seriousjay

The short term benefits would be weight loss, at least physically. Mentally, if you keep at it, within a coupe weeks you'll start seeing results and that should boost your confidence and self esteem. Long term, even more confidence and self esteem, you'll look a lot better and healthier (at least I know I would), your body will be in better balance between fat and muscle and the health implications are numerous. Depending on how social you are, working out in a gym with other people could also lead to a lot of new friendships. One other very important one that would work both long and short term, is increasing your discipline. If you stick to a regular routine every week and make it into a habit, it'll become easier to turn other routines you are working on into habits.

Day 12 Not a whole lot going on today. One notable thing is that when I went on my walk this morning, I got a strong urge to just knock on someone's door just to say hi. I spent the next 20 minutes or so convincing myself whether or not I should do it. It seemed so irrational and ridiculous. What's so hard about knocking on someone's door and just saying hello? I eventually did it and it turned out to be as uneventful as I thought it would be, but I felt good about it afterwards. I knew if I didn't do it, I would have beat myself up over it. Reading The Slight Edge today has also made me quite uncomfortable, specifically, chapter 13, the chapter on mentorship. I am absolutely behind the idea of fixing my daily habits with respect to eating, how I use my time, making responsible decisions to achieve my goals, etc. Where I get stuck on and where a lot of fear starts setting in is when it starts talking about hanging around other successful people to learn from them, and modeling yourself after them. Logically, I definitely agree with the concept, but I start to wonder if I'm going to lose a lot of the things that I value if I do this. When I think about the future, I don't see myself as someone who spends a crapload of time with people that aren't my family. The exact opposite actually, I see myself as spending the majority of time with my family, because that's what's important to me. Sure, I'll have friends who I speak to and hang out with on a regular basis, but generally I'd likely be keeping to myself. I do think this somewhat conflicts with the values of a person who has a growth mindset. I think the main reason why people who take personal growth seriously become entrepreneurs is precisely because running a business forces you to be in growth mode all the time. You always have to improve to keep your business moving forward. If you're doing just the day to day things that the majority do, chances are you won't grow much. I suppose the way to grow while just working a regular job is to learn how to do a lot of things on your own time that you don't know how to do, like rock climbing, learning a new language, etc. Maybe even your job offers opportunity for growth, through promotions and such. I also think people who have a growth mindset do spend a lot of time with lots of different people as well, and The Slight Edge reinforces this point, because one of the core points in the book is to help the lives of others with what you do in your life. To be honest, that chapter is probably where I started to feel uncomfortable, and I'm not really sure why, because I do really enjoy helping people. One of the other really big points, and this was in chapter 12 I believe, was distancing yourself from people who bring you down. My mother and brother bring me down. I wish it were not so, but it's true. While I understand that getting away from them is probably necessary for my continued growth, that thought pains me because I wish I could just help them become positive, growth oriented people, but nothing I've ever said or done has done anything to change their minds. The thought of "it's a lost cause" is just dreadful to me, because I don't want them to die with regret and misery, but I may have to accept that there isn't much I can about it. Can't help anyone who doesn't want to help themselves. Maybe this fear and uncomfortable feeling is just a natural part of this process. I am starting to burst out of my comfort zone and for many people, that's a scary thing. Many people do NOT go through with change simply because it IS terrifying and uncomfortable to do it. It often means you'll leave behind dear friends and relatives who you love simply because they don't promote an environment conducive to your growth, and so many people are simply unwilling to do that. I KNOW if I want to change for the better, it may very well be something I need to do. Leave behind these people I love as well as some of the things I enjoy. But man oh man, when they say it isn't easy, they aren't kidding at all. Oh, and 3 things I'm grateful for, just to leave this on a positive note: My health. I've done a lot to abuse my body in my life so I'm very glad that it has held up to this point.Lena from work. She gave me a beautiful bag yesterday with positive sayings on it that I'll be happy to use as my lunch bag.My consciousness.. I guess? I'm just so freaking happy that I have even become aware of the idea of being one of the 5 percenters. The idea of just being a part of the masses, a part of the culture of negativity, blame and regret is terrifying to me.EDIT: Also, to the point I made about losing things I value: I value sincerity, integrity, honesty, kindness, compassion, inclusion, etc. These are my personal traits that I value above all else. My biggest fear is losing some or all of them in the process of this change.

