Alexanderle

Regarding the idea of expanding your comfort zone, I think that there is always that misconception that you have to suffer big time to reach some distant goal. Just expanding your comfort zone bit by bit over time is the key. So if you have problems to talk do small talk and normally at some point quit the conversation. Next time, you try to maybe stay a little bit longer and ask one additional question. You are having problems to look other people in the eye, just try to look them in the eye just a tiny bit longer. Something I really only learned recently. And it takes some pressure away. For instance, I did not address gaming issues at first, because it was way to scary for me. Instead I focused on my diet first. Seemed to be way easier than me, gave me a boost in confidence and the trust in my own ability to make good changes. 🙂 @Ikar even I have to remind myself on a daily basis to make the good decisions. There are really so many variables floating around in our heads that it sometimes can be quite distracting. 😄

My plan for tomorrow: Waking up at 5.30. Ready at 6.30 Breakfast Reading a bit for programming like at least one chapter break reading another chapter break a bit of yoga reading in my newly acquired book for my sauna job finishing the last chapter of the programming book. working out doing something new, what I have never done so far. So here I have around 10 things for tomorrow. I can easily assess my success rate. Lets see what happens.

we are behind you pal 🙂

Your journal is very inspiring. Thanks for writing all that stuff. 🙂

I had some exams today. I worked so fucking hard for it. But I guess it was alright. Should have passed it. Since this kind of topic is not the topic, I will have in my master, I do not really care that much. But it was a good feeling to having learned very hard. I know that not everything is correct. But I still worked very hard and now looking back at the whole process. I feel still very motivated. Next week I have another exam. Tomorrow, I will have another very great working session. I am planning to actually make a to do list for tomorrow. I really don't care to do everything on that list. I am just courious to see, how much. Maybe I will later write it in this journal. So there will be no way for me to cheat. Like a little fake and biased experiment. 😄

@ElectroNugget Thanks for the words. 🙂 Yeah it makes me a bit anxious obviously. I literally feel the pain of rejection, something new and well, just everything. But I guess, that it is something that I should do now. Plain simple! And yeah, you really should delete that steam account. I mean, you don't need it anymore. And it is a little victory in itself. Something to be proud of. 🙂

Hey, right now I want to strech myself a bit out and look into, what other people in this forum are doing here. So often, it is relatable to my own life. It may seem like it is all wrong and it is hurtful, but it is the right way to go. I also often cried, sometimes out of joy due to my improvements, sometimes out of the pure sadness of missing out so much in my life. And it always sucks to loose people, you had a good connection to. That being sad, lets get some things straight: 1. If not gaming together causes the "friendship" to break, it is not real friendship. So why cry because of it? Real friends, who go through good and bad times with you; they are rare. You only want to focus on them. Even if only one friend will be left, it is even better than having 10 fake friends. 2. Online friendships are not as rewarding as real life friendships. There is no physical touch, no looking each other into the eyes. Not this feeling of real togetherness. Some perceptual stimuli are just missing. So I would always prefer real life friendships. 3. If you are saying that you are bad at making friendships, guess what: You can become better at it. It is a skill! Feeling socially anxious? There are techniques to help you. No idea, how small talk works? I know that feeling. There is also stuff that can work for you. For me the website socialpronow.com has been real useful. It offers a completely free social training with email newsletters. You have nothing to loose! Maybe it also helps you. It immediately had an impact on my life and even resulted in a real life date. Thats crazy. Never thought that this was possible. So maybe check it out. And if not, there are so many informative tools in the internet to start learning it. Just typing in how to improve small talk. It gives you thousands of search results in a fraction of seconds. 4. There is a reason, why we feel uneasiness and pain: It is the only way to grow. If you are somewhere, where you have never been before, it will "hurt". This is where you have to keep pushing. I like the gym analogy: Muscle growth literally only happens the moment, where you are going too far. Where you have trouble to lift. You again and again try to cause this "overload". Then you rest a bit. It is the same with every area in life. If you are somewhere new, you will probably fail. Good! Keep failing! At some point you won't fail anymore. 🙂 5. You are closer then ever to break through and amaze everyone. One year ago, I used pain and bad feelings about my whole life to start changing my diet. Later, I started working on my discipline, quit gaming and other stuff. The results are amazing. But it all started with this bad feeling over one year ago. But instead of feeling pity and just gaming I started to look into the far away horizon and started to change my life. Like drastically! Might not be for everyone. But yeah. Your succes is closer than you think right now. 6. You are already someone else. The amount of decisions you made are insane. You are getting better and better. But your identity already changed: You are not a gamer anymore. You are someone entirely else. Very logical that some of your old friends don't want to be friends with you anymore, because you are someone else. They don't know you anymore. And chances are that they are jealous because of the things that you did and they are not capable of. If you want to go back to your old life and have your old friends back than start feeling pity for yourself. However, if you want to embrace your new YOU than start to become really that butterfly that you almost are. Just start flying and live your life. Maybe even feel pity for you old friends, because they still are not there, where you are. 7. This is like the Sims. You just made some changes to this one character. Take care of you the same way you would take care of a sims character or basically your pet or any other person. If you have a dog, what do you do? You give him good food, you provide him fresh air everyday. You play with him and even if he is sick, you will go to the doctor and if necessary, force that piece of medication into his mouth. Why not treat yourself the same way: Good food, clean appartment (like you are already doing), real social life contacts, a positive attitude and a not giving up mentality. 8. You are incredibly talented with drawing 😮 Take care. 🙂

