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Alexanderle

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Everything posted by Alexanderle

  1. I really agree. It is possible. However, only when not feeling sore afterwards. I think it is definitely important and motivating to never be sore. So while training you should never be at 100 percent. Another thing, what I think is useful is to focus on the big 6, when choosing your exercises. The rest is extra.
  2. So, I used "stayfocused" for a while as well; but on my computer. And of course it worked quite well. But here is my issue I have with those blockers: You are basically admitting to yourself that you are not in control of your behavior. That being said, I like to compare them with calorie counting. Because when you count calories, you are also using a mechanism to "control" your behavior. First of all, there is nothing wrong there, to have some kind of external help to get used to dealing with not doing it. But eventually, the pillar has to be removed, so that you can stand on your own feet. I think what is more important for those supporting mechanisms, is that they are quite the learning experience: Once I started counting calories, I really understood, what kind of stuff I put in my mouth and what the consequences of this are. The same with those blockers. Once I was working on a study subject with the blockers activated, I would see myself constantly and brainlessly open a new tab and open stuff like youtube or facebook, which I had blocked. Then this little window would appear telling me: Shouldn't you work? It was such a crazy experience. I would observe myself open useless tabs like 8 times per hour. Really insane! So, for that purpose, to really understand yourself, your behavior and who you are without gaming or whatever, the blockers are incredibly useful. Eventually however, you need to allow yourself to disable them, even if it means that you "relapse", which is not a bad thing at all. I think this is a very personal process, when to realize that one is ready to let go external helpers.
  3. @BooksandTrees I don't know what happened between you and your mom. I was not reading everything of that I guess. And whether you want to forgive her is up to you. But I think more important is that you forgive yourself for not being perfect. Have you tried something like meditation before? Yesterday I tried it for myself and is was quite relaxing and calming. Or maybe you could turn on some relaxing music on your phone next to you. Just something you can listen to and to let your mind wander. Just an idea.
  4. I really think that it was more of a gradual process. Those things sometimes take time. And why rush it? Sometimes, this process might even require to move into the wrong direction. I mean I studied latin and biology a couple of years before that, but it was the wrong decision to begin with. So why rush it? Why regret the past? Of course I did regret those wasted years for quite some time, but better to waste a couple of years then doing something for the rest of my life, which I feel uncomfortable with. The same applies to things like a youtube channel. There is not this one magic moment, where you find out that this is your thing. I am not sure, if other people have a difference experience with that, but more me it is always more gradual.
  5. I see you quite clearly. Let me share my belief with you: There is no designed purpose of something. I am quite convinced that the purpose of life is just to live! A tree does not decide to grow a certain amount of inches per year, because it dreams of being the biggest tree ever or to create the most awesome shadow out there. It just grows because it grows. We as humans are self conscious, which makes it a little more difficult. But that is also a chance: You can decide on your own, what your purpose in life is. You have the chance to decide every single day to make a decision that might change your future. Don't regret the past. You would not be the person right now, willing and ready to change the world and yourself without those things that shaped you. And don't compare yourself to other people. Other people are not always honest. They might tell you, how happy they are, but they are also struggling with their own shit. Social media profiles are the best example of that. There is only one person to compare yourself with: You! You can be proud that you started this journey. You made the decision to be the captain of your own ship. Sure, you may be uncertain, in which direction your ship has to swim, but the more you focus on yourself and do things, which are good for you, the more clarity you will get. Half a year ago, I had no idea, which master track to take and which profession I would like to do. Now, with all the things, I accomplished, it is quite clear to me that I want to be a clinical psychologist. I am convinced that you will discover your purpose as well. Just stick to this journey. No need to see everything. Just one step after another. I am proud of you and your process!! 🙂
  6. Alright, it is time to take the next step. So far, for more than one year, I haven proven to myself quite efficiently that I am able to control myself to some degree. It started with my diet: I am perfectly able to resist temptations like sweets to perfection. I kinda have already forgotten, how chocolate or ice cream taste and I have no real intention to change that. This created a chain reaction: I also found ways to control my procrastination issues. Usually, when other people start learning for an exam, I am already weeks in. As result, my grades and my confidence in my own abilities had risen tremendously. The same with sports and some other areas. Obviously gaming! While there are still areas, which I have trouble to adress with this strategy, I see some limitations here: It is like all or nothing. Black or white. I don't like that very much. It feels I am somewhere in between being either a "junkfood junkie" or an orthorexia nervosa patient. I am either a hardcore gamer or a hardcore student. Either