Paul A.

Your perseverance alone will be the deciding factor in this endeavor of yours. So long as you keep striving to be better, you’ll get where you want to be. Keep it up!

I’m gonna start taking meditation and mindfulness a lot more seriously. In fact, it’s almost life or death for me at this point. My sexual compulsions have returned with a vengeance, to the point where I spent money and traveled a long distance to engage in sexual behavior. I’ve had enough of it. It seems like no matter how hard I try, or how long I can go without engaging in any type of sexual activity, it always comes back to bite me. I truly think that if I took meditation and mindfulness more seriously, I’d be able to handle these urges and compulsions as they arise. Right now, I just kind of act on them mindlessly. What I want to foster with mindfulness and meditation is an ability to simply observe what’s going on in my inner and outer world. That way, I can see what’s going on with me before I have a chance to act on it. So starting tomorrow, I’m gonna be waking up earlier, maybe around 6am, to meditate. I’ll probably start with 10 min meditation sessions and work my way up. I’ll also incorporate mindfulness into my day as well, scheduling in time just to tune in to myself and be mindful. And especially so when I feel some sort of sexual urge creeping up on me. I think this is the kind of commitment I need to really make these practices stick, and consequently kick my bad habits for good. I’ve been too inconsistent with them in the past, but it’s time to change that. And I hope these changes will lead to benefits in other areas of my life as well.

My motivation for work has been dwindling. Maybe it’s burnout. When I’m at work, I’m just not as eager as I was before to make sales. And I’m not very keen on dealing with customers either. It’s really draining. The only thing that really keeps me going is getting to hang out with my coworkers. I’ve become good friends with a few of them, and we create a pretty fun work environment. I’m hoping a day off or two will help me get back on track. I’m working tomorrow, but I’m off Tuesday, so I’ll use the day to relax and take it easy. I’m trying to learn the “secret” to mindfulness. On paper, it seems super easy: paying attention to the present moment. But practically, it’s way harder. What do I do with my mind? Am I supposed to stop thinking? Why can’t I be mindful for more than a few seconds? It’s pretty difficult when I try to actually practice it. I’m trying to incorporate mindfulness into my daily life, but it’s pretty difficult when I don’t know what it is I’m trying to incorporate. Hopefully I can figure it out. I watched a bit of YouTube last night on my laptop. Funny enough, I was watching videos about mindfulness. I’m really trying to learn more about it. Otherwise, I’ve avoided pretty much all social media and YouTube for a few days now. I think it helps me be more present since I’m not constantly on my phone, but I also end up feeling pretty bored sometimes. I guess that’s to be expected when your brain is wired for instant gratification activities like YouTube and social media. The longer I go without them, the more my brain can rewire itself. I hope that this becomes a long term commitment I can make to myself, and that I can reap the benefits from it.

Thanks, @Faroe Islander! I'll try those strategies

I’m starting to struggle with PMO again. I try to use mindfulness as a strategy whenever those feelings and cravings start to pop up, but it doesn’t seem to work too well. I’m gonna go back to telling myself that I simply don’t engage in those behaviors. Mindfulness is otherwise a great tool for dealing with anything else.

Today was my day off, but I ended up going in anyway for a bit. I didn't make any sales, but I got to spend some time with my coworkers, which is always fun. A couple of them have become my good friends. Other than that, I've spent the day reading manga (Black Clover, specifically) and reading Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Now that I don't watch YouTube or use social media, I have so much more free time, and reading has quickly become a favorite activity of mine. Reading is one of those things that you take for granted when you're inundated by instant gratification sources such as video games and YouTube. Compared to video games and YouTube videos, which are fast-paced and tailored for short attention spans, reading seems boring in comparison. But when you actually take the time to sit down with a good book, it's quite a pleasant and enjoyable activity. I have a large collection of books that I keep in my headboard bookshelf, so I have plenty of reading material. I'm looking forward to reading even more in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Have you deleted the apps you want to avoid? I deleted YouTube off my phone and I haven't touched it since, even on my laptop. I did the same with all social media. Just creating that barrier between you and what you want to avoid, no matter how small, works wonders for dropping bad habits.

I made the biggest sale of my career today (so far). Two sales for just about $14k (from the same customers). The first ticket was the big one, which clocked in at $11k. The second was about $3k. It's almost surreal to me, and I'm still riding the wave of excitement. My first big ticket! What's more exciting is I feel like I earned the sale through my sales skills. I consistently asked for the sale, and I managed to upsell them on a mattress and adjustable base, which put the ticket over the $10k threshold. The customer service lead of my store even lauded me on my improvement since I arrived, noting how I used to be very unmotivated and lazy (she compared me to a zombie) and how I've changed since then. This just goes to show the power of positive thinking and positive action. I don't think I would've been able to make this sale if not for my commitment to being the best, and the actions I took to get to that point. As of now, I'm currently sitting at second place for the month in terms of net sales, and far and away first place for the week. I'm extremely proud of myself for getting to this point, and I feel like I've hit a big milestone in my journey to become king of the salespeople. Of course, this could just be a freak occurrence, but only time will tell. I'm going to try my hardest to replicate this success week after week. If I can manage just one big ticket like this a week, I'll easily be number one in the store month after month.

