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Daily Journal - Rick


Rick Boon

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alright. I finished respawn, and today i start the challenge. I'm a bit anxious but also exited for it! I follow also the courses from Mark Manson (connection course right now) and i think the challenge and the connection course are a really good combination together. 

btw, i had a small relapse 2 days ago. I was tired, it was late, and i wanted to have fun. So i installed hots and played 3 games. The next day i played 2 games. But then i deinstalled. It was fun, but the whole time i was also thinking "if i do this other things will be less fun, other things in real life". So that was my counter.

I do have 1 question about it, any answer is appreciated: Through the weeks and months that i havent gamed anymore, i lack a bit of a passion for something. IN general i'm passionate about doing this, manage my life, follow my structure, my agenda, do activities with the group but at the end of the evening i still think "i havent done today something that was equal to the rush of gaming". not all evenings, but a few per week. Any advice is welcome!

Umm. let me think, i'm reading less in journals, but i think i will change that in the future. In specific i will read the long term journals, and see how they got through this phase i'm in now. Just for reference; i have enough activities and things planned everyday. 

Greetz,

Rick

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I think it helps if you have something to be passionate about. I haven't found it yet though. I know out of experience that gaming just screws with me life. The fear motivates me, because i know if I get weak and fall in old behaviours, I won't stop and would lie to my wife because I would be ashamed. I can't let that happen to me again. Maybe the challenge help you with that though. I think day two or so is about finding your passion ;)

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okay i am feeling really good and strong right now! need to journal to keep my mind ordered! 

I"m reading through the challenge section (especially your depression and experiences Cam) and i have a lot of thoughts flow through my mind. I write most of them down right now. But there are many lessons in the intro. How do i apply them all at onces? (is a question that occured to me just now).

btw, i'm just rambling right now. Just some thoughts

I need to spend less time doing all this self improvement stuff. I will still dedicate time to it, but i really want to experience much more then i search and read about it.

There is a insight i find funny and amazing at the same time. Still reading through the pages and i find some sentences to be very similiar to my belief. I'm a christian and while i'm not a bit talker about it, it's one of my defining roots about how i see the world and it influences my actions big time. This is the sentence that i mean "I knew the answer
was about creating the life you want". How i read this is "i knew the answer was about living the life that God wants". Is this not the same end-goal? with other tools and means but still somehow the same?! it's intriguing me a lot :)

Stay tuned! i have the whole day for all of this stuff haha

 

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I think it helps if you have something to be passionate about. I haven't found it yet though. I know out of experience that gaming just screws with me life. The fear motivates me, because i know if I get weak and fall in old behaviours, I won't stop and would lie to my wife because I would be ashamed. I can't let that happen to me again. Maybe the challenge help you with that though. I think day two or so is about finding your passion ;)

oh thx! you havent found it yet? great to hear btw from you, as you are one of my examples on the forum who is succeeding long term :D good to hear that this step is on the route.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello Fellows!

It's been quite some time, but today i will start journaling a little bit more, atleast in the challenge section. Today i start my Gamequiters Challenge!

Kinda anxious about it but also exited. I look forward to extend my comfort zone.

So how has it been? well, very good and very bad. Hit rockbottom sometimes, not because i was gaming atleast. I havent had a relapse since months now. Handing over my steam and battle.net account to my younger brother has been the best thing i did since my quitting. It works even better then if i had deleted them. I can't ask my brother to give my accounts back. He succeeded in more paths in life then i and i can't bring myself to a point where i give up on myself and ask him, where i make it definitive that i'm a failure. You think i exaggerate? not at all! This is my burden, the demon of gaming hanging over my head. He will grab me again if i even send the facebook chat to my brother.

Well thats how i think about it atleast hehe. Now, to continue.. i hit rockbottom because i was mostly down by my own thoughts. It was and is a war of the mind. But i had some great months to, i felt good. I took care of myself in meditation (or quiet-time) and i spoke about what bothered me to my friends and mental coach. I ventilated. I have been doing new things, trying different strategies and with each failure or battle/down time i learned more inside myself, took steps, started again and went back into reality. 

Now the time has come that i start my challenge. I'm really smiling right now because i feel this is time. I should have started it months ago, but that doesnt matter. The "i should do" is now "i will do". Thats how i start and end everyday together with some basic rules, just simple and easy.