a hardcore couchpotato or a hardcore "gym beast". It is all just either or. And I don't think that this is the perfect solution for a balanced life. I want to be balanced. I want to be in the middle. Which brings me to the old topic of moderation. People say that complete abstinence of sweets is impossible? It is not! It depends on your needs, motivations and current identity. People say that moderation is impossible for an addiction of whatever? I used to believe that too. But I want to prove myself wrong. A couple of months ago, I wanted to be the Michael Jordan of the gym or the best psychologist possible. I still want to be very very good. Far better than average. Stuff like gaming or useless videos to waste time don't fit that ideal anymore. But I kinda came to the conclusion that there is a middle way. And it is called moderation. So let's look back: In order to prove myself that I am capable to resist sweets or junk food, I just did not eat it anymore. That was quite easy. For salty stuff it is not so easy. I still binge that shit occasionally. But let me tell you a little secret: There is something out there called the 100 percent rule: It states that it is far easier to resist something completely than trying to resist it 98 % of the time. So true! But that is what I am aiming for from now on. Two strategies: 1. Salty stuff in exactly the same moderate proportions a day of 30 g of delicious chips. The amount of calories is fine. With my current diet I would still easily loose weight. I kinda am a master of that. ^^ But this is not just a maximum. It is also the minimum, which I "have to" eat every day. 2. If the salty stuff is too difficult I will do that with some fruit joghurt or something. This would probably be far easier for me. Let's see what happens. I will try to write a daily report in here, how it is working. Of course no counting the days bullshit. And if I don't feel like doing it, I won't do it. But this is my overall idea to adress the business of moderation. Maybe I will have a similar experience and will see that I am able to do something in moderation. And maybe in october or november, I will be able to apply it on something else. Besides that, I tried some meditation today. It was quite awesome. I felt way more relaxed and could definitely breath far deeper.
  7. Wow, I can really see myself in your struggles as well. I am sometimes so worried about eating "clean" and "the right stuff" that it becomes quite obsessive. I recently stumbled over the term "orthorexia nervosa", which is not an official clinical term, but quite fitting. It basically describes the overarching need to only eat healthy in an obsessed manner. I think that it gives me a feeling of control, since I struggled so much with food for basically my whole life. The same with procrastination: The only way to deal with it is to work superhard and be busy the whole day. Maybe that could be a similar thing for you as well. I think so as well. What Erik does is great! Appreciation is a great. Maybe, it would be good for you and me, to also appreciate the "bad" things. I really don't think you are a criminal for watching porn, being jealous sometimes or being angry at yourself. You want a relationship and appreciation. Who wouldn't? Regarding this dating thing: Some people seem to be there only for the purpose of checking out their value or having fun out of boredom. Ignore them. Sure, she hurt your feelings, but maybe she wasn't aware of that. She just want to get something out of that app similarly to you. Guess you are not compatible. Of course maybe she is there for the sole reason to make fun of other people. But those trolls should be ignored as well. So, good that you unmatched her. But there are many more people out there, who have similar intentions like you have. In real life as well as online. 🙂
  8. The interesting question is: What makes a habit bad? So sure, stuff like smoking already has a bad condition to begin with: You are screwing around with cancer. But then there are things like eating or gaming. They are not generally bad. But once you overdo them and they start controlling your life - you need to address them. So what makes the habit of eating excessive amounts of sugar less bad than smoking? Both can absolutely kill you and cause a number of diseases. The same with gaming. It may not cause diabetes or something, but if people neglect their hygiene, forget about their responsibilities and have no social connections anymore - once again a serious issue. So therefore, I would summarize: The moment, a habit takes over your life and causes serious struggle with other important areas - it is a problem. And there is no indication that some habits are worse to overcome than others. For me it was easy to overcome eating too much sugar. For other people this is a serious battle. For them it may have been easy to overcome their porn overconsumption, which is still a struggle for me. A woman may have been a diehard smoker her whole life, but once she finds out that she is pregnant, she stops immediately and never starts again. Now the question is: Where is the difference? Saying that habits are different is only one part of the equation. Another important thing is that people are different as well. And then there are factors like your environment, how your needs are covered, your goals, your dreams, your identity - everything quite important. Therefore, I would even say that changing habits is not very hard. You just need to stop doing it or doing it differently or doing it in moderation. The difficult part is basically everything else: The right motivation, the right environment to foster change, meaningful goals, your identity, which needs to match the motivation to create the change. This is where it gets tricky: You can literally force a person to only eat healthy stuff. You can punish him or her severly for making mistakes and screw around with their psyche. But if they don't define the change as something meaningful or as something they are capable to do then they will continue to eat junk food.