@BooksandTrees How can you seriously feel like a monster? 😮 Don't start that journey. You are a man. You have every right to do so, wanting to have sex. It is actually quite the opposite. This process is not about trying control yourself, count your nofap days or whatever and become a zen monk. This is actually about improving yourself up do the point that women also want you. Try to turn into that person that you become the weakness of fitness woman. And it is really not that much about the looks but more about the way you behave.

First of all. I can see you fighting. I can slowly but surely see you transform into a different person. I have nothing but respect for that. 🙂 Howver, I would not spend that money on a workout routine. I think all the information are out there for free. It is really about just doing it. Even if you do it badly at first. You will improve and learn over time anyway. And I often see you trying out things and then thinking about them as busts, if they did not plan out the way you wanted. Which makes me wonder: What do you expect from activities like drawing or creativity? I did something similar many years ago. For like half a year, I was barely gaming and really spend a lot of time drawing. And guess what: I was terrible at it. xD I think I learned some skills and for me it turned out to be a nice hobby. Maybe it is just my thing a bit. However, I not only once started writing a book. This is the closest thing for me, which I would call a "bust". I have absolutlely no talent for that and I really suck. I am even not really reading books anymore, like I used to do like 15 years ago. Maybe over time with not gaming anymore that passion will come back. If not, who cares. My point is: If you try to fill a hole with something like drawing, you suck at first. For quite some time. I mean, you can study this in universities. It will also not fill the hole the same way, gaming did. There are no scores, no graphical motivations. Nothing. Just you and that piece of paper. If it is not something that gives you good vibes, don't do it. Instead, do something that helps you pursue your goals. Whatever your goals are. For me, I have this huge goal to take care of myself, like I would take care of another person, I am responsible for. So I really adressed my diet, worked on my self discipline, beat procrastination and work on my social skills. Those goals can give you a good direction, if you think about them. And then you just jump right into the process and focus on becoming that person that you always wanted to be. That you have to be in order to have the life you want. Become a new person and leave your old life behind. You can do it man! xD And remember: Fail! Fail big time! If you are scared and you are failing, it means you are on the right track. Expand your comfort zone. 🙂

It has happened. My steam account was deleted today. I am not stoppable. I have kinda figured out, what kind of master program I want to follow. Took me a while to make a good decision on that one. On saturday, I have the chance to go to a party with my date from monday and two of her friends. I am still uncertain about relationship stuff. But for now, I will stay with the flow. See what exactly happens. I have nothing to loose for now. Whenever there is an opportunity to leave my comfort zone, I will take it. I don't really care anymore. I am afraid of that party. But that was my old self. I killed it the last couple of weeks and months. The sky is the limit. Yet I still don't want to hurt other people. I am starting to understand that the most important thing is to take care about yourself so much that you are than capable to give the positive vibes to other people. If make a mistake or fuck it up, who cares. Everyone else is only concerned about not fucking up as well. So here we go! This was kinda nice, giving me a pep talk myself. 😄

@AnnaCarter I know, I couldnt agree more. So change yourself. Change your identity. Change everything what you want. The habits will follow eventually. Just flip it around. 🙂 You are stronger than you think. I know it, because I have seen it myself. And I considered myself to be the most lazy fuck in the world. If a shithead like me can do it, you can do it. @Amphibian220 If you only are doing smalltalk with other people that change your habits, learn how to improve your small talk. I am doing that by myself. There is actually a purpose for smalltalk: To find common areas and things you have in common. https://socialpronow.com/blog/conversation-starters-interesting-smalltalk-topics/ this is a good article about small talk. Just do it man. Like I am trying to do it. Lets become smalltalk pros!