Your very welcome btw to keep track of my challenge. I like to share my experiences. Honestly, i like to do a bit crazy, and i except a lot of folly and jest! (ye i had to googletranslate that).

Ask anything you like to know.

Greetz,

Rick

EDIT: a link to my challenge: http://forum.gamequitters.com/topic/1821-roar-and-thunder-ironflys-raw-challenge/

Edited by Ironfly
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Quick post. Had a FULL week. And some bad days to. I update my challenge journal tomorrow, i plan to do every challenge first on my notebook (ye a real one, from paper), that way i can without any distraction fully focus. I finished the letter today, so i will write that tomorrow in my journal. 

What i'm trying to say is that i'm not sure i can do a challenge each day, is that a bad thing? for instance, my monday and wednesday's are swamped. I have between activities a 30m break tops on these days. I'm free in the evening from around 7pm, but i gather some challenges require me to do them in a afternoon, thats why i cant do a challenge each day.

I felt really good and happy today, enjoyed that to the fullest. How i jump into each day is pretty much; i just see how it goes. i do my thing, i am focused on what i want to complete and i don't need to feel happy or overly joyful all the time, i dont require that from myself. I did that at a certain point, it is a energy drain

Anyway, have a great week yourself to!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm stuckkkkkkkk. It sucks. I got my steam account back from my brother. I promised him that i would delete it. I immidiatly bought dawn of war 2 and played the whole night, literally. that was sunday, monday i felt very bad the whole day. Was not feeling well as in health, and structure. Was scared to get out of my room. This tuesday i was in time at work, and i had a general good morning. 

Got a lot of thoughts right now, but i dont wanna talk about it. I want to talk less and do more. I know i have all the tricks and tools to check in to life. And i'm gonna do it. Last post of travis (saw it via facebook) was about going for fulfillment instead of wanting entertainment the whole time. That helped me a bit of thinking about what i was doing.

One small other thing i'm struggling with, and i really like advice from anyone if you have something to add. 

It's about this; i have read very much, on this forum, quora etc. Lots of articles about self improvement etc. No books tho but i don't think i really miss out on anything. And that's my problem to. I always think i miss out on something if i DON'T read that article with the fancy title. And after i have read something i really want to apply, i get scared that i will forget it. Which i do, with most of the stuff. My question is; is this normal? how do you, reader, apply stuff that you dont want to forget? And do you have any tips or methods how i can process all of the information the right way? I get drowned so fast in all kinds of info and it has the effect that i lose focus on my main pilars in life (ye its that big a deal hehe). Any advice welcome!

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It's about this; i have read very much, on this forum, quora etc. Lots of articles about self improvement etc. No books tho but i don't think i really miss out on anything. And that's my problem to. I always think i miss out on something if i DON'T read that article with the fancy title. And after i have read something i really want to apply, i get scared that i will forget it. Which i do, with most of the stuff. My question is; is this normal? how do you, reader, apply stuff that you dont want to forget? And do you have any tips or methods how i can process all of the information the right way? I get drowned so fast in all kinds of info and it has the effect that i lose focus on my main pilars in life (ye its that big a deal hehe). Any advice welcome!

This has to do with the fear of missing out. Not to throw another article your way but Mark Manson has a good take on it here.

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Usually I try not to read too much self development literature at once at one day. And while reading it I think about how it applies to my life. This leads to trying new things out and applying what I learned. I usually try not to worry too much about things I forget because I know the things which are important to me at this moment will stick with me. Another thing you can try is to make notes and write down what you think is important to you or make an impressum with topics where you store the links so you reread them later.

But me personally try to read a little bit everyday and think about how it applkies to my life. Later on I will reread good books I enjoyed(like the slight edge). The good(or annoying) part of books is that they have usually a lot of repetition and this makes it easier to apply the things.

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  • 1 month later...

Today i had a good day. 

This week is my last one in the voluntary project i'm in, and i need to find something new. So far i havent get to it actively, i wanted to bike around and see if there are openings somewhere, anyway, i get to that either this Thursday or Tuesday.

What i also want to share is that it feels great to join at Discord everyday. It is a so much faster way to ask for small advice, or just get to know each other better then people's journal.

I had a full day today, tomorrow i make a longer post because i want to get some insight how i'm going to proceed, now that this is my last try (or do) at quitting games. One thing i fully commit already is to do a quick summarize of respawn and after that i will place my 4 needs and label them to the activities i already have. If i miss out on a need i will come up with a well considered activity for that need.