  9. I think you are highly responsible. Look at all the things, you have accomplished ever since you started. I think it is not easy to shake the habit of looking into screens - they are everywhere. The good news: While you are 560 days in, there are many days to follow. Just do better the next day, according to your standards. Sometimes, we have trouble to sleep. Maybe there is a reason for that. Some inner turmoil or something.
  10. @fofehi I do agree that habits can be quite different. Some might be harder to "change", for other habits it might be easier. But I disagree a psychologist or doctor is always necessary. I changed many habits like eating trash, procrastination or gaming. However, I would not even call it just getting rid of habits. For me, it generally is more changing your set of habits and your overall life into a more meaningful direction, whatever that is. But of course, rehab centers can be a useful thing.
  11. Nothing really to add here. Even when I am motivated or inspired, which I think is the case here, it still requires a certain amount of discipline. Discipline for me is "sustained inspiration" to do something, even in difficult situations. And once I do that, it is even possible to.... have huge levels of discipline and productivity in the morning. This kind of energy, you are talking about, regardless whether your current project fails or suceeds, if you think it is so worthwile up to the point, where you would even give up sleep, then you can definitely wake up with this kind of willpower every day. And if you then to this, chances increase that you will be successful.
  12. @Ikar I would agree that with your example. Who would not like that? ^^ I don't really understand this. Getting bursts of motivation happens all the time. The hard part is to sustain it and build momentum over a long period of time, even when things are not ideal or when we are not very motivated.
  13. The question is: Why not? And welcome to the forum. 🙂
  14. I understand, where you are coming from and I am happy to see you being that passionate. But that is my point: Why do you admit that this kind of thing is an external, situational force, which "decides", whether you have energy or not? And dependent on it's mercy, you are either energized or not. I would say that you are quite passionate for what you are doing here. So maybe it is not the thing itself, but YOU having passion, which gives you energy. As a result: If you would have this kind of passion for something not only short term, but quite regularly, would that not result in an even more sustained amount of increased level of energy aka momentum? The question is, what happens, if this moment here fades away and the chance to gather an audience for your video is gone? Ask yourself, how you can conserve this brief flux of motivation and how to conserve it into serious long lasting momentum. Maybe you could consider this situation right now as an experiment and to observe, what will happen. And then, based on what you learned, to generate more content. Maybe eventually, you create a serious business out of that. I would be happy for you. I most definitely can smell the opportunity, even though I have no inside knowledge of this situation. Absolutely worth trying to see what happens. The only thing, I would not like to see here, is that the result might not be as promising as you would like it to be and that you then would be frustrated. Because I think, the internet is a weird mistress. Even if you get out the best, most amazing quality content in the world, if people will not find the video and are instead watching something else or just don't know that your stuff exists, it is tough to generate success. Maybe at the same time, 100 other people are working on the exact same idea. Sometimes it happens that everything works accordingly and your video might be a success story. But that is only the case for a minority of videos. There is even one website for youtube videos, which have never been watched before by a single soul. Probably millions of videos out there. But I think, the best predictor of success is always continuity and slowly building up momentum. So, I really hope that you can conserve this energy and keep going. I like you to see you being that passionate. Keep it up and smash your content into the world. If you have something meaningful to say, the world should know it!
  15. I think that is difficult to answer, since anyone is different. However, I belief, it is not so much about getting rid of the addiction or the habit of gaming, but focusing on more meaningful goals and habits, which make you feel good. I think the important questions are: Who do you want to be in the future? Who do you don't want to be? How will your environentlook like? Etc. But this might be sometimes to optimistic to ask for and takes time. Afterall, this is a long lasting process to figure that out and for yourself. Sometimes goals, beliefs and interests change. So maybe a starting point is this: What kind of habits would you like to do in the evening that don't make you feel worse than before? Maybe make a list of them. What do you enjoy? And then decide to try one. But I have to say, for me it was always more intuitive approach. Just doing things! For instance, I amwatching orphan black right now and it is perfectly fine for me. I was quite productive today, have worked out, now I am chilling a bit. I know that working for university would not be really effective anymore at this time. (It is 10 pm where I live) But maybe another person would tell you to go for a walk, read a book, go to bed and don't use your smartphone anymore. Whatever it is. You need to probably experiment a bit.