Today was my first full day without social media or YouTube. I didn't really experience any cravings, nor did I feel like I was missing out on anything, which is good. Although a few times, I would go to show someone a video, and realize that I no longer had the YouTube app on my phone. Ah well. Other than that, I spent a good portion of my morning reading, which was pleasant. I also took a rather long nap pretty soon after I woke up, which isn't unusual for me. From there, I went to get a haircut, and upon arriving home I made myself a quick lunch before heading to work. Speaking of work, I had two sales for about $2.3k. Not my greatest day ever, but at least I sold something. I almost finagled my way into a $6k mattress sale, but I think I gave the customer too much time to think about it. This customer did end up buying $1k worth of furniture anyway, but I spent a lot of time with him and I was admittedly pretty disappointed that the time I spent with him only amounted to that much. I plan to give him a call on Friday to gauge his interest. All in all, today was a pretty good day. Ordinary by all accounts, but like I've mentioned before, ordinary days are the most extraordinary of all. Looking forward to doing it again tomorrow.

A FI/RE blog would be awesome! I'm pretty familiar with the community myself (although I'm notoriously irresponsible with money lol), but if you feel so compelled to start a blog, I say go for it! You could potentially help a lot of people, not to mention it could serve as a great outlet for you.

Congrats on all the big milestones! Happy things are going well with you

Welcome to the community! Thanks for sharing your story with us. Video games have caused a lot of damage in your life, but I want to congratulate you for taking the first step towards getting rid of them and living a better life. I and the rest of the community will be here for you along the way!

I took the plunge and deleted YouTube off my phone. YouTube was the final app keeping me tethered to consumption of content and instant gratification. I justified my usage of it by telling myself I only watched “self-improvement” or “spiritual” videos, but in reality I wasn’t applying anything I learned to my life. Despite what I was watching, it still amounted to mindless consumption. So I got rid of the app. Now I’m in uncharted territory, because I’ve never not had a source of instant gratification directly at my fingertips. I can still easily access it by re-downloading the app or using another device, but the extra steps I’ve put in place to make it less convenient will dissuade me. This will force me to confront my boredom head on. What will I fill my time with? How will I spend my days? Am I just doomed to give up after a day or two? Only time will tell. I’m excited and a little bit scared for what happens next. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle not having a source of entertainment, or if I’ll just find something else equally as unproductive to do. As I’m writing this, another unproductive idea just popped into my head - binging manga. And I’m not hung up on “productivity” by any means, I just don’t want to lead a life where I’m not regularly making meaningful progress towards my goals. What those goals are remains to be seen for now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to flesh them out with the extra free time I have on my hands. I’ve just grown tired of living the same mindless life and indulging in the same mindless habits. I want to live a life of purpose. A life where I’m progressing towards my goals every day. And maybe I’m being too extreme with how I go about it, but I’ve always needed to make extreme changes to see any results. Slow and steady doesn’t really work for me. So here I am, with no videos to watch, no games to play, and no feeds to refresh. I hope this is something that will benefit me in the long run and I hope it’s something I can sustain. I’ll keep you all posted.

So my dopamine detox failed. A few hours into the day and I'm already back on my phone watching YouTube. The morning wasn't a complete waste. I spent some time meditating and reading. But beyond that, I'm back consuming content before noon. I just don't know how to handle that feeling of boredom. Even reading was a means of escape from that feeling. I think I need to learn to embrace that feeling, rather than run from it. In my quest to escape from my consumerist lifestyle, I've just dug myself deeper into that hole. I thought I'd take some drastic action this morning and avoid all consumption for the entire day, but I wasn't prepared for that feeling of boredom that hit me like a ton of bricks. And as much as I say I'm gonna embrace that feeling, it's not a pleasant feeling by any means. Even as I'm writing this, I'm not entirely sure what lies in store as I try to break out of my personal Matrix. I want to live a fulfilling life, a life I can be proud of, but the first step is cutting out all the garbage I'm currently indulging in. I want to cut out most, if not all, instant gratification from my life. But it won't be easy. I need to learn to confront the boredom head on. But the way I see it, even sitting around bored as hell is better than continuing to engage in instant gratification. I think after I finish writing this, I'm gonna turn off my devices again and give this dopamine detox thing another crack. Even if it means sitting around doing nothing. At least I'm avoiding the instant gratification I've been drowning in for so long.