I already got one, and it's this:

Mentally engaged: contribute to a little project, that is; i'm trying to develop a board game/tabletop game. It has a lot of strategy involved, and i want to see how far i can get.

Greetz,

Rick

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  • 2 weeks later...

an update:

I have taken some steps into looking for a new voluntary place to work. I have fallen back into evading every obligation i had for three days (monday to wednesday).

I had a great conversation with a friend, or some sort of mentor he is, and he had some very interesting arguments for the mental health care i have now. A strong opinion he had about how the coaching should be much more intensive, more personal attention. It was not an eye-opener moment but more a "darn he is probably right". It made me think strongly regarding my progress (which has been slow to put it mildly). I am right now in the making of a 1 year goal list. 

oh, and before i forget. I had a very clear moment. My activities are all just fine, i have different things, lots of variation but i miss one thing. action. Right now my weeks are so boring, i mean, i sport, i watch movies, i socialize (a little bit), but i miss pure action, the rush, the feeling i might not be able to complete/make it. I will come up with a activity for this one, but it might take some time.

Cheers 

 

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Hi Rick, welcome back!

It's about this; i have read very much, on this forum, quora etc. Lots of articles about self improvement etc. No books tho but i don't think i really miss out on anything. And that's my problem to. I always think i miss out on something if i DON'T read that article with the fancy title. And after i have read something i really want to apply, i get scared that i will forget it. Which i do, with most of the stuff. My question is; is this normal? how do you, reader, apply stuff that you dont want to forget? And do you have any tips or methods how i can process all of the information the right way? I get drowned so fast in all kinds of info and it has the effect that i lose focus on my main pilars in life (ye its that big a deal hehe). Any advice welcome!

That's absolutely normal, and there's surprisingly simple ways to avoid it. It's good you're aware that it'll be easy to forget important advice. I find that just covering a small amount of self-development content a day, writing important bits down, and writing how I can apply them is very helpful. I've also tried making a daily challenge to apply one of those things (in my journal) which has worked very well. I used to think that absorbing the most information was the best way to improvement, but the reality is that all the information will be useless if we don't record it for practicality and apply it in real life. That's just my two cents on the matter, I hope that helps you make more effective use of resources and self-development material.

Relapses can happen, but they can be very important for learning why you play games and hence how you can avoid it happening again in future. If you outline why it happened, it might help you make better change in the long run.

From you last post, it sounds like you need a bit of a challenge. Relatable to Cam's definition of the reasons we game, we all need to be challenged and provided/find a sense of purpose. My only advice for this one is that you'll only find out what works for you by trying new activities and applying yourself fully; committing to action. Most of the time we can't think ourselves into liking an activity or feeling excited about it, so just taking action is the best way to go about it. Perhaps keeping yourself accountable to achieve a goal would give you a little more purpose.

I hope my advice helps, and best of luck making the most of your time :)

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I feel like shit.

Yesterday i finally submitted a photo of my ID to steam support. It was the last step to do for the termination of my account. Today i had a talk with 2 workers of the office (mental health coaches), asking about why i lost vision of my goals over the last 6 months. I said what i had done, i said i wanted to apply for a pre-study of 2 years to get already some experience and certificates for the next study, which is the police education. 1 of the workers reminded me that i probably can't handle the job because of my autism and such. He is the fifth guy in 3 weeks time that is saying i need to think really hard if i will be able to do this.  Now i'm just rethinking everything, and i'm thinking about what i did accomplish over the last years, which is not very much, and that hurts. I mean, i'm writing this down while i'm taking a dump, i dont even care now anymore for manners!

@AlexTheGrape thx for your comment, i'm actually in the progress of writing a 5 year plan, and i plan to use the method you described, like keeping it really small and simple, i definitely think it will help!

Alright, that's it for today, i log in to discord for an hour and then i go to bed.

 

 

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I don't know what to do.

I'm silenced inside since monday, i feel like an empty well. I do not see any point in doing anything, except that i know i don't wanna do things that give instant gratification, like porn or game. I want to rewire, redesign myself but i have build up some bad reputations in certain area's within 2 years. I feel very little, i'm writing here because this is my last grasp on my own life's control. What do i do?

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update: i'm watching GQ youtube videos and looking for a very challenging hobby (googeling it right now), i finish my 1 year plan this evening, but after that i want to think more about what person i want to become, and how i can apply that to my daily routine, i do that tomorrow.

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