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Road to Succes!


Mark1520

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Hey guys,

I decided to keep some sort of journal since it might help me out on this journey. I'm currently on day 7 of my 90-day detox and the road so far has been kind of "Okay". I mean, the cravings were there but I've managed not to give in.

The road is long, but the rewards are great

My mate kept urging me to play some stupid mobile game with him, which I got pissed at him for. The hardest part is seeing pictures, screenshots, wallpapers or w/e of games. Then I'm pretty close to installing the games again. But these past few days have been great. The amount of work I get done is insane.. From 12+ hours a day playing games to an entire day of being productive and doing something useful. Either helping out in housekeeping or working on a report I had to finish for college. I've gotten more done these past few days than I have in the past 6 months.. So that's saying something. 

I've made a schedule/calendar and put that up on my bedroom wall. Every night, after a day without gaming, I cross off another day. This way I can easily keep track of my progress. Another thing I use to stay productive is Sticky Notes. You can put notes up on your desktop, so you can write down the stuff you want to get done that day. By doing so, I don't have to think about the stuff I want to get done, I can just get them done. 

One of the things I keep writing on my Sticky Notes is working on setting up a business. Since I go to college I used to have a part-time job. But I haven't had one in quite a while now. The jobs I've had so far, I didn't really like. So I decided on starting my own business using internet marketing. I've learned quite a bit of stuff already and I know what to do, it's just the doing part I'm having trouble with.. Even though working on my internet marketing business is one of the most important things on my daily list, I keep postponing it. Procrastinating. And I don't really know why. Maybe because it's the hardest thing on that list. I guess I should apply the advice I've given others before: "Just start for about 5 minutes a day. Once you start, it's easier to keep going". 

But besides that, I feel great! I was amazed at how many people have had very similar experiences and that I'm not the only one struggling with a gaming addiction. 

I'm sure we will all get our lives back on track again! 

Stay strong and thanks for reading!

- Mark

 

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Hey Mark, awesome to see you have a journal here now. Sounds like you're making some great progress already. It can be hard at first but I assure you, it is totally worth it. Eventually you won't have urges anymore (or at least I don't). You will learn to value your time, and that you get a lot more out of investing your time in things other than games. There is so much to do in life, and you'll never get to it all, but choosing the things that matter most and focusing on them is a good way to go.

Best of luck!

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YO! Sick to see we have another dude coming here.

I'm about halfway done with the detox. Some advice for your cravings:

1. Make it VERY CLEAR to your friends what you're doing. Don't let them berrate you about it. Don't try to change them, but don't allow them to try to knock you back into bad habits. Coincidentally, showing them that you've quit gaming and then improving drastically on your life is the best way to make them shut up about it. I'm just now starting to see this happen to me, and it's great. They'll give up trying to convince you after a while.

2. If you see "picutures, screenshots, wallpapers, or w/e from games", you're either A) Hanging around the wrong places, or B) You're doing something wrong. If you haven't already deleted these, as well as all of your games and your steam launcher / origin / blizzard programs, DO IT. It'll make it harder for you to look back. It took me a couple solid hours to delete everything game related on my computer. Just the thought of getting it all back is daunting enough to make me not even think about it (not that I want to).

3. Write your progress down in here as much as you can (you can check out my journal to see how I do it, but you can do it however you want). Posting your daily musings on the forum and reaching out with personal dilemmas and feelings to the people on here holds you accountable and almost forces you, in a way, to hold yourself up to that higher standard. The people on here are also super supportive, so don't be afraid to reach out.

Also, sick to hear about your internet marketing thing. Keep working at it!

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Hey Mark, awesome to see you have a journal here now. Sounds like you're making some great progress already. It can be hard at first but I assure you, it is totally worth it. Eventually you won't have urges anymore (or at least I don't). You will learn to value your time, and that you get a lot more out of investing your time in things other than games. There is so much to do in life, and you'll never get to it all, but choosing the things that matter most and focusing on them is a good way to go.