I had a date with a woman yesterday. She is a bit older than me, which is actually interesting. Always wanted to do that. But I am not sure regarding relationship, as we do not have that much in common and I see it more from a casual perspective right now. However, we kissed in the end a bit, which was very nice. I guess I need some time to think about that. Today, I was completely tired, too much things ran to my mind. I actually dreamed about that a relationship would be a failure. So I gues, I might already have my answer about that. 😕 But I never want to hurt anyone. So this is a tough scenario. But after a couple of hours I got a little motivation boost and now I will work a bit more. My exams are coming. The next couple of days I expect my Steam account to be finally deleted. Will be weird to not find it anymore on the internet. But there is no going back. With still gaming, I would not be where I am right now. So I have to move big time.

gaming triggered actually the opposite within me: The moment I started a game session in the evening, something was triggered inside me and I ordered pizza. Like way to much. Or would eat chocolate and other garbage. I would have no problem to eat two pizzas during gaming without any problems. And then everything would be fatty and messy. So disgusting. I am so great to be in better shape now and to have healthy meals on a daily basis. My best advise: Skip sugar and stupid junk food and start really eating healthy. Ofc I don't know how it feels to not eat enough. This has never been the case for me.

Hey @Julon I am also from Germany. Your life story is quite similar to mine and you have this unbelievable chance to make chances a lot sooner than I am doing. I am 27 now and feel that there is a lot of time, I can never get back. But not it is time to look forward and start massive action. Right now, I am trying to spread the website called socialpronow.com around because it is really helping me. Maybe it could also help you. It offers a free email training so you have nothing to loose. 🙂 I learned so much already, it is insane. Stuff you can immediately make use of. Regarding the rest, I think you have the right mindset. Keep going, delete all the crap in your life that is holding you back and start living to the fullest. I got you covered. And I now that everyone in this community is doing that as well. Take care!

@Chitemple you wonderful soul. We are in this together. People like us have to stick together. And together we will rise as champions. Trust me, we will! Something I always like to emphazise, is that you should not only focus on your goals, but also start to fall in love with the process. In a video on youtube, I heard this analogy: If your goal is to climb mount everest, how much time do you spend on top? Like half an hour? And how much time do you spend on training, in base 1 and base 2? A lot more. And this is something I also really feel. Last year I really fell in love with the idea of healthy eating. Ofc I wanted to loose weight and stuff. But in this entire year, I measured my weight like 3 times (only when I was at my parents, since I don't have a weight measuring device). I never really cared that much about the outcome, but was reading so much, was quitting sugar and junk food that I slowly but steadily lost weight. I started lifting weights and like one year later I lost over 33 pounds. If I only would have looked at the outcome, I am quite sure that I would have failed, only trying to get to the goal and trying to survive the diet. But I made it a lifestyle. I am proud of being a non sugar eater. Like literally none. That entire last year, I probably eat chocolate like 1 time and a piece of cake like three times. And I really don't have the need to eat that crap. ^^ I don't want to brag, but fall in love with the process and change your identity. Fall in love with the idea of becoming a non gamer. Take control over your life. And delete your gaming accounts! My steam account should be fully deleted by tomorrow, since it takes around 30 days. Btw. constantly counting the days of non gaming always puts some kind of attention to gaming. So I don't count the days. Maybe it's 40 days right now, maybe less. I don't care at all. Because this is not about numbers. But that is my personal opinion and everyone is different. Regarding social skills, have a look at socialpronow.com. For me it really changed everything. I am just there since maybe two weeks or something, but the stuff I learned already is insane. How to beat anxiety in the moment, how to have better smalltalk. It is really what I have been looking for since years I could say. I am advertising this site, because it has a free newsletter training, where you almost daily get emails with valuable stuff. And it is absolutlely free. So you have nothing to loose. I can say that it really helped me. For instance: At my part time job next to my studies, I had this problem that I was often ignored, just basic small talk was already a problem, especially with the female co workers in the service area (I work in a sauna). They avoided eye contact and everything was forced an tough. Just a couple of valuable emails and interesting stuff, people start talking to me. The conversations just start. It is absolutely insane. One customer even gave me her phone number and tomorrow I have a date. This never would have happened to me before. It never did. My life starts to become a lot better. I know that I am not even close, where I want to be in the future. But like I said: I trust the process!!! Take care.

@Amphibian220 Yeah I got you. stuff like hitman music which seems to be badly wired in my brain xD

@Amphibian220 Tough to stay away from the music. But I guess you are right. Brings nothing good. And thanks for the kind words. You also keep going. 🙂

@Amphibian220 I could maybe recommend the website socialpronow.com. It is a dude who also struggled with social problems and now helps other people. There is a free email newsletter training. Quite regularly, you will get an email regarding many interesting things. I learned how to reduce my social anxiety, how to have better small talk. Really everything. It is so good. And it is for free!!! I heavily recommend it. You have nothing to loose. I mean at least it is really helping me right now. Maybe it will also help you. 🙂 But it really sounds like you are also getting better and progress. We will reach all our goals man. xD

My production has been gone a little bit down the last days. I also needed some additional sleep. But now I feel pretty good and everything is doable so far. Good news are that the website that helps me regarding social skills makes everything so much easier. I already learned more in a couple of days than in years. The best part: I actually have a date on monday. Did not expect that to be happening that soon, but I´ll take it. Overall, this year started quite well.