Day 11 Today started off not as planned. Wanted to wake up at 6:30 but ended up getting up at 7:45. However, not a big deal, I managed to deal with it! During work today I kind of started to question why I am continuing on this path. If I want to be able to accomplish my goals, I need to talk to my cousin about modifying my work schedule so I work full time instead of just nights.. and also into late afternoon as well, about 10 hours a day. This isn't particularly appealing to me, but as I started to ponder it, I realized that I could keep going as I am and "hope" things work out, or I could take 100% control of my situation and make the necessary sacrifices to pursue my vision. It was not a difficult decision. I know that if I continue as I am, I will be asking myself the same questions 10 years from now, regretting not having taken action earlier, being miserable about my circumstances, only with even LESS of an opportunity to do something about it. It is through trial and tribulation that our true mettle is tested, and I intend to stand strong. All that being said, I think I can start to see the slight edge working for me now. They say that people who do the right things day by day just have things fall into place for them, and I think I am starting to understand what that means. When I went home, I had every intention to cook dinner for myself, but I found that something was already prepared when I got home - and still hot, too! That was quite a relief, as I didn't have a whole lot of energy left. Also saw that my mom went and bought some stuff I was going to go and buy tomorrow as well, so saves me a trip to the grocery store. Things overall are going pretty well, but I'm starting to get to the point where I need to find some close friends in real life that I can rely on for help and encouragement as things start to get tougher. You guys are absolutely amazing but there is no replacement for real life friends. I'll also start to jot down things I am grateful for: My work. My dad's business affords me an opportunity a lot of people would love to have, so I need to take advantage of it!Myself. At this point I have no regrets about how things have gone so far, and am really looking forward to the future!The Slight Edge. This book has really got me going on the right path!

Cam, not only is this what I wanted to hear, but also what I needed to hear. You're absolutely right on just about every single point. My initial reaction was "wait, you're misunderstanding on a couple of points", but I very quickly realized those are nothing but excuses. Even if you did, that's completely irrelevant. I definitely have to start taking bigger charge of my life and doing things for myself. To that end, I have a very rough plan of what I'm going to do to make sure I am able to do what I am setting out to do. Thanks man, I appreciate it!

Day 10: Just a quick recap of last night: I went to another euchre night hosted on one of the meetups and it was great! I yet again met some awesome people and generally had a great time. I did run into a small issue where I took the game a bit too seriously and got a bit upset at something that happened, but nothing much really came of it, thankfully. I apologized to the guy later and it was all good. It really is amazing what asking for forgiveness can do, really takes a burden off that you don't have to carry around! Lesson learned as well! As for today, man today was awesome! I went for another hike and quite a bit happened during that time. First of all, the hike leader brought his kids along for it and they weren't having a great time. I tried to cheer them up but right up until the very end when they finally started laughing and smiling, it didn't seem to have much effect. Which is fine. I was proud of myself that I put forth the effort to do that! Also, we kind of became a much smaller group later on because people needed to go and I was able to share my video game addiction story with 3 of the people that were there. Unsurprisingly, the two mothers both had children who played video games more than the mothers would have liked. I tried to do my best to help them understand what was going on and even got one excited about Game Quitters. She really seemed to be excited about the possibility of getting her hands on some information to help out her son, so I was REALLY happy about that. I also mustered up the courage to ask the other girl that was with us if she wanted to grab a coffee after the hike. Surprisingly, I didn't find that terribly difficult. She declined but that's OK. If you don't ask, you'll never know, right? Afterwards, I went to a board game meetup which went pretty well overall. Met a few really cool guys there! We played Settlers of Catan and a card game called Citadels. While we were playing I started getting those feelings of relapse, not too much of it but it was definitely there, so I think I will need to make sure I don't go to too many of these. Yeah, overall just a pretty sweet day. Tomorrow is gonna be a bit different since I am going to work, but that's OK!