  16. Well you have these thoughts and there is nothing wrong with that. I still for quite some time had problems to overcome the fact, that the last couple of years, I was playing for half a year with my steam account alone. That hurts. But the question is: Why does it hurt you? I can say that it hurted me, because it was not in line with the life, I want to live and the potential, where I could be, if I would not have pursued the excess amount of gaming.
  17. @Ikar yes that does make sense and describes it quite wonderfully. I have nothing smart to add here. ^^ I mean this also describes the tinder situation right? Only a small amount of attractive guys are attracting the majority of women. The rest of the guys are fighting on losing grounds and only attract the less attractive ones (fatties etc. without trying to be rude, but that is the sad reality).
  18. @Ikar yeah that makes a lot of sense. If you are doing quite fine in many areas of your life, people may find you more attractive. I mean Jordan Peterson speaks about hierarchies of "dominance". I mean, which should not just believe everything, other people say and get our own ideas out there as well, but it makes sense that a well established female doctor is quite unlikely to date a person with a less "attractive" job. Seems to be not always fair, but I guess it is a reality.
  19. I disagree, I think that it is pretty elegant. Everything well put and quite in line with my beliefs. I also have left the bandwagon to measure my "success" in terms of digital xp or kill streaks. There seems to be something else, something greater. I think with that kind of thinking, you really have a strong foundation to get rid of things, which troubled you before and "design" a new you.
  20. Yes your conclusion makes perfect sense to me. I have no intention to reinstall those apps again, since it seems that they are just a way to replace actual dating in real life. And even then I think that dating on tinder is not necessarily more successful.
  21. Well you have to ask yourself this: Is it in line with your identity, your goals and beliefs? Very rarely, I play a couple of rounds of skribbl with some old gaming buddies or we watch a movie. This maybe happens like once per 3 months probably. Perfectly in line with my current lifestyle. Having steam installed at playing for 6 hours a days would not be in line. So I guess, whatever your goals are and whether you feel in control about what you do would be something to take into consideration. That is definitely true. However, I think that meeting people in real life would be even better.
  22. Interesting insight. There have been many debates regarding the "tinder-algorithm" and many seem to indicate that the smart way of swiping would be to not match everything you find, but only like one third of them. I am not into the "science" here. But did I understand that right: If you have swipes available, you will keep seeing the same people? And if my swipes are gone, I see more attractive people? So this makes a lot of sense that your profile might be shown more often, if you get more likes. But how is the company getting more money out of you? Aren't those people, who buy a premium something those, who think they will have more success as a result? So maybe even those people, who are having not a lot of success might be more inclined to get a premium account. Why should I waste money, when I get 20 matches every day? And what is your conclusion of this research? That I should get rid of all my available swipes? Not swipe right everything? Regarding the porn comparison I agree. It can be a huge timer waster. I spend whole evenings with girls chatting, time, I never get back... That was the most interesting thing in your post. I know, where you are coming from, but what would the porn session be without the orgasm? So I think that the orgasm certainly plays a part in the whole equation, but of course, the possibility to looking for the "perfect video" is huge. I sometimes actually had decided not "to end it" and to instead spend more time watching porn. So in a certain way, there has to be some kind of "payoff", otherwise, we would not do it. What I think, makes tinder comparable to porn, as well as social media in general that it creates a gigantic availability of options. You don't have to settle for just one post, one article, one video or one person. There might be always something else, even something better. This is perfectly illustrated in one how i met your mother episode, where Barney shows his phone number in public television and all the sudden receives an endless flood of calls from women. However, he is never satisfied and always want to go for more, an even better one. Even while having sex, he has this nagging feeling that he is missing out on something.
  23. Yeah, this old question somewhere between the line of moderation, complete absence and diehard excessiveness. What are those quiz/gaming sessions about?
  24. Interesting. I have planned to read stuff of Jung in the future as well. Was it interesting?
  25. So you mean that your general amount of energy is also constituted by your sexuality? It read a bit like that the sexual desire is responsible to do things, which make you appear in a positive light to get laid. This was definitely the case for me to start to work out and change my diet. So for that I would understand and agree. It is more difficult with for instance university. So I am actually not sure, if the question still stands. xD
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