[90 Days: No Coffee]

I think I go along with you at this one. Was thinking about this for some time. Free capuccinos at work are dangerous.

#noCoffee

[Dont think parents will agree]

Hey Itsaproaching,

before you try to convince them, you should become clear for yourself why you want to quit.  If you now how gaming it affects you in a bad way, then write it down (here or inprivate). Only if you now the reasons your parents have a chance to understand you.

If that first step is gone talk to them about your feelings toward gaming and explain them what benefits you hope to reap from this detox. I would sell it as an experiment. 90 days to break old habits and to see if you feel better. I would focus on your feelings and try to open up to them why you suffering with games and want to become gamefree. But this is hard because it needs vulnerability.

So maybe you want to go with the logical argument whcih is compelling too:

1. As long you don't come around and ask for more substantial money for other activities it won't cost them anything.
2. The money is spent either way. What ever you do now doesn't affect them.
3. Less time gaming means more time studying and increases the possibility of success in school/university/life.
4. They have no right to choose what you do in your free time as long as it doesn't affect them immediatly or is setting your well beeing at risk.
5. It is just an experiment. Chances are high that you go back to games after the detox anyway in a healthier way (if you actually do that doesn't matter for the argument)

[[HEALTH] How can I improve my diet during and after the detox?]

There exist a lot of diets, methods and theories how to eat well.

Some contradict each other (low carb vs. low fat) and for all there is scientific background "proofing" that their style of eating is the best/healthiest/coolest etc. Their is too much information out there, for anyone not a nutrition expert to make sense of it. This makes the topic of eating really opinionated and hard to digest.

Another problem people with "bad" eating habits often face is guilt. If you aren't at your best form - and sometimes even then - people will talk about your weight and eating choices, and you will feel self-conscious because you don't "eat well" enough.Make yourself clear that what other people think isn't the problem. If you want to change your eating habits, this is something you do for yourself alone. In all seriousness: don't give a fuck what other people think in this area. It is your body and your life and you decide what you want.

I think a good approach is to try different things and watch your energy levels. If some style/cadence/type of eating helps you to feel energized over the day, go for it. This is the baseline of good eating. If you watch your energy levels you will see, that there is a big connection to your nutrition and the amount of water you drink. For example if I binge a bag of chips I feel depleted half an hour later. That's why I avoid eating a lot of junk-food.

If you take this approach of thinking in the effect of energy levels, will hopefully let you focus on what is good for you and not on what society, your girlfriend or you mother think is good for you. Then take it it from there.

[Zeke's Daily Journal]

Hi Zeke,

I am sorry that I couldn't post that week how I promised, but you have found your own solution which is great.

I think you are reflecting a lot right now which is good in general, because it keeps you intentional. I can't tell you what community, book or activity will be the most beneficial but you seems to develop a "feeling" for it. If you think it is time for something new go for it. Trust your instincts. If you think a lot about your goals and the different way to reach them - as you obviously do - your subconscious is working on the problem too. You realize this if you get a "feel" for the right move. This is the result of your previous reflection.

On 9.4.2018 at 3:27 AM, zeke365 said:

That it for today tell me your thoughts on this, it almost like I want a new experience but not sure what experience I want? 

 

This just means that you want to try new things. You can never now if new things will feel good or bad. This is the inherent nature of new things. It makes them exciting and a bit dangerous. But to experience new things is pushing your boundaries and enlarge your horizon. It doesn't matter that you don't know what experience you want. You want something new. So keep your eyes and your mind open for new opportunities.

Best of Luck to you!

[Zeke's Daily Journal]

Hey Zeke I just had time to skim your journals and saw your wish for feedback but I have to run right now. Sometimes in the next week I read it thourougly and let you know my thoughts.

[Just keep going and see what happens]

Hey Zala,

welcome back. I think it is great that you reflecting on this. I think sometimes we jsut see what happens to us and react but never take time to think about ourselves and the reason for bad things to happen.

Wishes and dreams can be tricky. I enver allowed myself to dream so it was liberating for me to actually allow myself to set goals and want to achieve smth. more then the norm(what ever this is). That doesn't mean it is something for you. I listened and read a lot of smart people who say "follow your passion"/"follow your dreams" is exceptional bad advice. And I see the logic in this. You just have no way of knowing if you real enjoy what you plan/wish/dream for if it gets reality.