For me, it's my mom. Every time I bring up anything I want to do, she chimes in with her own ideas of what I should do. Every. Single. Time. I told her today that I want to go back to school for general arts and science. She didn't even let me finish my thought. "Did you read what those people said about it?" "You can't get a job with that." "You need to get a job." "You need to start thinking realistically." "You're almost 30 years old!" "How are you going to pay your credit card debt?" Basically, nothing positive. I know that in order to change her opinion of my actions, I've got to show her that what I do will work. I barely ever get a chance to do anything, however, before she starts going crazy about everything that's wrong with it. I really want to change my ways and make something of myself, I've told her that so many times, but it seems like she just doesn't listen at all. I know that I really ought not to listen to what she says and keep following my heart, but sometimes it's pretty difficult. Do you guys have anyone in your lives that's like this to you? How do you manage your situation?

The most important thing is to never give up. It's OK to fall short from time to time - that's life, and that's part of the process of growth. I find that we learn the most when we fall short of our expectations. We can identify what we could do better next time to ensure we reach our goals. Just keep going Alex, you're doing awesome!

Hey, every little action counts. To be quite honest, my recovery started a long time ago. July of last year, when I joined Primerica. That was pretty much what got me on the road to changing my ways. I've relapsed several times since then, but I never gave up on it or myself. I am happy to be reaping the rewards right now.

So true. There is no one size fits all approach to personal development!

Seems like you've got it pretty good right now regardless. The beauty of entrepreneurship is that you can do as much or as little as you want with it, provided it isn't costing you a whole lot if you're not currently investing a ton of energy. The benefits of having a successful business are just amazing though.

It's a good one, no doubt about it! I will probably finish Think and Be Phenomenal next. It'll be interesting to see the overlap between the two books. Actually, while I was sitting in bed last night, I started reading "How to Manage Your Money When You Don't Have Any". The author seems a bit.. bitter about the success of guys like Dave Ramsey, so we'll see how it goes! I've only read chapter 1 so far.

After sitting on it a bit more, I think I'm just going to do whatever feels and seems right to me and allow the principles I'm learning through The Slight Edge and other material to guide me to the right decisions. Ultimately I'll end up where I'm meant to be as long as I believe and trust in what I'm learning through this process!

