a little bit I think the most important thing I'm learning from all of this so far is to just SLOW THE **** DOWN! It's absolutely amazing how much of a difference it makes when you tell yourself that it's fine for things to take time and develop slowly. That hour long workout? No big deal, just go through the sets one at a time, no need to rush. My morning stretching routine? It's important to take an appropriate amount of time on each one to ensure I get the full benefits. I think it's easy to think things need to happen quickly when you're used to the timescale that video games tend to go by. The reality is that days happen so frickin slowly. Life is a slow marathon!

So this is the end of day 15. I can't sleep. I don't know if it's excitement or adrenaline or just these million thoughts going through my head. For the very first time in.. about 5 and a half years or so of becoming aware of needing to drastically change the direction of my life, I actually have this exceptionally strong belief that it can be done. That I can do this. That I DESERVE this! And it feels amazing. I've worked so hard for this. I've stumbled and fallen backwards so many times but I never gave up on myself. Through all of that hard work, stress, anxiety, and everything else, it seems I've finally developed the skills and mentality necessary to put my past behind me and start building the life of my dreams. That isn't to say that it's going to be smooth sailing from here. I know I'll have some less than ideal days going forward and I'm certain there will be cravings and temptations that I will need to overcome in the future. However, I believe I am fully prepared to handle all of that now. I couldn't have gotten to this point without Game Quitters. Thanks so much @Cam Adair for turning your passion into a reality. I also cannot fail to mention @AlexTheGrape who as my accountability partner for a long time, really helped me set a foundation to work from. Both of our hard work seems to now be paying off. Well, I know I won't be getting enough sleep tonight so hopefully I can fall asleep soon! Good night.

So I went through the first 3 pages of my journal and I've identified a couple of key areas that set me up for failure: 1) I noticed a lot of "it'll work itself out", "I'm sure it'll work out in time", etc. The reality is that things very rarely just magically work out unless we actively work to make it happen. I won't allow myself to have that attitude anymore. If I want something to happen, I have to put a plan in place to make it happen, and then execute it. If I cannot, then I will scrap that thing that "will work out" and concentrate on something I can actually do something about. 2) I took on way too much and "committed" to way too many grandiose things. Here's what I've accomplished in the last 2 weeks: - cleaned the house, at least the areas that I could think of to clean - prepared my own meals from precooked ingredients, and cooked a couple of simple meals - searched for 2 geocaches, found 1 - went to the gym 4 times a week, started to do some extra stretching the last couple of days - went on 2 hikes - read a chapter of The Willpower Instinct and acted on the action steps in that chapter - quickly went through Ramit's guide to social skills - read the first 3 pages of my journal - went to volleyball twice - went to 2 social meetups - planned a morning and evening routine It seems like a lot but it's nothing compared to all the crazy things I said I was going to do in previous attempts. I've intentionally kept things simple and allowed myself plenty of down time specifically in order to not get burnt out, and to actually give myself a chance to do all the things I planned to do, which has worked out extremely well so far. I know over time that things are going to get much more complicated and my days are going to get busier, so there's no point in burdening myself with that right from the start. I mentioned a long time ago that I was going to reward myself for a job well done by going to the Gate of India restaurant. I think that's exactly what I'm going to do this coming week! Two weeks completely devoid of everything gaming related seems like reason to celebrate.

So today is day 13. So today I am committing to a morning and evening routine. It may change over time but this is what I've got for now. Mornings: 6:00 AM - get up and take shower 6:20 AM - begin morning meditation, 15 min 6:35 AM - morning stretches 6:40 AM - begin preparing and eating breakfast 7:00 AM - begin preparing lunch (may eventually move this to night before if I find I don't have time in the AM) 7:15 AM - morning routine done, chill until I have to go to work, would like to be there by 7:30 AM so leaves about 10 minutes For any day where I'm not working, the above still applies, except the part where I have to go to work. Evenings: 9:30 PM - go to sleep I actually like the quitting for a year guide's idea of setting something up during your evenings as a cue that the day is over. I'm just not really sure what that would be for me right now. I'm thinking of buying a couple of e-novels that I can read on my tablet before bed for maybe half an hour, but not quite sure about that yet. I am still keen on trying my hand at becoming a writer, so this is a logical step towards that. Perhaps that this desire is still within me after so many years suggests it's something worth pursuing. Also, Katrina randomly called me yesterday at about 1:00 PM. This is the first time I can remember receiving a phone call from someone who didn't want something from me. She just wanted to talk. That was a very pleasant surprise and I suppose a sign that things are moving in the right direction. Cheers guys!