My way of dealing with this problem is to try to focus first on things which have a big pile of evidence that they make a big percentage of the living people happier.  Social interactions with family and friends, the feeling of progress in smth., excercise/sleep routine/healthy eating. You don't need to know if it makes you actually happy, because you can assume it in a fairly confident way that these things are making you happier in the long run. If gaming doesn't seem like the root problem right now try to pick the one thing out of this little list which resonates most with you and try to focus on improving your life in this area. Start a little daily habit and document what you are doing somewhere. These are real save bets at investing your time.

Before you don't feel confident with this baseline of your life there will be no job/spouse/thing which makes you happy. But if you got some of these points figured out and are fairly happy with your actual state, then you can start to set bigger goals and dreams. For some people it helps to get them going if they shoot for the stars and reach the moon. I just feel inconsequetial if I do it. My longtime goals are more general directions and my short time goals little bets which sometimes pay off and sometimes not. As long as I got the basics done it doesn't matter that much if they do.

Right now I am focussing on beeing nice to my family and friends, beeing interested in their lives, getting some minimal excercise and progressing in my programming skills every week and I am more self-confident and happy with my life then I can remember to be any time in my past. So this approach seems to work for me. Maybe it works for you to.

[Mike's Journal]

On 25.3.2018 at 11:13 PM, mikeyb93 said:

Tying into the above I am on module 5. I like the idea of splitting things into 25 minute blocks with a short break. It sounds like a very good way to keep myself from bored and going back to browsing twitter or 4chan.  The only issue for me is that I am self employed and I need to schedule my work as well and most of my work is not different enough for me to split into 25 minute sections. I think a lot of my problem is that I am prideful and as much as I way suck at time management I dont want to admit that I'm not at yet at the point where I can work for 1 hour straight without someone looking over my shoulder. I get far too ambitious with my schedule because I want to do everything, but fail, get mad at the schedule and end up doing nothing.

I think time managment is something real hard but potential rewarding if you get into the habit.

I tried different systems in the last 2 years but especially as my "job" was studying at home I couldn't get myself ot work on a schedule. I just never was able to stick to the stuff I wrote into it last day. I switched things around and procrastinated. I also somewhat lied to myself if I got some productive hours in.Now that I am employed (but can plan my commitments largely on my own) I am trying to get this problem under control. The game changer for me was jsut to write down what I am will do next and note the time. If I did something else (like browsing or another task) I would write down an end time to it and note the new stuff I am doing. And I would repeat this the whole work day. It doesn't take much time (maybe 20min/day in sum) but it is real hard because you realize how scattered and shitty your focus is and how little of your time you actually work. I think this excercise is foundational for everything else if you have a problem with structure. You need first the data to support your planning or else it will always feel like your new idea is better then the old. If you document what you do you can evaluate yourself and actually improve.

If you did this for a week you will ache for some time management because it feels real bad to see all these browsing and time waste written down on paper. Whatever then you'll do you can actually see your effectivness go up. This is real powerful. A side effect is that you are more intentional with your work if you simplay state what your doing before you get to it. For example if I would done this this morning I wouldn't be on gq but study right now. That was why I opened my laptop. Monkey mind at his finest. I think I will do this habit again to see if my new scheduling plan does me good. Seems like I mainly convinced myself to do smth. with this comment. Again.

[My VGRM 90 day detox]

Hey stopping lol was a big step at becomeing gamefree for me. This shitty game brought me down pretty hard (I also bingewatched youtube a ton). I would really advice you to find other activities to give you dopmaine instead of youtube in general. It is hard to let that that part of your life go but it is necessary if you wan't to start new and move oyur life in a positive direction. Old habit don't die fast thouhg. If you are avoiding hard things or feeling down it will come naturally to you just to open your browser and loooking at them. Afterwards you usually feel bad or even get cravings to reinstall that black hole again. Don't do it. Don't rely on yourself to ahve willpower in this moment.

Find another thing you enjoy and do it instead. It doesn't even have to be a "good" habit. It can be a less bad one like watching anime or reading fiction. For me personally audiobooks and walks are a great way to deal with bad feelings but do what floats your boat. Just don't lie to yourself and don't break your commitment. You did this in the past. remember you called this detox VGRM. don't just overlook this day over day. This will make you feel like shit otherwise.

[Mike’s Journal]

Hey Mike welcome to the forums,

great job on stepping out of the sunk cost fallacy. It is hard to say goodbye to something you invested energy and money into. You become attached to it. But that doesn't mean it is still a good iea to keep it around.

I remember when I came to a similar decision as I failed over and over again to play Lol in moderation. Other people can do it, I can't. So I gave my account away to the little brother of a friend and let him change the password. Because I have no direct contact to him this worked well. And I never regretted it (but I made the same errors on other games later).

