Amphibian220

Online chess made me lose track of time when i played it. There was no prompt to stop me playing, and the server was filled with players around the clock. Although eventually my mind would get so tired from all the thinking that I would quit. With chess clubs that I attended and even set up - the cool thing was everybody had to leave by a certain time.

Great to hear, its great you’ve got the self awareness at such an age to change your life for the better. Many people are in denial about this problem.

Alex, not everything is expressable in words The first part of your post, when bad habits can be meaningful to us- I think that happens due to fear of becoming great. I can’t explain that in more detail, but next time that I’m under discomfort, I will tell myself to stay strong because I never know what’s around the corner.

I agree that pushing yourself too far beyond your limits, seriously slows you down longer term. But shouldn’t we push outselves a bit over our limits occasionally? You do that in the gym I suppose. You know how they say, if you want a task well done , put it on a guy that has a lot to do? I can say from practice, when this happened to me, all of the crap shyness went away, I pressed so hard to get it out of the way that people helped me with my needs when they typically wouldn’t have. I cut out all the unnecessary shitty steps. If I have just one task in the day, I will ( true for over 15 years) delay it a lot and waste energy before even getting to the main thing. Results and more importantly goals moderate what I am doing, how much I am doing of it, why I am doing it. You said this too. What I really want to learn is how to have a consistent/sustained rise in the level of your strength, focusing ability, confidence and wiser time allocation.

Welcome Wali if all servers were shut down and technology to watch and play applications om screens unavailable, what sort of things would you be doing right now to feel good? Do you mind to write who you are and what are the skills that you have discovered in yourself so far?

Hello and welcome, are you in a competitive sports league? It can be a good replacement for gaming addiction. Cam has numerous videos on overcoming laziness and fear, plus there is a good reading list provided by forum members. James Clear’s Atomic Habits is one I am planning on getting.

You are sorry to leave video games? You should reevaluate your principles. Don’t know your stage in life, but here is what I gather. Do you think gaming life gives you a high self worth, dignity and confidence? How will you be taken by women that you are attracted to? How will gaming life affect your physical, mental health, prospects of becoming a great achiever and worker in your community? Please, no wishful thinking. I used to think I could combine gaming and profession and this was a great self-deception. I’ve read in dozens of journals here that former gamers deceive themselves that the addiction will not affect them.

WIthout knowing the science behind it, we sort of know our emotions and thoughts to an extent. Its a good thing because it allows us to differentiate between truth and fallacy. With habits I noticed the need for congruency- you have to battle for some time before the habit becomes a natural part of you. Sometimes a habit is broken: it feels mechanical and there is practically no mental involvement on your part. I noticed that the habits you adopted became a natural part of you very quickly which means its the right approach. example of an incongruent habit- a businessman that games during spare time. congruent habit- a businessman that exercises and spends time with his family

No - risk it. Risk makes you alive, you’re landing on new territory. Burn those ships, this will multiply your motivation to win the battle ahead. If you do that you have no plan B, but only to build a meaningful life.

Some romanticism there. You can re-enact those hollywood fantasy films where you meet the (potential) love of your life in a deserted town. What you said earlier is spot on. I prefer to go into mini-relapses (watching films without any serious daily plan) because It makes me think that I will do better long term, BUT if this sort of mini-relapse thing is from not solving a pressing issue, it becomes systemic. So it is better just to anticipate and solve issues sooner rather than later. Regarding working out, I always work out at home and find it a fun activity. But I do agree with you that when you a enter a group there is a lot more peer pressure and desire to perform

The last couple of pages really confirmed me in my conviction that we need to care about ourselves like 10 times more (speaking for myself). Most addicts slip cause they stop valuing themselves, but everything can be turned around. The issue is that you’ve got to be merciless to your wants to do that. I mean proper cruel towards your body’s wants that can drive down your self worth. So that even the thoughts to do something so foolish perish. Discipline and balance and all that will come with your “cruel” nature- it sort of becomes interesting to do things completely unlike you. Most often I cannot complete my work cause I am going way too fast. I need to sort of be okay doing things at a measured pace. I hope all of this makes sense.

Ikar, what army have you served in? Could you give some insight as to how good it was for your personal development. Is there an opportunity to develop communication skills or is it way too disciplined and strict for that.

Uh-huh. I suggest you check the reading list in the beginning of the Journal of James Good. It is a solid list with some books that will help you get your bearings. take “No more mr Nice Guy” by Mr Glover. It is available for free online and is actually a workbook, with steps. After about 5 or so pages, you will know if the book is for you or not.

It is cool that all the valuable things in life require you to work towards them- I mean it hedges you somewhat from the bad habits and gets you to expend your energy in the right way. The “energy” - I am in a major fight right now to change my long held views. From high school people noticed I was too stressed by things without releasing it. this carried on into employment where my employer was throwing work at me without giving instruction or training. Two guys that joined us got into confrontations that they weren’t given training to do the work. This is when I started noticing that fighing is worth it and conflicts are human nature. Yet I persisted and so the worrying took its toll and made me quite drained long term. As to the other questions. I want to work to support my family and to have a meaningful calling in my life. So work serves a dual purpose for me, I will get out of a job that I am not passionate about. I don’t feel like family duties are “hard”, I enjoy them. I have a heightened fear because my parents “missed” my gaming addiction. The last question is hard to answer because it depends upon the circumstances. My father was quite attached to his friends, which makes me wonder what is the ideal amount of time to spend with a child? Maybe it is the quality of interaction that plays a more significant role.