Yeah, I'm not too concerned about the proper pronunciations or the proper grammar or anything like that, I figure that stuff will come in time and being corrected. I actually found a pretty cool website about this here: http://www.linguatrek.com/ David actually learned Polish himself and discovered a different way to do it than just taking classes and I absolutely love his method. It's more about just going through some material, looking up words you don't understand, and most importantly, also listening to that same material. He used the first Harry Potter book. So, Day 10. (Actually, Day 9! Whoops, too excited I guess!) Yesterday evening was great, as usual. I went out with my meetup group for a night of Euchre. Was great, talked to some really nice people and met someone who is doing material science at McMaster University and he's 29 years old. I don't know if my friendship with him will go anywhere but it was nice to meet someone closer to my age, haha! What went not so great was my sleep! I went to bed at around 11:00 PM and didn't fall asleep until 3:00 AM. I have no idea what's causing this. The night before I fell asleep almost immediately upon going to bed around the same time. This is something I'll have to figure out as I believe having a regular sleep schedule is absolutely critical to your health in so many ways. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be happy to give them a shot! As for today. so far it has been FANTASTIC! The days just keep getting better and better really. I have a feeling it has much to do with what I've learned in The Slight Edge today regarding having happy habits. Specifically, I was excited to learn that I already do two of the happy habits, and in greater quantities than recommended! I meditate twice a day for about 20-25 minutes total, and obviously I also do this journal. I had also planned to start doing a morning walk anyways on days that I am not going on a hike (and I may just do it every day regardless!), so learning that it was also a great happy habit was awesome! I went on my first one today. To be honest, that book is probably the single best literature I've ever read on personal development. Everything just makes so much sense. I look back and I can very clearly see the decisions I made in the past that led to the life I have. I dropped out of college 3 or 4 times. I quit many things in the past that I didn't give all my effort to up to the point that I quit. All of that compounded to the life I currently have. I absolutely don't regret it though. As the book says, it's never too late to start living with the slight edge, and I am doing that every day now. Just a few examples: Yesterday I went to the grocery store simply to pick up some lettuce because I wanted to make a salad. I could have decided to just not do that and look for something else to eat, but it would have been so easy to give up that search and go order some fast food. So I went and got that lettuce.Also last night, I decided I needed to fill up my car's gas tank. Shortly after that, I thought, it's late, I'll just go home and do it tomorrow - but no. What if tomorrow I say, "oh I'm not planning on going anywhere anyways so I'll just do it the next day". So I went and filled up my gas tank.Today, same thing as with the lettuce, I wanted to make a salad but ran out of tomatoes. Again I was faced with the choice of either going to the store and getting some tomatoes or looking for something else, and risking what I described previously. So I went and got tomatoes after my morning walk.Every single one of these choices, and we are faced with dozens, if not hundreds of them on a daily basis, gather together to form what I call the "pool of discipline". Every positive choice you make adds to that pool, and hones your discipline. Each choice you make, makes it much easier to make the next one. Conversely, each negative choice affects it the same way, but in the opposite direction. It becomes easier to make the lazy choice each time we make it. Unfortunately, this is the type of life I was living before, but no more!

Great advice there! To be honest, as I was pondering this yesterday the answer was already known to me. I had heard it quite a few times. The answer is right at the beginning of this video: https://youtu.be/26U_seo0a1g?t=27 "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma: which is living with the results of other peoples' thinking." It's really hard to do this. We all look for acceptance from society, from our loved ones, and often what we're doing doesn't match their vision. When this happens, and we start taking criticism from others, it's so easy to get discouraged and think that what we're doing isn't worthy. But it is worthy! Everyone has their own idea of success and nobody has any right to take it away from them. I've heard so many times of people who are not financially independent but very happy regardless, and rich people who you could mistake for someone whose completely broke because of their attitude. I'm just going to have to learn to accept that others have their own opinion of what I should do and take their feedback with a grain of salt. Their opinions are shaped by their experiences and those experiences may be greatly different than mine - so why lose sleep if they don't agree with your course of action? In fact, I am often told and read that the people who keep trying to dissuade you from following your heart and instincts are the very people that you should remove from your life. You don't need negativity. If I need validation, I'll look for it in the results of what I do, not from what other people tell me. Thanks for your perspective, kortheo. I think I have my answer.

As Alex pointed out, the daily journals would be an excellent place to share your wisdom.

OK the day has barely even started but I'll post a bit about today for now.. Day 8 So last night I fell asleep around 11:15 or so and I didn't think I would need my alarm clock but to my amazement, I woke up at around 9:15! I must have been really tired or something, haha. Regardless, I am going to make it a point moving forward to always maintain the same schedule when sleeping so that I can develop a consistent routine every single day. So far that is: 7:30 - get up 7:35 or so - take a shower (10-15 minutes) 7:50 - eat breakfast (between 10-30 minutes depending on what I decide to eat) 8:00~8:30 - meditate (about 15 minutes for now) 8:15~8:45 - watch my motivational videos (about 40 minutes) 9:00~9:30 - read at least 2 chapters out of whatever book I'm reading After that it gets less certain. I've never been much of a schedule person, so I kinda like to just wing it at times, but I understand the importance of a daily routine and want to get my mornings down pat, since that essentially sets up the rest of my day! I'm still not 100% sure of the activities I want to replace gaming with but I do have a few ideas: - learn polish (mainly cause most of my family speaks polish) - going to the gym (3 times a week) - painting my room (not sure when I'll start this but it's something I want to do) - go on a walk or run on days when I know I won't be going on a hike One thing I'm definitely doing right now to improve my social skills is getting out to meetups as often as I can. My work schedule makes this a bit of a challenge right now but whenever I can do it, I will! Another thing I think I want to do to take up the time in the mornings (and something I know can fulfill several of the needs that gaming does) is volunteering somewhere. I also read a couple more chapters today of the slight edge and it's such a fantastic book. The idea that little decisions we make every single day compound to something big later on really resonates with me. I look at my situation right now and I absolutely believe where I am right now is the result of many choices I've made in the past. Even though a lot of the choices are boring, when you consider the big picture and when you consider what you want out of life, it's absolutely worth it!