We are both in very different spot of our life: a retired 63 year old grandfather and a 28 year old young father just out of college trying to make sense of his life. But I am sure that stoping uncontrolled behaviour and escapism is beneficial for everyone who dares to quit his old ways and start new positive habits.

My life became incredible busy lately with starting to work fulltime and taking care of my new family but I find this way to life harder and way more rewarding then my previous lifestyle(waiting for my wife to leave to work / pretending to study and actually bingeplaying 50-100% of the time she was away). I think beeing busy with fullfilling activities like family and improving yourself (in what area you like) is a great way to life your life. In my experience if you stop gaming your problems doesn't end but you trade up the sort of problems you have.

From:

how to supress my bad self-esteem because of my non-existing achievements and self deceit

to

How am I able to work efficiently enough that I can justify going home earlier to see my son and play with him.

I think with your action to delete this characters and staying game-free for almost two weeks you did a great step in the right direction. Just remember that it takes time to build new habits and change your own behaviour. It is definitely possible to change substantially but it happens over time when you put the effort in and not in one quantum leap.

If you have any questions or need some input of any sort just ask (feel free to send me a pm or ask here in the journal) and we will be happy to help you, because everyone here can emphatize with your struggles and want to see you succeed.

Best of luck!

[90 days]

Hey great job getting your shit together.

[Journal (10/2017 - xx/xxxx)]

16.03.2018

I fall out of habit in journalling because I am pretty busy and didn't wanted to make time for it. Even right now I am lending the time from a project so I keep it short.

With my son in my life I am challenged to be very efficient with my time which is a great thing and I am actually doing surprising well. Maybe I was never lazy but jsut not challenged enough in the right way.

In my second Month on my first stop I started slacking off and this annoyed me. So I started last week a new routine: I list every activity, start and and time on a DIN A5 ring binder at my office and let it lay open. So far noone seemed interested but it helps me to really be honest baout myself. I will also add time for my gq-time and toilet/coffee breaks. But even with this not so productive work month I am convinced that noone at work even recognized it and I am doing really well at my highest priorty right now. My family. I was able to taike care of my son right after work and finishing early almost every day because I started so early (around 6am). I also take care to take time every morning to be thankful about my luck to have such an amazing wife and son and spend some 1on1 time with my whole focus at my wife if my son has his first long phase of sleeping.

I take one hour every day 4:30am-5:30-am to learn cs fundamentals and take right now the harvard course Introduction to programming CS50. And enjoy the linear and structured way of learning. I even gotten ebtter not to delay going to work because I wanted to solve a little program. I lsiten to audiobooks while commuting to work and alter between classical fiction/self development/work related stuff.

So basically my typical workday is pretty structured and effective. One hour of studying, 1 hour of audiobooks while commuting, 9 hours at work, and around 5 hours at home spent with my family or at chores which needs to be done. I fit in some reading on my kindle-app or quora if I have some spare time.

I am doing fine but in the future I want to reduce the amount of work to have more time to learn new things and spent with ym family. That's why I am workigna t curshing it at work so I can confidently ask for raises in the enxt 2 years or find a bette rjob to realize the 35h week for more money.

I will update this journal from time to time but won't commit to anything ;)

I hope you are all doing well. If not be assured that it is possible and it jsut takes time and effort. If you stick at gamequitting and improving yourself it will pay off. I experienced it and saw it in other cases where people seemed much more hopeless then myself. Keep doing good things and good things will happen to you!

[My Progress]

16.03.2018

-> stopped this recording here because it wasn't my priority. I think it won't change in the enar future, because I have a good planning routne right now and it is offline. I don'T want spent too mcuh time creating more or less arbitrary weekly goals and isntead focus on family, work and important habits in this order. Just in case someone was worried. I am doing fine and thank you for your thoughts.

[Sashi's Daily Detox Journal]

Hey that insurance thing sucks. I wish you the best and hope things get better soon.

[Mhyrions journey]

Great to see your thriving. Especially on the social site you seem to harvest your deserved crops. Keep going you are awesome but I am sure you can be even more awesome ;)

 

[[NSFW] Marquess' journal (Cute emo girls inside!)]

Consider me in the indifferent section :D. Good job on improving so much and facing your life head-on.

- Sober for almost 15 months now

- Keto for 1 month &  been paleo with intermittent fasting for several months before

- Lost over 10 kg

- I hate working out, so I don't, but I enjoy long likes, so I do that.

  -> awesome! Im proud of you!