Best of luck!

Thanks for your kind words! This is something I'm already starting to learn to further I get in the detox program. I used to be such a time waster. Now I keep stopping myself whenever that happens.

Awesome to have your journal up here!

Thanks, Cam! Appreciate it.

YO! Sick to see we have another dude coming here.

I'm about halfway done with the detox. Some advice for your cravings:

1. Make it VERY CLEAR to your friends what you're doing. Don't let them berrate you about it. Don't try to change them, but don't allow them to try to knock you back into bad habits. Coincidentally, showing them that you've quit gaming and then improving drastically on your life is the best way to make them shut up about it. I'm just now starting to see this happen to me, and it's great. They'll give up trying to convince you after a while.

2. If you see "picutures, screenshots, wallpapers, or w/e from games", you're either A) Hanging around the wrong places, or B) You're doing something wrong. If you haven't already deleted these, as well as all of your games and your steam launcher / origin / blizzard programs, DO IT. It'll make it harder for you to look back. It took me a couple solid hours to delete everything game related on my computer. Just the thought of getting it all back is daunting enough to make me not even think about it (not that I want to).

3. Write your progress down in here as much as you can (you can check out my journal to see how I do it, but you can do it however you want). Posting your daily musings on the forum and reaching out with personal dilemmas and feelings to the people on here holds you accountable and almost forces you, in a way, to hold yourself up to that higher standard. The people on here are also super supportive, so don't be afraid to reach out.

Also, sick to hear about your internet marketing thing. Keep working at it!

Thank you, Ryan!! You've been very helpful. I will definitely tell my friends what's going on and that they shouldn't try to get me back in. They know I'm in a rough spot in life at the moment so I don't think that's going to be a major problem. 

Busted. I hadn't deleted all the wallpapers and screenshots from my phone. I did delete all the launchers though. Set my Xbox up for sale as well. Going to delete all the screenshots and wallpapers right now. 

At first I was like: Nah, I don't want to write every single day. But it might be the best thing to do. Yesterday I had a talk with my studycoach and I told her about my gaming addiction. She instantly recommended a psychologist to guide me in this process. But I don't want another person telling me what's best and what's not. I've got about 10 of those already. So I'm going to try without one. Which means, I can use all the help I can get. And writing is definitely one of them :)

 

Day 8 - The first week 

It's because I started at day 7, it seems like quite the jump I made. So my first week is over. It has been okay so far. I've had cravings, poisenous thoughts about gaming memories, which I'm not sure I should stop or just let happen. But I'm still alive and I've already made quit some progress in life. 

My study coach was impressed when I told her about GameQuitters. Since she also talks to a lot of gamers (counselor of the college IT educations) she was quite interested in what I had to say. She was also pretty impressed with the fact that I admitted to be a gaming addict but that I wanted to do something about it, and was already doing it.

Besides that, it's been kind of a quiet week. I've been trying to find certain activities to fill in the void that was left by gaming. I'm reading 'The 4-hour Workweek' by Timothy Ferris at the moment. I was already reading it beforehand so I think I'm going to finish it before I move on to 'The Slight Edge' which should be arriving today (ordered it). Besides reading I've been doing some school work as well. I still have some reports to finish so I'm quite busy with that. Though it's not very realistic to plan working on that for 10 hours a day, so I need other activities as well. Reading is one of them, but also learning a new language. I've always wanted to learn German. It's pretty useful where I live (eastern part of The Netherlands) and I'm one of the few people who's bad at it. So, I've been learning German every day for a week now as well. Exercise is also something I want to do again 6 times a week. Before the last week of 2015, I used to work out 6 times a week. I'd get up at 6AM (still doing that now), have a cup of coffee and start exercising. I also hadn't gamed in like 2 weeks, because I knew they kill my productivity. I hated the mornings, because after my exercise (well, after my shower) I had to start schoolwork, right away. For 2 hours, straight. And after that, 2 hours of working of marketing lessons.