Hello there, hope you journaling will help you understand what goals you want to achieve in your life. I’d say a good number of forum members here are too harsh on themselves for making mistakes in something new. So hopefully you will treat your new activities with enthusiasm and that will give you everything else, like endurance, planning, development of various skills at once.

Yeah! This sounds more like it, a healthy reaction. Regrets is just a cunning excuse. The more you are acknowledging what you have and how much you have done to help yourself, the more self esteem and confidence you get. The thing that you recovered from video games is insane. If I’d visit the United States I’d try to organize a celebration party with other GQ members for this feat of achievement. It is something that is super hard to do. This is why I think you will solve the other problems. something weird happened. When I told you about staying away from sex stuff, I was away in my home village and my routines were in disarray. I sat to watch tv and was just aimlessly switching channels, when I caught myself in the thought that I am going against my word. So just sharing here helped me enormously to be serious about aims.

Ok. Father is the typical bread winner in the family. As such he spends significant time away from his son. The son is unaware of what the father does beyond his explanations and then it may not even sound so exciting and encouraging. Father’s energy may be lacking at the end of the day (especially if he is pushing his limits to achieve a better well being for his family as a whole). So the television set or the internet will have more time to influence his child. So what can this Dad do? If he throws away the tv set and the smart phone, buys all sorts of learning toys and games, teaches the kid to exercise, he will be healthier, but still the father will need to put in a LOT of effort to build trust and understanding with the kid. The commerce bombards and programs the kid a lot. So it is an uphill struggle.

How old are you? All heavy gamers without exception have this thing in their mind: To settle for scraps and let the other men become heroes and achievers. It is when you begin to process this thing more and more in your mind, you realize you don’t want to be the fellow who wants to live a cheap hollow existence. It is ok to take risks and incur mistakes. When you are a gamer, you will not interact with people and enter into conflicts which are healthy and a natural part of growing up. So gamin undermines you in a variety of ways. Go out and make yourself heard.

BooksandTrees, I’d really like to call you by your name. If you take out this enemy (internet sexual themes) It will be a major upswing in your morale. Imagine that this bad habit is like scraps. If you keep going after scraps, you are delaying your beautiful SO. Put a sheet on your fridge with some descriptions of your future SO. Keep adding to it by exploring what traits you would like her to have. Fighting your addiction is being faithful to your future SO. You are so worthy you deserve some of the best. Learn to counter-sabotage the addiction. Today I counter-sabotaged my bad habit by upping my routines (what a simple advice Alexanderle). Im ready to up to ridiculous levels to be “unavailable” for the wrong thoughts

Alexanderle You haven’t lied to yourself the last couple weeks. Keep upping the game, be blessed. A fight means some danger, but it means energy and excitement. Without giving out sensitive info, how satisfied are you with your finances? Are you supporting yourself already, or are you still dependent on your family. Are you already looking for profitable opportunities?

If you cannot rock climb or play hockey right at this moment, is there a thing which you are unsure about that you can try? There was an experiment done on psychology of satisfaction where people had to choose between the sure thing where they have control over the result and the uncertain thing which brings less than the expected result. Most people prefer predictable paths. But predictable paths become boring over time and dont give you a sense of adventure (if I may put it that way) example: I withdrew from football for more than a year after I played it consistently for a year.

You said something very valuable recently. You have this mindset where you can only do one thing for a very long time and it is hard for you to take breaks and get the thing out of your mind. This causes anxiety. It caught my attention because this compulsive behaviour concerns me too. I wonder how can you break this approach to be more relaxed about succeeding? Why don’t you trust that you will easily pass this test? What happens if you don’t pass? Can you take it again?

This is so vital. Especially when you have got a great goal in mind. I remember how you wrote to somebody on this forum “The HOW will become manageable when in your heart and mind you have the WHY” Don’t be a low maintenance kind of guy (that’s what a gamer is/was) Most of us aren’t valuing ourselves enough. We have to put like 10 -20 -30 times more value into ourselves. If I am a professional, -I will be the best in my field - I will make my way into top projects -I will spend my spare time with max benefit. - When I socialize, I have high self-worth and don’t attach to other’s flimsy opinions

Relapse isn’t a crime man. When I studied at school, I really liked the Serb contingent. Their english was really good and many english students mistook them for Americans (accent). They were interesting to talk to. They had more energy and interest in you than the other nationalities. Always wanted to see your country cause it strikes me as a very special place.

I successfully moved into a new flat. I improved my exercise routine to be more challenging. I doubled reps on every stretching exercise and added the gym-ball for stretching my back. I need to study more why I get stomach pains. One of the reasons is when I’m late- I start to get anxious and it immediately tenses my stomach muscles.