[90 days to move on in my life]

Hey there. You are doing a lot  right now. Working exercising studying. That is great but as you allready recognized can be dangerous. I am not saying stop moving but I merley suggest to go a little bit slower in the right direction. You wrote in the last 5 posts that you feel tired. Maybe it si time to search out some activities where you don't push yourself but instead jsut do them and try to enjoy yourself as much as possible. Meet with friends and family, phone, take walks for enjoyment. All these things have the double benefit of having positive impacts to your life (social, movement) without beeing goal focussed and requiring you to improve at them. I think it can be very tiring to be so hard on your self. The key is to do things that are good for yourself. this can but doesn't ahve to be hard work. I found the question "Is this good for me?" a great way to evalue things.

Is occasional gaming good for me?

I tried and realised it triggered a lot fo bad habbits and made me feel worse overall, without significant positive effects. so the answer is no.

Is junkfood good for me?

Again no

Is working a lot good for me?

It depends. do I work for higher goals and is the work in line with my priorities (family > health < progress in life). then yes.

You get the jist. The thing I think especially valuable at this question is the flexibility it provides. The answers will change for every person and every phase of life. And it still will aid you in your decisions. My personal experience is that if you are able to do mostly things which you deem good for you will feel content with your life. If not you feel like something is off. If this is the case right now you should take some time to revesit your activities and ask yourself this question. Is this good for me?

[My Progress]

Week 8: 19.  February 2018 - 25. February 2018

Results

Exercise every day for 5min or more (check)
do my work all my work tasks as fast as possible and only use half of the remaining time for programming
estimate time on every task and plan it in my pomodoro calendar. (failed, because not a proper metric)
Wear shirt, nice shoes and tie every day to work. (

Measurable goals for this week

Exercise every day for 5min or more
Wear a shirt and shave every day to work and buy new fitting basics. 
Leave a voice mail in telegram/whatsapp at 3 persons that are important to me daily.

Reasons for goals

I don't have the best wardrobe yet (so for example my tie doesn't look good with my more casual shirts). That is why I tried to buy some clothes on amazon but sadly they didn't fit well. So I'll need to buy some clothes in person in a shop. 

I spend a lot of time at work and at home with my wife and son. While these are great investments of time and in line with my priorities, I want to also let the other people outside my inner circle know that they are important to me.

[Debius Brooks Journal]

On 27.1.2018 at 10:38 PM, Debius Broojs said:

Right now I am making progress in life in all areas. I am probably at my peak so far in life. 

Thats awesome man! Let's continue this way up :)

[Debius Brooks Journal]

On 27.1.2018 at 10:34 PM, Debius Broojs said:

OK I don't know how to delete old posts. I think my posts were a manifestation of my resentments towards certain things and feelings of failure that I will not talk about because it does no good to talk about them here. I don't think my posts were good for the forum. People are social creatures and negative worldviews can spread like disease.

You can't you ahve ask an admin for assistance. But I am sure Hitaru, Cam or Stablish will help you out if you specify what posts you want to have deleted.

[My Progress]

Week 7: 13. January 2017 - 17. February 2018

Results
cold showers [abandoned, 2/3 Weeks]
exercise [3/3 Weeks]
workout log [forgot 0/0 -> not priority]
pomodori 50 [abandoned -> 0/3 Weeks -> to harsh]

New measurable goals for this week

Exercise every day for 5min or more
do my work all my work tasks as fast as possible and only use half of the remaining time for programming
estimate time on every task and plan it in my pomodoro calendar.
Wear shirt, nice shoes and tie every day to work.

Reasons for goals

This minimum of exercise is needed to keep my muscles healthy at my desk job.
I need to be a better employee to feel good about myself again. Not working and programming all the time under the hood of "learning" isn't authentic and makes me feel bad about myself. If I manage to supersede the expectations in me then I can use the existing free time to improve my self on faintly work related tasks. But only then.
My time management needs to be extraordinary to be reliable and still be able to reach my personal goals.
I listened to an audio book which implied that styling yourself more professional than needed influences people implicitly in thinking you are taking your job serious and are professional. It also helps you to feel more professional. This is what I am aiming for with this goal. I also enjoy being well-dressed so this is a win-win-situation even if I get some flack for it at work.

 

 

[90 days to move on in my life]

Hey there I read you last entry and think you could benefit by J. Petersons lectures. He is a Professor at a canadian unversity and talks about Psychology, Sociology, Myths and Relgigion and connects them to the subjct of how you should live your live.

I think he has some high level thougts about it and I think that he could really speak to you. Here is an example video.

I can also recommend his book in the audioversion (12 Rules of Life: An antidote for chaos.)