So at noon, I'd be done with everything I wanted to do for that day. It's effective but I hated it. It taught me self-discipline though. It also increased my willpower after 2 weeks of doing this. But then gaming crept in again.. Because I was done at around 12 'o clock. I thought I had earned myself a few hours of gaming time. Yea.. that's where I went wrong. The next morning I got up at 6AM, not to work out, but to play video games. I played for about 14 hours straight that day. Even the thought of it now.. Waste of time for me. I hated myself afterwards. And always the talking in my head would be like: "Ah, we'll do it tomorrow. I've got plenty of time tomorrow. The next day everything will be great. Just keep on playing this awesome game for now. We'll do it tomorrow". And the next day, same thing. up at 6AM. Playing videogames till late in the evening. I felt sick, stupid and ashamed. 

But not anymore.. as I mentioned earlier I'm on day 8 of my 90-day detox and it's going great so far. I'm being productive and I'm trying to find some more activities to be passionate about. Though passion needs to grow, so just finding something I really like to do is good enough for me.

Financially, I'm basically screwed though. I really need to get into internet marketing or find a regular job again (blehhh). I need some sort of income to support me now and in the future. Somehow my brain doesn't want to think about affiliate marketing, which I have been trying to learn more about. I think it's because it's a bit difficult to get my head around at first. And the more difficult the task, the more I start to procrastinate.. So that's something to work on. 

Besides learning how to speak German, reading, working on my reports, exercising and internet marketing, there is still some time left to fill. I'm trying to find something I'm really into, passionate about and maybe even make some money off. That's the hard part. I don't really have a lot things I'm into. I find everything interesting, but only the tip of the iceberg. Not the rest of it. It used to be just gaming.. But I'm ready to move on from gaming, and find a different thing to be passionate about.

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for reading! I will be back soon.

Stay strong, stay motivated!

- Mark

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Hi mark,

yeah procrastinating is a big problem for me too. It helped me, to make a daily plan of things and scheduling the hardest/mostimportant/most scary tasks right at the start. But i have still work to do on this issue, so i can relate to this very well. I'm german btw. If you want we can write a bit about gamequitting or other stuff in german. I try to improve my english here and i get the feelign that regular reading and writing in the languague you try to master, helps a lot.

greetings Mario

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Hi mark,

yeah procrastinating is a big problem for me too. It helped me, to make a daily plan of things and scheduling the hardest/mostimportant/most scary tasks right at the start. But i have still work to do on this issue, so i can relate to this very well. I'm german btw. If you want we can write a bit about gamequitting or other stuff in german. I try to improve my english here and i get the feelign that regular reading and writing in the languague you try to master, helps a lot.

greetings Mario

That's exactly what I was going to say. Start with the biggest, scariest task first and you'll notice you won't find as much resistance. 

And yea sure, I'd like that. Though I must say I started learning German about a week ago on Duolingo. So I have no clue how much it will actually improved. It's still not that great at the moment, but I'm improving!

As for my journal..

Day 9

What is up, guys. What I'm currently at day 9 of my detox and it's going great. The cravings are real, and instead of blocking them out, I acknowledge them. I know they're there, and I know my brain wants to game. But I also know that gaming has been a roadblock for me as well.

Things weren't going quite that fast on day 8. Due to lack of sleep I presume. I was moving at the speed of a snail. But I still completed all the tasks I had set for myself in the morning. So YAY. 

I also realized that I've only been giving myself negative feedback whenever I failed at doing something I really wanted to do that day. Now I'm trying to just give positive feedback to myself by encouragement and giving myself compliments after completing another task. That way my brain will get positive stimulation instead.