Cheers Jay, that's a very good point. Likewise when I play games, studying, spending time with family, chores and most daily tasks become a lot more challenging mentally, and 'takes a back seat' in priority as you mentioned. I don't want to be that type of person, and I know that if I was consistently feeling guilty of playing games, there was good reason for me to stop. I even purposely messing up save files to stop myself from playing, I definitely was not in control of my habits, the game had control of me. I keep thinking of what lifelong goals I want to have, and something I know for certain that I want to be helping people every day as that is something which I find fulfillment in. I would want to play to my strengths for a career but I will find my purpose in time. Something I heard from a podcast from 'The Art of Charm' this afternoon is to forgive yourself for when you do something wrong and just pick up from where you left off with the attitude to do better. I will make sure to put this perspective to use when going through those days that are a slog. It's definitely important to forgive yourself and pick yourself back up when you fall down. Otherwise you will start to develop negative feelings about yourself and just as the slight edge talks about, these can compound over time and bring you back to the state of misery you may have been in before. Thank you Cam, that was very good food for thought. It is true that I have much better priorities outside of gaming, bad habits can make gaming top priority despite having little positive impact on living. I need to make sure that I give quitting games and improving myself a shot for at least 90 days straight so that I can feel the positive impact of good habits. I don't know what things I could do in the future, but it is guaranteed to be a heck of a lot better without gaming. Thank you for your continued support! Alex I'd like to challenge you to read the slight edge again and really make it a point to internalize the concepts the book talks about. I personally am finding that everything the book talks about makes a ton of sense, that little actions and choices we make every single day build up to something big later on. Read it again and see if that changes anything for you, but do it purposefully. Read it with intent and with the goal that you want to make meaningful and lasting changes to your habits. I suspect that it will help you quite a bit.

Thanks! These books are usually pretty exciting for me because I tend to find they have very valuable information in them. It's just a matter of applying what you've learned - most people won't and that's why it doesn't work for them.

Since I made the commitment to quitting video games last Thursday, this would be.. Day 7 Today was awesome! Even though I woke up at 7:30 AM, then 8:30 AM, and didn't actually get up until 11:30 AM, I have had a productive day! It's so easy to wake up late, think about how much time you've lost in the day and get down on yourself, but that's exactly the type of attitude I want to avoid. I went and bought myself a good pair of hiking boots and now I'm even more excited to go on hikes with my meetup groups, especially on the more rugged paths! I also started reading The Slight Edge, and I wholeheartedly agree with the principles set forth. Pretty much all the books I've read so far say generally the same thing, just using different words. Change the way you think, the way you view yourself. Your perceptions of yourself will manifest externally in your actions. If you care deeply about yourself you will do everything in your power to make your life better. Create new habits for yourself. Reading, walking, studying something every day, just create new, positive habits for yourself and be consistent. All those little things will develop the discipline you require to reach your goals! There's so much else as well that I probably haven't even learned yet. Exciting times!

