Phoenix

Today is a really tough day for me, and the day hasn't even passed yet. So I got my portion of activities throughout the day: sport, work, cold showers etc. overall pretty decent. But the over the past weeks the saturday nights have been filled by boredom. Since I filtered gaming out of my activities I got more time to spend. So going out would be the obvious answer. There's this big party with some of my favorite artists I wanted to go to alone. So I told my sister, she said 'You need someone to go out with. Nobody goes to a party alone'. For years I have neglected my social life by gaming and now I face the harsh truth. Everybody is having a great time but I don't.

Welcome aboard!

Hey Tom, keep going, you're doing great! Don't give in to your temptations.

So today I started off with a 10 minute mediation session. I remove every distraction before I begin, even the ticking clock. Wookie

Hey Tom, I enjoy reading your journal. I also felt a change in mood when I first quit gaming, like a weight off my shoulder. Spending more time with your family is probably the best thing to do. I do not have a wife or kids but I can imagine they bring more happiness in your life. I talked to a woman today who has a 4 week old baby. She said 'every rumor you hear about taking care of kids is true. Waking up at midnight taking care of the kids and making time for them, but they sure bring happiness'. I hope I get to experience that one day. I procrastinated on reading a sentence about procastinating on reading an article on procrastination. Something something -ception Man I need to go to sleep. G'night!

Today was a good day. Zero games at all and I wasn't even bored. First I woke up and tried this meditation thing. I meditated for 5 minutes, am still new at it so I have no clue if I do it right lol. Then I went to have a haircut, looks nice and smooth I got back home and my stock arrived! I got absolutely stoked about selling items. I tested my product and got even more excited, Then I did some homework and went on to school. Got back from school, went inmediately to sport club and came back home in the evening. I spent my time in the evening posting auctions, reading and posting on Game Quitters. That was pretty much my day

?I think the attitude has similar habits with perfectionism: you want to be portrayed as someone smart, but as such you limit yourself because of it. Like people wondering "Why would he do X, that's totally not him" (you get the idea) As for procrastination, sounds like you had the same issue like me. We tend to do things till we raise our anxiety to the point we h

?Interesting read, I've read all of it. Procastination always led me to do my tasks the last hours. I never knew about the connection of this underlying fear deeply routed in our systems with procastrination, preventing us from failing to maintain status as 'that smart guy'. His theory is actually true as I passed all my tests in first year. After I failed one test in second year I felt the world was going to end and felt like a failure. That led me to more failures throughout the year, starting a snowball effect. It took my entire summer vacation to pass my tests again and maintain my status as 'that smart guy'. I guess it's a form of fear of failure. Now I don't think it's wrong as it keeps me sharp, but it's a wrong form of motivation. Nonetheless thanks for your message

Hey Joe, great to read to your journal. You always seem to have a great day every day! One thing I noticed is that most people have this 'grattitude list'. I looked it up on the internet, it seems like a good idea! I just want to say you are an inspiration to me as your progress motivates me as well.

Hey Cam! Starting a small business is definitely an engaging hobby. But it doesn't take much time at this point, so I still have lots of time left. Throughout the past week I felt my attention shifted to mindlessly browsing the internet. I don't want to get down that road for the next few months. Quitting gaming is not something I do overnight. It takes time to develop this mindset and stick to it. I already made progress of taking initiative to make a party and I'm proud for that. There's still work to do though. I'm always amazed by your informative video's and how true these words are. Understanding how we think is vital to quitting games. I often feel like I just want to quit doing homework if I encounter an obstacle. I suppose the best way is to just suck it up and do it. I must admit things haven't gone all to well the past week, but today I completely deleted every.single.game. There's no going back to it, not even the small games. It doesn't bother me really, I can go days without gaming. The thing is, I need to start taking action against procastinating as that is the real problem. Hey Tom, thanks for your message. I believe being truly honest about yourself and reflecting on your actions is a good thing to do. I actually go to highschool in The Hague! Maybe we can meet up some time! PM me when you got time

Welkom Tom! Nice to see a fellow dutchman on the forums. The first step is always the hardest, it gets better from there. It seems to me you have prepared well for quitting games for good! I always find it interesting learning from other people on quitting games and their methods. I'm still struggling to find new hobbies, so I'm taking notes of meditation and lucid dreaming Can't wait to hear from your progress! - Thomas

Haven't posted anything in a while. Anyway I was quite busy with school throughout the week so I didn't really have time for anything. On saturday I participated in a local running race which went great. In the afternoon I didn't really do anything useful, my day consisted of watching stupid video's on the internet and boring myself to death. Still I didn't play any games. So that leaves me thinking what I should do. I want to start a small business. I would buy cheap items from china and sell them a bit higher for some profit. It really gives me energy to make real money on selling goods with a markup, besides it is a usefull experience during my study as it brings subjects likes taxes more to life. I already made steps of buying some samples and can't wait to try out the market. Making money and seeing it as a hobby seems like the ideal combination. Currently it's not a hobby at this point as I am starting out but I will get there. I must admit I recently relapsed. I played a small rts game (not a hardcore game) to fill the time. I am just so bored I don't know what else to do. Making homework seems so dull to fill the time and finding a fun activity is really hard. I am also getting calls from my old gaming friends to play games and try to seduce me into it which I declined. They wonder what the hell happened to the old me and want me back. They even let me decide which game to play. It's really hard since they are my friends but they are distracting me. I'm happy I deleted wow as it made me depressed even though I accomplished so much in it. I don't really know what the future brings. I feel like if I keep getting bored I will fall into my old patterns and no changes were ever made. Also mindlessly browsing the internet isn't contributing anything at all, so I don't really know about that. I feel like I need to get out there, get out of my house and just do something. I really wonder what most of you all do at night to fill your time.