Besides that I'm kind of sitting at a dilemma. I realized I've been trying to do too many things at once. I'm trying to learn too many habits. For instance:

- Quit playing video games

- Learning how to speak German through Duolingo

- Exercising 4-6 times a week

- Getting up at 6AM in the morning

- Writing a daily journal

- Read every day

- Write something for my internet business

- Eating less and eating healthy

These are all things I'm trying to teach myself and it might be a bit too much. At the end of 2015 I used to exercise about 6 times a week, so that one isn't THAT hard at the moment. Getting up at 6AM isn't that hard for me anymore either. Learning myself how to speak German is actually quite fun. I like Duolingo. Reading every day might be a bit harder to get into. Because I never read anything till about a few months ago. And now I'm trying to do it every single day. So I can finish one book a week, at least. Eating healthy is kind of difficult and since I still live with my mom (for the moment) I'm not the one making dinner each night. When I said I wanted to eat differently and more healthy she didn't quite take me seriously. It's not that we're eating bad food or w/e but I think we can do better. And she says it's nonsense, so yeah. All very motivating hehe. 

Writing something for my internet business is my main concern. I've been procrastinating on this for quite some time. Hadn't written anything in exactly a month. But as Mario said, each and every day; start with the hardest, most scary thing you have to get done that day. And so I did! I noticed a lot less resistance on the way and I got it done :) 

Wooohoooo! 

So the main problem is that I'm doing too many things at once. I'm trying to push myself further and that's good. But instead of doing it step-by-step I'm trying to do it all at once, which is baaaadd. So I think I need to drop something from this list. I need to exercise, I need to get up at 6AM, I really want to read every day, I really want to get my business going. So that means either learning German or a healthier lifestyle. Hmm. Learning how to speak German isn't that hard for me, since I find it quite fun to do. Eating less is something I'm having difficulties with though.

We'll see!!

So in summary it's been going pretty great. I'm getting stuff done (about 1523x as much as with gaming in my life) and I'm feeling awesome. Each and every day I'm getting closer to the goals I've set for myself and I love it.

Thanks for reading and see you next time :)

- Mark

 

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Hi Man,

heard an awesome 15min podcast fo Tim ferris about a similiar topic yesterday. It's more centred on tasks as on habbits but maybe you get someinput otu of it ;)

http://podbay.fm/show/863897795/e/1402695505?autostart=1

 

Podcasts and audiobooks are in my opinion a good alternative for reading. What i like about them is the fact you can hear them while driving or cleaning or doing some stuff wich doesn't need too much brainpower. And things like learning german isn't something you have to do on a daily base( even if duolingo kind of dicates that wiht their motivation system). maybe you can explore other options like an actual course( it's a nice social activity too).

Awesome you get your self set tasks done. Main things feeling awesome ;) So yeah ur doing awesome!

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Hi Man,

heard an awesome 15min podcast fo Tim ferris about a similiar topic yesterday. It's more centred on tasks as on habbits but maybe you get someinput otu of it ;)

http://podbay.fm/show/863897795/e/1402695505?autostart=1

 

Podcasts and audiobooks are in my opinion a good alternative for reading. What i like about them is the fact you can hear them while driving or cleaning or doing some stuff wich doesn't need too much brainpower. And things like learning german isn't something you have to do on a daily base( even if duolingo kind of dicates that wiht their motivation system). maybe you can explore other options like an actual course( it's a nice social activity too).

Awesome you get your self set tasks done. Main things feeling awesome ;) So yeah ur doing awesome!

Hi Mario,

I listened to it. It's a very good podcast. Funny thing is that a lot of the things he said I've already been applying. That's why I got the most important stuff done for today :D 

They are indeed. Just regular reading takes a bit more brainpower than listening to a podcast as well. That's why combining it with housework for instance, is indeed a very good idea. I will definitely listen to more of Tim Ferris' podcasts. So much good info.

Thanks for your input!

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Day 9-13

Sorry guys, it's been a few days. I've kept myself busy with other stuff that required a lot of brainpower so that's why I didn't write in my journal.

