seriousjay

Sorry that this is a bit late. How did your week go, @Tux? If you're struggling to find people to do things with, check out Meetup.com. Otherwise, you can try and find a hobby to immerse yourself in to take up the time. Cam has an excellent guide on hobby ideas on the website.

Listening to music, hanging out with friends.. seems to be a common trend. ?

The thing about self help books is that all the ones under the same general umbrella talk about pretty much the exact same thing in just a slightly different way. If you pick up The Slight Edge, The Power of Habit and The Willpower Instinct, they are all about the same general idea. The nice thing about there being so many of them is that you can take whatever bits and pieces are relevant to you and apply them to your life. You can come back to the book later and probably find some new insights that you hadn't thought of before because of your increased wisdom. All that being said, while things like taking notes is a good idea, as @mattso says, if you don't actually apply the lessons to your life, you are mostly wasting your time reading these books. The one thing in common with every single one of them is that they give you an idea or a plan of action of how to incorporate their lessons into your life. As for meditation, I think the thing that a lot of people miss is that there is no "point" of meditation, you're not trying to accomplish anything. The whole idea is to try and break free from the constant cycle of instant gratification and just being aware in the moment and being content with the idea that nothing is going on. You won't really notice much of an improvement day to day, but if you track your progress over an extended period of time, you may notice a huge improvement in things like your temper, your self compassion, how quickly you get frustrated, etc.

I agree with @hahahacutie , I don't think it's very productive to constantly be in fear of video games because of what might happen if we pick one up again. I think it's better to accept and be at peace with whatever reality you're currently in. I was playing Terraria, Starbound and Fallout 4 before I quit, and a couple of weeks ago I had started playing Terraria once again, on and off. I think I've managed to overcome the anxiety and insecurities that caused that to happen, but I am still considering what to do with my save file. I understand the value of deleting your save files and games, but at the same time, I am also considering if I can find a way to integrate the video game into the way I reward myself for the good things that I do. I've come to accept that I had simply replaced video games with other forms of mindless entertainment (like Netflix) and tricked myself into thinking things were going good. The reality is that there are so many better and more productive ways to spend our time, but I've accepted that to integrate those better and more productive things is going to require a major shift in the way I think about entertainment. Allowing myself the occasional video game as a stop gap measure until that shift occurs seems to be something that could work for me.

This is an extremely interesting viewpoint. Thanks for sharing. I think what you've described here is pretty much what meditation tries to reinforce. The act of being still and aware of what's going on around and within, in order to bring that same awareness into our everyday lives. It helps to break free of that cycle of constantly needing the next hit of instant gratification and teaches us to be OK with the idea that things don't need to be constantly happening all the time for us to be happy.

OK, so for the last couple of weeks, I've been video gaming off and on (mostly on the last week or so). This happened partly because I allowed it to happen after a particular board game session a few weeks back, but the worst of it was due to me completely panicking over how bad I perceived my writing to be. I allowed myself to be overwhelmed by a lot of negativity, thoughts such as "There's no way other successful writers started as bad as me", "It's going to take so long to get to where I want to be with this", "Am I ever going to be good enough?" and "I have good high level ideas but I'll never get good at making my stories flow through those ideas". I pretty much had a mental breakdown over this and retreated to about the only thing that I knew I was good at. Today I made the decision to allow myself to suck for 30 days, and I'm going to try different outlets to express and expand my creativity, such as re-writing song lyrics.. and I'm going to do all of that with my editing filter OFF. I won't criticize my work, I won't make attempts to scrutinize it excessively. I'll just do what I do and allow it to be good enough for now. Additionally, I'm going to make a much more concerted effort to do something about this inner critic I've got. I've still got what seems to be a deeply rooted victim mentality, and this idea that I'm not good enough and I'll never be good enough. Whenever the inner critic decides to rear its head, I'm going to flip the script by consciously re-phrasing what he's saying. I know there is some truth to my inner critic's words, but I'm going to re-frame those ideas in a much more positive and compassionate way. "I'm not good enough and I'll never be good enough" will turn into "I'm not good enough right now, but someday I absolutely will be". Third, I'm going to take visualization practice much more seriously. I will make it part of my morning routine. Finally, I've been reading more about practicing gratitude and I've come to the conclusion that gratitude is more about intention and action than feeling something specific. Even on days when we feel shitty and like nothing is going right, it's still possible to practice gratitude. I'm also going to make it a lot simpler for myself to think of something by thinking of something that happened on each specific day to be grateful for. So, for today: - giving myself permission to suck for 30 days! - waking up in the morning - American Idol/X-Factor videos

Thanks for the posts guys! I'm working through some stuff right now and am hoping for some input. What is an effective way to distract yourself from coffee? I'm having a hard time even figuring out the cue that causes me to desire coffee. There's definitely a time of day element - I have been getting a coffee at the same time every day during work, so it's become a habit. However, I'll often get coffee cravings just while driving around, regardless of time of day, and end up getting said coffee. I'm trying to frame this out in a habit loop, cue, routine, reward. The routine and reward are obvious. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what kind of routine I can replace my current one with to get the same reward in a healthier way, that reward being the same sweet taste I guess.