[Journal (10/2017 - xx/xxxx)]

29.01-2018 - 04.02.2018 (Part 2)

I am doing shitty things lately so I want to write it down here instead of hiding from it. I have officially set aside 50% of my time to learn the programs and earn some certifications my company needs. This week I used this time to learn to program. The whole monday and 3 hours at Tuesday and Wednesday. This also meant that I wouldn't plan my tasks or keep myself accountable for anything else because: a job in software development seems still shiny and interesting and needs practice. Better I neglect my job then my family. Right! Right???

My original plan was to work an hour a day on the programming project. In all fairness it will help my jobskills because the mentioned programs are written in java (the language I am learning right now) and it is quite feasable that this Java kowledge will come to good use in the long term if I develop a plug-in for example. My awesome program whcih utilises a cool grammarlike structur to evaluate calculations in the command line won't do that to much though. The main thing is that I get my stuff ordered again. I think it somehow influences me in bad way that I never reach my work goals. So I kind of given up on my pomodori count. That is stupid. I think I adjust it to a period I can actually manage and then increase it. Like 6 pomodori a day. I can do this befor lunch and be done with it. And if something distracting come sin or meetings get in the way I am still able to do it consistently. I also need to study the things I should study, when I say I study them.

I need to fulfill the promises I make to myself or otherwise I won't be so different then the person I was 2 years ago. No ambition no self-esteem nowhere to go then to the next binge. I need to be able to trust myself. Maybe I learned know that I still really like to get into software development and should make this a valid longterm goal (instead of managing and earning a lot of money). I also learned that my working routine is fragile and needs enforcement before I can rely on it. I will write a really basic day plan which i will follow every day. For this to work it needs to be simple and somewhat flexible

 

[My Progress]

Week 5: 29. January 2017 - 04. February 2018

Results

cold showers (failed)
every two days times upper body (2*12 PU / 3*5 R) (check)
every two days core and Legs (60 sec planks / 60 sec hipraise / 20 lunges (each leg)) (check)
pomodori 50 or more (failed)

Next week

cold showers
excercise (upper boddy, core and legs)
workout log
pomodori 50

[Journal (10/2017 - xx/xxxx)]

29.01-2018 - 04.02.2018

I changed the Format because I eat sweets again from time to time. This journal is meant to be open end now too. This will most likely damage my motivation to write in it a bit but make it more standarized which I feel like it is a good deal (I will reread teh stuff I wirte her periodically and am fairly motivated without a counter because I actually like journalling).

Last week I did one warm shower. It felt great but my skin reacted pretty fast. I think I stick to cold showers for now. I also ate a lot of sugary things outside of home. It is really suprising how much sweets are thrown after you if you watch it closely. If I wanted I could easily eat some sugary crap everytime at office without paying for it. I will in future only eat sweets if someone baked/cooked it, otherwise I can jsut go back to binge-eat tons of choc.

My workout routine seems to work out great. I sometimes didn'T do it at the weekend because My daily routine works only at work hours where I am awake at 4:30 and in total control of my time. I've made a nice daily plan and am able to somewhat do things repetedly in a routine way. I am not entirely sure but I think I gained some musclemass. in the chest. Maybe it is jsut fat after more sweets last week Atleast my stance is improving for sure which lets my chest muslce look bigger I guess.

My working goals wasn't met again. It is actuallyquite hard to hit 10P/day if you have to do spontaneous tasks every day. These will cut into your pomodoros. Still my overall productivity is high and I slowly get a vision of my next few years working. I will prioiritize getting technical skills and then aim at a managerial role. I like to work with people and even sell stuff, but I want to feel the nerd in me first and be actually able to create some cool programms. I want to feel the power to let that damn computer do my bidding. This is why I will focus on getting my programming skills in the Java-Environment. The software I will consult other firms about is written in Java and I am aiming to writing plug-ins for it. It will also allow my to focus more on my OOD which is a weak point in my knowledge. It is pretty cool that I can choose to some degree what I am working on because I can justify learning java at my working hours if I keep the time investment reasonable and still get stuff done.

I also try to fulfill my prioriites (Family first!) with beeing as invested as possible if I am home. My mobile phone should be loading and my thoughts and my focus is laying entirely on my son or my wife. This is something which needs effort because starting in the working live I got ambitious. But family is still my priority. So I need to act like it. I do so far but I need to watching me closely there.

[90 days to move on in my life]

It is great that you experience life more intensely after youw ent away from gaming. I experienced the same thing. It happens if oyu use it long enough to escape bad feelings and stay stuck in the dopamine loop. You get insensitive for real life and everything seems to suck. Getting in touch with your emotions let you see what you really want (or not want). And just that is almost enough to come to a better place in life.