Hey guys, This is something that has been gnawing at me for some time. Part of it is fear. Fear of not knowing what to do, and then the fear of it all falling apart if I do make it. Pretty much every author of success, self-help, motivation, etc. types of books is an entrepreneur. They have built very successful businesses both financially and in terms of helping people succeed in life. My question is - does living a successful life invariably lead to entrepreneurship? This really shouldn't scare me that much. My dad started a million dollar business from nothing and now he spends most of his time in the Ukraine, while my cousin takes care of the business. He is leading a very successful life I would say. I guess I just don't know if that life is for me. I mean, if I came up with some idea to start a business with, I would definitely give it a shot. Hell, I joined Primerica and put effort into that (admittedly, not as much as I could have) until I finally resigned the other day, largely due to financial reasons. Part of it also was a disagreement in the way they go about things. But I digress. When I visualize my future life, the most important thing to me, by far, is my family. I want to be able to spend as much time with my family, especially my kids, as I can. The biggest reason for this is because I want for my future kids what I didn't have during my childhood. I hear a lot about how people who start businesses do it because it allows them to spend more time with their family, but my dad spent so much time building his business that his family seemed to fall by the wayside (and maybe not by his choice). I think about starting a business and find it hard to see how I can balance the business and my family. The other part, and possibly just as big a concern, is that I do not view myself as a great sales guy or a great future businessman. Part of it is that I have this impression of business that you've got to lie and cheat and be cruel to really make it big. I am not like that - at all. I refuse to get angry, I refuse to lie, I want to resolve things in a civil manner, and I want to be as honest and upfront about things as I can. I do know of at least one business, the one I used to work for, Snakehead Games, whose owners are, in fact, very good people, and they go about things in an ethical manner. I do feel like this is the exception as opposed to the rule and perhaps it's simply just a fear of not being able to come up with a great idea to be successful in this way. Then there are other parts as well that run contrary to this. I do not want to just be another face in the crowd, but if you aren't doing something incredible, is that even possible? I also do not necessarily want to work for someone else. Part of it is that I have my own ideas about how things should be done and get frustrated if it doesn't happen. I also am not very fond of the idea of working my ass off to make someone else's dreams come true. I went on a bit of a tangent there, but what do you guys think? Can you be a huge success by simply working a regular job? I don't mean working at a Starbucks or something, I mean working in a field that you love. Maybe it's astronomy, maybe it's being a doctor, maybe you're doing something with chemical engineering. Can you view yourself as a huge success while being paid to help someone else make millions (I was about to delete this part but I'm going to leave it here, starting to wonder if money is as unimportant to me as I claim it is)?

Hey Alex, I cannot speak for you of course but the main reason that I want to quit video games is because I KNOW in my heart of hearts that I will die full of regret if I don't. Whenever I start playing video games, everything else in my life takes a back seat. It can be easy to question the decision early on when we start to think about the video games we've played and get lost in nostalgia, so that's why we need a very powerful reason, a goal that we're working towards that doesn't leave room for something as time consuming as video games. Some days it's going to be a slog but as long as you have that reason, you can always pick yourself up and get back on track!

Cam offers some great advice on this - just start trying stuff and see what happens. Joaquin, who I met at the hike I went on a couple days ago, feels the same way. If you don't like it, you can always change it. He made a great point that starting a new career in Canada is so easy, so there's no real reason to not just go out and try new stuff. Still not quite sure what that new stuff is but I won't get anywhere just sitting down and contemplating it. Perhaps I might take general arts and science from my local community college and just go from there.

Alex I have just bought the book and will start reading it tomorrow. Thanks for the tip. As for numbering the days, I will start doing that as well!

I will check it out Cam thanks!

That's great advice Cam! I am rather picky with my food though. In the sense that I really prefer freshly cooked meat. This aligns quite well with my goals anyhow as I really want to learn how to cook. Tonight I will be cooking chicken parmiagana for example. Cooking really is quite easy it's just a matter of getting off your bum and doing it! Much cheaper than getting fast food as well! Since I'm posting anyways I might as well post about my day. It was quite a good day actually. Woke up around 5:00 AM but didn't get up until about 7:00 AM, watched my motivational videos, meditated, updated some stuff on here and meetup.com and then napped for a couple hours! And I learned a few minutes ago that I don't have to work tonight so I will be going to a trivia night with one of my meetup groups! Should be a lot of fun.