So the past few days went by very quickly. I kept myself busy with A LOT of things. for instance:

Yesterday: waking up at 6AM, early exercise, college stuff, marketing stuff, reading (The Slight Edge woohoo, more about that later), coffee with a mate, Freeletics exercise, doing housework, marketing stuff again, Skype with gf, playing guitar, Duolingo - German, speedreading. 

So it seems like quite a lot of different things I've kept myself occupied with. Besides learning how to speak German, I'm also trying to get decent at playing the guitar and at reading at top speed (done this before, very interesting and useful). I don't know for how long I'll actually be able to keep it up every day, but after reading The Slight Edge it seems like I can do a lot of those small things because I KNOW what the outcome will be. If I would only practise for about 10 minutes a day, still imagine 30, 60, 90 days from now. I'm just wondering on how many aspects I can actually apply this principle without it being too much.Speed-Reading-Mastery-Course.thumb.png.d

But seriously guys, The Slight Edge is a must-read. Thanks to Cam for the recommendation! I'm halfway through it and it has already changed my philosophy. 

So about gaming, I've had NO cravings yesterday, whatsoever. I think it's because I kept myself busy all day. I didn't have time for it (that's a first). Sunday I was close to relapse, I was so bored, no clue what to do all day. I was watching a movie till a mate sent me a message if I wanted to go to this party. "Thank God!!!!!!" Yeah, I was pretty happy about that. 

Not a lot of new stuff going on, though. I'm reading The Slight Edge and loving it. Applying the slight edge disciplines will definitely pay off in future. It also makes it so much easier to do the small daily stuff, somehow. Sometimes it's still hard to do the bigger stuff though. So college stuff + marketing = almost a no-go. Since they're both things that require a lot of brainwork. I do either of them early in the morning, when my willpower is at it's peak.

Besides that, I don't really have much to say. I'm trying to find something I want to do with my life. If I want to keep working on affiliate marketing and wait till it pays off. Or find a part-time job for the meantime. Or if I want to get back to college next year. I need to find something I really like, and make it into something that I'm passionate about. That way I will increase the quality of life immensely. This is pretty hard for me though.. I think I just have to try new things. Read a lot of books on completely different subjects and decide what things I'm really interested in. After that, I can decide if I want to go to college again, or not. If not, I need to find a short-term way to support myself. Maybe, find a regular job till I get my business going. That might not be a bad idea. Hmm, this journal thing helps.

Right, that's it for me today. I don't really know what else to say so I'm gonna leave it at that. 

Thanks for reading :)

Stay strong, stay motivated!

- Mark

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi there,

It's been quite a while since the last time I wrote a post and it's been going pretty good. I'm currently on day 56 (I think) of the 90 day detox, and even though I'm still having cravings to play games, I can control them. Though I must say whenever I come across something WoW-related I feel the urge to start playing again. But I've managed to push those thoughts away. I won't play that game again..

Learning more about myself

Other aspects of my life have changed as well. I keep learning more and more about myself and what I'd like to do. For instance, I found out that my major in college is something I don't even like. I liked the basics of it and I was pretty good at it. But now where taking a more in-depth look at certain subjects, I realized that I just didn't care. I didn't care about any of it. It was boring stuff and I didn't see myself working in anything to do with it. Now, that's kind of a problem since I wasted A LOT of time these past few years with my gaming addiction. I've dropped out of college multiple times already and I really don't want to do it again, even though people, like my girlfriend, advice me to. I know my parents will go insane if they find out, since they just want the best for me. I have to tell them I don't care about this subject and want to drop out again, soon.. Very soon..

Besides that I'm still struggling with steady progress. I've come up with some good daily habits but they might be too much for now. Whenever there's a day I didn't do the things I'm supposed to do, it's really, really hard to get back into it. So it might be that I want to do too much at once. I'm trying to do the following things: getting up at 6AM, doing daily exercises, practising speedreading, playing guitar, learning to speak German, going for a run, reading 10 pages of a self development book, working on my final report for college, learning how to cook and to write posts for my website. I managed to keep this up for about a week. At the end of the week I was exhausted btw. And next week something came up so I couldn't do these things. And I just couldn't manage to get into it again. I got back to watching movies and stuff all day.. I was trying to do many things at once.