Wow, this website socialpronow turns out to be a real gamechanger. I can highly recommend everyone to try it out. There is a free emailtraining, absolutely free, and I already learned some big things and was capable to apply it. Today I decided to go into the sauna as a visitor (I work there). It was the very first time and I actually had some fun with it. Smalltalk was a lot easier than it just to be and overall this was a real success. I am motivated to keep improving myself. However, my diet was a bit weird today. All the sudden I needed some carbs and eat some bread with honey. This usually does not happen. Tomorrow no bread for me I guess. I keep my strict eating schedule. There is no going back. Another weird thing was like yesterday that I was listening to some hitman bloodmoney music with spotify. This song actually made me aggressive and I literally wanted to kill people like I did virtually. This is insane. Maybe, I also have to stop listening to gaming music.

Just appears to be really hard for me. Like there is some kind of barrier that tries to resist my goals.

Everything is going alright so far. I am productive. My diet is going back to normal (have eaten a bit too much the last days, no sugar though). I also found a nice website called socialpronow.com, which provides good information for the social code etc. Will look into it the next couple of days to improve myself. Some weak point: I have to conduct a little study for university and need two participants for that. I am trying to rush it today or tomorrow, because I am still at my family home and I don't really know, who else to ask, when I am back in the city, where I study. Kinda a bad feeling, not really knowing, who to ask for. So many people seem to have no problem with asking friends. I struggle a bit with that. Another proof that I have to change something. Good news: I am finally at this point, where I am playing less games than my older sister. She regularly plays some candy crush clone type of game on her smartphone. Such a time waster. In the meantime, I just keep working and doing useful things. Feels very good and encouraging.

I am convinced that procrastination can be beat with the right mindset and identity. Maybe check the concept of atomic habits and identity. Very good stuff. There is a blog somewhere explaining it. The core idea is that you should not only pay attention to the results, but to fall in love with the process and more importantly, focus on your identity. If you perceive yourself as a hard worker, you have no chance but to procrastinate with procrastination. I personally consider myself to be a hard worker and take pride in working out everyoneThe most inspiring thing is something that Mel Robbins said: "You never gonna feel like it." Regardless, what I do, I always, for a very brief moment have to force myself. Just a little bit of activation energy. Something that could help you at first is the 5 second rule by Robbins. There is a whole ted talk about that. After you forced yourself and immediately becomes a lot easier. I am not perfect and have many areas to work on, but this area I figured out I think.

The new year is almost on its way. I am quite excited and thought about my new year resolutions. Luckily enough, it is not about loosing weight or eating healthy, since this was my resolution the last year kinda and I stayed commited. So this year, my plans are the following: 1. Get more self confidence: Not only crucial for success in basically every area, I just don't want to be a slave of my anxiety anymore. 2. Get out of the house more often. My plan right now will be something that I will leave the house at least once a week to go somewhere, maybe the library or something in order to work there. I also plan to go to the sauna once a week. I have the option to do that for free, but so far I just did not go because I had stupid anxieties and weird scenarios in my head. ? My plan is also to incorporate some social activities. Not sure yet, what exactely that is going to be. 3. Figure out my goals: I am not sure yet, what kind of master is the right choice for me and what plans might suit me the best. I am already incredibly driven and hard working, but I need a plan. This will make it so much easier. Right now, I feel like a rat trying to escape the maze. I sensed some fresh air somewhere around the walls and this made me energized and crazy, but I am still in the maze. 4. Try to not assume the worst, when I see or talk with other people. My stupid thoughts wre always in my way. So yeah, those are my resolutions. May seem like a lot, but it is not in my opinion, since all of them are interconnected a bit and are therefore one piece of a bigger whole. And since I learned this year that I have no problem to make several changes at once, I am confident enough to deal with several different new year resolutions in 2020. I am ready to start the new decade with a big boom. This will be my decade!!!

I also struggle with leaving the house. I also often feel that other people keep ignoring me. But I know that I don't send the right signals to have engaged conversations. So this whole going out more thing will be my next big project next year. This does not mean excessive partying cause this is just not me. But being an introvert does not mean that you stay home all day long. I heard somewhere that the difference between extroverts and introverts is the way how they recharge: Introverts like sioence or even alonetime to get energized, extroverts like it action paced. But this is not like black and white. There is always something in between, you will find introverts who like to party. I think it is therefore important to be you. Like creationlist said: Find out who you are and who you want to become. Excited to hear about your progress. Keep rolling. ?