Day 1 (monday) I already made my decision the day before in the evening to quit video games. I only had to execute the decision by deleting all my games and characters. To start off with my WoW vanilla server account which I've spent 2,5 months playing almost every day since summer break. Kinda crazy how I spent almost the whole day playing the day before I quit. Big factor into this was my lonely birthday, nobody deserves that. Anyway, I watched alot of Cam's video's and read some blogs. Later on I went to school and passed a test. The day went pretty smooth without games. Day 2 (tuesday) I spent the whole morning making homework and learning. Then I went to school and came back home late. After that, inmediately went to my track club and worked out. The biggest local race is coming up this saturday and I want to get in good shape! If you're interested: I run a 5k in under 17.00. I had a girl approaching me at street, she was advertising something. I don't fall for these kind of things, but I did want to improve my social skills so I had a small conversation. At school I improved further by having more small talk with classmates. Now when I got home, I had an agreement going with friends to play a game that evening. I know one of them from school but he dropped out, so I only stay friends with him through playing games. I really didn't want to disappoint him since we rarely communicate at all and he is one of the very few friends I got so I did play a game (please don't shoot me). Now don't get me wrong, but there's a difference between a hardcore game like WoW and garry's mod. I don't even enjoy playing that game. I procastrinated an hour to avoid playing that game but I did anyway. We played for only an hour and I went off due to arguing between them. I really feel like 1. they are friends but 2. they keep me from my goal. We never really did anything else than games. Only once going to a theme park but that's not what you do everyday. Day 3 (today) Had a long day as well. I spent the morning making assignments and came back home late from school. I am trying to get more things going in my life by filling my agenda with appointments. So that's basically what I'm going to do. I called my sis to go shopping on friday, not only getting out of my comfort zone but also gain some clothes. Second, I am trying to appoint a fun event with my sport friends. I asked some people and they seem pretty excited. Third, I asked a colleague to have a meetup with my old colleagues and have a good time. As you can see I take this pretty seriously. First few days kinda suck cause I don't have anything going yet. I'm also figuring out what social activities I should chose. The ones described in the 60 hobby pdf file don't really fit to me. Maybe I go skateboarding, there is a measure of progress and I could make friends with it. I don't know yet though.

?Hi Rodrigo! I am amazed how many people here share the same path as I do. I feel like we're all into this together, developing a better lifestyle. You're absolutely right about filling the void. I love the quote you wrote there. About meeting new people at parties/bars: I just feel like I need to go to parties etc. to improve my social skills. I wouldn't wan't to meet people either who have a negative impact on me. I want to meet likeminded indivuals who share the same values. You could be right about clubs etc, but it's an idea. Of course there are other places like school and the gym to make more friends. I actually am part of a running club but I've known these guys for years and we never really do anything outside of it. Hi Cam!? Thanks for your response. I learned about gaming addiction from your article back on kingpinsocial. I appreciate the fact you specialized into the subject to further understand why and how it develops, and how how to quit video games developing a better lifestyle. Understanding why we game made me realise more and more that I was wasting my time and really gain nothing out of it. I think learning from someone who's been through it all is the best way instead of certain professors who tell you 'just study more'. So thank you for that. I've read some of SpiNips journal and the struggle that comes with quitting games. It's interesting to see how people's life change for the better. Definitely will be checking out more journals! As for leadership, I think I have found the right task for me. In my running group we usually have an annual event like bowling with the group, or lasergaming and eating afterwards. This was always fun and left me with good memories. Now the thing is, we haven't done that in like two years. Nobody really bothered to organize it all. People have either no time to organize it or don't want to (I think it's the latter ). I have never organized anything at all in my life, so I think this should be the right moment to make an effort and develop leadership. ?A journal seems like a good idea. Although I am busy with school I will just try and make a small post if possible.

Hello people! My name is Thomas, I am 23 years old and from the Netherlands. I have played video games for as long as I can remember. It all started off once I got a nintendo 64 present for my birthday. Playing Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time was a part of my childhood, I absolutely loved it (and I do not regret it). As time progressed, I got to play more and more games. During my childhood and teenage years I played online games such as Habbo hotel, Runescape, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Diablo 3 and many more. The amount of time invested in these games account for over thousands of hours. My whole teenage years are wasted because of this. Looking back, it was a dark period of my life, mindlessly filling a void by gaming. But... I have to move forward and leave the past. I have to learn communication skills in order to function in my future work field. But that's not the main reason, I want to live life to its fullest and make new friends. Today is the day I quit gaming. I have quit video gaming cold turkey twice: in 2011 and in 2013 (do you feel a pattern? ). But eventually I came back to gaming. I didn't understand it, wouldn't deleting my games and accounts be the end of my gaming addiction? But this is different. I have deleted all my characters and games. This was probably the hardest part for me. The amount of hours I've put in my characters... gone. What pushed me was the 'sunk cost fallacy' theory. It means the amount of hours I've put in the game are lost. The decisions I made were not based on future results, but on emotional value attached to my characters. I learned through Respawn that just deleting games isn't enough. I have to find a new hobby or activities to do in my spare time. As a fanatic runner, which I've been for over 12 years despite gaming, I have my portion of mental engagement. So I need to find a resting and social activity. Sure I could run more, but there will still be a big void of time in my day. I have to find new hobbies. The problem is becoming more socialable. I honestly don't know where to start. My sport club alone isn't enough to make new friends since it are always the same faces. The problem is that most people tend to go with friends to go to other places, like parties, bars, concerts and events to meet more people and make new friends. But those that don't have somebody to go with are left behind. This is a vicious circle I'm in for years. I don't want to be alone anymore. Anyway, today I started off pretty well if I say so myself. Deleting my games was a big step. Now I'm figuring out what to do next...