I think I want to do another dopamine detox. I feel like I've been consuming too much content recently. YouTube, TikTok, etc. Granted, a lot of it has been fairly educational. I've been watching videos about spirituality and self-improvement. I discovered a YouTuber called Hamza, who actually gave me the idea to do another dopamine detox. I just feel like something's lacking. You ever have that feeling that you're just "one video away" or "one book away" from cracking the code and discovering the secret to success and true happiness? That's how I've been feeling for the past few weeks. I've been watching a bunch of videos on YouTube hoping to find that "one", when in reality, it probably doesn't exist. I know intellectually what I have to do, but I just keep looking for a shortcut or a loophole, or some kind of "magic formula" that I never knew before. But it's so much easier than that. I probably have all the knowledge I need at my disposal, I just need to apply it. I just gotta cut out the consumption and replace it with constructive, creative habits and ventures. That simple. So I think I will do that dopamine detox tomorrow. But instead of making it a one day thing, I want to make it a lifestyle. I want to be in a permanent state of connection with the world. No distractions. I want to be fully present at all times. If that means keeping my cell phone off my person, so be it. I'll do what I need to do to kill this lingering sense of dissatisfaction with life. This feeling that there's something more to life than I've already discovered. I intellectually know that "this is it". I just haven't been experiencing "it". So starting tomorrow, I'm gonna dive into "it" headfirst.

I’m getting back into meditation. This morning, I meditated for 3 minutes before I went to the gym. I realized it doesn’t matter how long you meditate for, whether 3 mins, 5 mins, or even an hour. What matters is that you’re taking some time out of your day, no matter how small, to simply be still. To just be with yourself. That’s the real essence of meditation. Of course, it comes with extra benefits too, such as improved concentration, a sense of calm and relaxation, and so forth. But, what really matters is the simple act of being. No distractions or obstacles. Just being. I was back in the gym today for my second week. My diet fell apart over the weekend and I considered throwing in the towel with fitness together, but I’m still keeping on for the time being. Instead of my usual “clean eating” diet, I’m trying a low-carb/keto diet this week and seeing if I can sustain it, as well as what results it brings for my weight loss. So far it’s going pretty rough; I spent about $10 on keto cereal that turned out to be thoroughly unappetizing. I’m hoping I can figure it out over the next few days.

I’m starting to spend more time on TikTok. At first, I downloaded it strictly for my music, but now that I’m not taking music seriously anymore, it’s become more of a boredom buster. I no longer need it. If anything, it’s just a distraction. YouTube is distracting enough as it is, even though I do find some quality videos on there from time to time. But for the most part, TikTok is just short, entertaining clips tailored to short attention spans. So I’m gonna delete it. On a somewhat related note, I watched an interesting video yesterday on YouTube pertaining to Eastern religion and enlightenment, and now I want to dive back into that world again. I’d been distancing myself from it because I felt like I no longer needed it, but I think it can still serve me, especially if I’m able to establish a consistent meditation practice, something I’ve struggled with in the past. I have a newfound understanding of meditation, as something that should be done for its own sake, but at the same time, you reap no benefits if you don’t practice consistently. So I need to find a way to incorporate it into my life, even if only for 5-10 mins a day. I was able to speak to my regional manager yesterday. He was super excited when I told him I wanted to be the best salesperson, and he gave me a few resources I can use to achieve that goal. Most of them I was already using, but I did appreciate the gesture nonetheless. He told me that I can always come to him whenever he happens to be in the store, and that he’ll gladly spend 30-60mins with me at a time helping me sell. I’m also working with the general manager of my store to help me improve as well. Funny enough, the GM used to be my regional’s boss, so he was a goldmine hiding right under my nose this whole time. I’m excited to learn from them both and level up in my sales career.

Keep going!

I gave into PMO again. It’s been about a month since the last time I relapsed, so I had a pretty good run. I’m not very upset about it, though. Just gotta brush myself off and start over again. My strategy of “positive thinking” seems to be working for the most part, save for the most powerful and prolonged cravings. I just need to figure out a way to deal with those stronger cravings, but for the most part, continually telling myself that I don’t engage in PMO seems to work wonders.

The usual, trap and drill beats. Pretty much the typical “type beats” you’d find on YouTube

Very much struggling with temptation to give into PMO rn

I made two sales today for about $1.5k. Funny enough, today's been my best day of the week. The past few days, I've sold next to nothing, so even managing to sell above $1k is a step up. I woke up fairly early today, around 6:30am, to hit the gym. Another light upper body day since I'm still getting back into the swing of things. Afterwards, I spent some time at home before I got ready to head in to work ahead of schedule. I spent a good portion of my workday reading a book on furniture sales that I ordered last night. It's a relatively short book so I was able to finish it in a few hours or so. Good read for sure. I've spent a lot of time reviewing and re-reviewing my notes from the book today, and I plan to continue to do so in the coming days. The information it provided isn't groundbreaking by any means, but it's the fundamentals that can easily be forgotten, so I'm making it a point to drill it into my head as much as possible. I actually managed to make one of my sales using one of the principles I learned from the book - humor. I got the customers laughing almost as soon as they walked in, and from there they were at ease the entire time they were with me. It wasn't a large sale, only about $750, but it was easily one of my most memorable. They even went as far as to say that the sale was more for me than it was for them, because I gave them a good time. Hopefully I can finesse my way into larger sales with these same principles.

Sounds like you have some good hobbies under your belt. I used to produce music almost obsessively. Definitely a lot of fun, just be sure not to go overboard. Keep us posted

Thanks for the advice, @Faroe Islander! I’ll keep this in mind

So sorry for your loss, Grain. Sending my condolences