So how about now?

Well, now I'm just trying to do a couple of things. I'm still getting up early in the morning, but I'm not working my ass off the minute I walk down the stairs. If I haven't played a game and I got out of bed early that morning, that's already a victory for me. If I made my bed that morning, even better! Sometimes I manage to do something else as well because it's easier to keep moving. 

I hope I can keep this up so I can progress in all areas of my life.

The no-gaming detox is going great so far and I'm sure I'll complete it. 

I know it's quite a long story, sorry for that. But thanks for reading!

Stay strong!

- Mark

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Hi there,

It's been quite a while since the last time I wrote a post and it's been going pretty good. I'm currently on day 56 (I think) of the 90 day detox, and even though I'm still having cravings to play games, I can control them. Though I must say whenever I come across something WoW-related I feel the urge to start playing again. But I've managed to push those thoughts away. I won't play that game again..

Good job! I used to be a mega WoW gamer I've recorded around 1 years worth of game time...it's amazing how a game can suck up so much of your life.

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Hi there,

It's been quite a while since the last time I wrote a post and it's been going pretty good. I'm currently on day 56 (I think) of the 90 day detox, and even though I'm still having cravings to play games, I can control them. Though I must say whenever I come across something WoW-related I feel the urge to start playing again. But I've managed to push those thoughts away. I won't play that game again..

Good job! I used to be a mega WoW gamer I've recorded around 1 years worth of game time...it's amazing how a game can suck up so much of your life.

Ahh yes. That's quite a long time. I don't even want to know the amount of hours I've put into WoW. Basically I've been playing for about 9-10 years so it used to be a giant part of my life. And it really did suck up so much. And I kept coming back to it as well, even though there were plenty of times where I wasn't even enjoying it. Or there were sooo many things I SHOULD've been doing. It's just so addicting.

WoW has some sort of gravitational pull. And even now, after not playing for a while. Whenever I see WoW-related stuff or think about the memory's, I just get the urge to install it again. This only confirms the fact that it's so incredibly addicting. It can't be healthy.. Thanks for your response.

Nice that you share your experiences.

Thanks. I try to, since it kind of helps me as well. Even though it's pretty hard to do what we do here.. we do it anyways. And it gets a bit easier if we can share experiences.

Edited by Mark1520
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Hi there,

It's been quite a while since the last time I wrote a post and it's been going pretty good. I'm currently on day 56 (I think) of the 90 day detox, and even though I'm still having cravings to play games, I can control them. Though I must say whenever I come across something WoW-related I feel the urge to start playing again. But I've managed to push those thoughts away. I won't play that game again..

Good job! I used to be a mega WoW gamer I've recorded around 1 years worth of game time...it's amazing how a game can suck up so much of your life.

Ahh yes. That's quite a long time. I don't even want to know the amount of hours I've put into WoW. Basically I've been playing for about 9-10 years so it used to be a giant part of my life. And it really did suck up so much. And I kept coming back to it as well, even though there were plenty of times where I wasn't even enjoying it. Or there were sooo many things I SHOULD've been doing. It's just so addicting.

WoW has some sort of gravitational pull. And even now, after not playing for a while. Whenever I see WoW-related stuff or think about the memory's, I just get the urge to install it again. This only confirms the fact that it's so incredibly addicting. It can't be healthy.. Thanks for your response.

Yup agree with you there lol, I haven't played WoW since last year now and never will now. I used to play it religiously until MoP came out. Even then I only played it to level up and complete acheivements, I think the reason we come back to it is because of the memories and social aspect.

It's hard not to go back, but it's definitely doable. :) 

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