So I think it's finally sunk in for me that I need to start taking life less seriously. Let's see how that goes! OK, gratitude journal. Is it wrong to list the same things again and again? - my sister - meditation - working out

As far as the gratitude stuff, even the things I've listed so far don't exactly make me jump for joy. In fact, nothing really makes me super excited or anything like that. I know I have a lot to be grateful for, it just doesn't register that way for me. I guess I just don't know how to be grateful, or happy even. I think you misunderstand about the free time stuff. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily bored. Between maintaining the house, work, my little siblings, my friends, and my personal stuff, I don't really have much free time. I've just been cutting out some of the things, like Netflix, that have felt completely like a waste of time, and have on occasion even affected my life negatively. The next thing to go will be Yahoo fantasy sports.

No problem. Hope it was of help to you! Gratitude journal: - my self control To be honest I find it really hard to find 3 things to be grateful for every day.. lol. Is that bad?

So I installed Galactic Civilizations 3 today and started playing it, but I quickly realized that whatever reasonable motives I had for doing so were quickly superseded by the realization that it was just not worth potentially ending up back where I was. So, I uninstalled and requested a refund. Too bad. I think video games would make excellent research material for the things I'd want to write about, the potential cost is just not worth it though. If I had to be honest though, I did have another motive that wasn't entirely productive. With me removing Netflix from my life due to it consuming too much of my time, I realized I just don't have any hobbies to fall back on that are truly relaxing for me. Just something to unwind with. Guess I'll need to keep looking.

Alrighty.. - Twilight Imperium.. fun game, even if I lost really badly this time around lol - my friend Jason - good times

Alright, gratitude journal again: - Sia - protein bars - my personal trainer

Alright, gratitude journal: - cars - my contact lenses - the gym

Gratitude journal: - my sister - probiotic supplements - protein bars

Gratitude journal: - my friends - willpower - water

It didn't really hit home for me just how much I need to create my own momentum for myself until today. Gratitude journal: - awareness, I can't imagine how many people go through a life of misery not even realizing just how much control they have over their lives - meditation, it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the benefits of it have manifested in my life but I definitely feel it has helped a lot - spring time!

The reality is that most activities outside of gaming will objectively be boring. That isn't the point though. The point of quitting video games is to change the direction of your life and find new things to be passionate about. You're going to have to try some things, experiment and see what works. A few things you can try: - learn a new language - learn an instrument - try some physical activities, like hiking, going to the gym or sports If you're really stuck, you can look at Cam's hobbies guide: https://gamequitters.com/hobby-ideas/ When you find something you really like, an easy way to find like minded individuals is through Meetup. My own social circle has been built primarily through Meetup, and I have enough friends right now that I don't even use Meetup anymore. It won't be easy to "get into" new activities following breaking up with video games, but I promise you it will be worth it in the end. As always, if you feel stuck or need some help, the community has got your back. Keep at it!

Welp, gratitude journal. - music - creativity - water

I think I'm actually gonna start using this as a gratitude journal, starting today. Seems like a good habit to build. I'll list 3 random things I'm grateful for each day. - my job - health care - mindfulness

Thanks. It looks good. Does anyone have any ideas for how to organize ideas you want to take action on? Just as an example: I want to put that somewhere in an organized way so I can go back to it to remind myself and start taking action on it.

Is there an app or something where I can throw in weekly todos and then cross them off as they get done?

There's a few things I was doing before that I stopped when I got back. I'll see about re-integrating them and see what happens. Thanks!

Ever since I came back from my trip to Ukraine I've been having a great deal of trouble getting myself back on track. I've had spurts of good days and then it would be followed by not so good days. Overeating, fast food, coffee, some other stuff.. I'm having a hard time identifying exactly what kept me on track before my vacation. I'm not even really that sure what the issue is. When temptations hit me I have trouble resisting them, and then it goes downhill from there for a while until I get on track again for a few days, rinse and repeat. Any suggestions on how to deal with this would be appreciated!

Thanks! I've come up with an idea for my first novel as well so I'm pretty excited right now! ?