Dave´s Journal

[David]

(English is my second language so I might make some mistakes and it might be hard for you to read, also if you see me repeating on mistake over and over just point it out to me so I can improve for the next time please :3)
Hey guys my name is David I am 19 y.o guy from Czech republic and I haven´t been playing for 60 days. So far everything (gaming related) went pretty smooth and easy I uninstalled all the games from my computer and my mobile phone and I didn´t play a single game ever since then. I also started nofap challenge, but 2 days ago when I failed to ask a girl for a number (wich i promised to mysel that i would ask her whhen I see her) I felt kinda anxious about my confidence and fear of rejection and I broke my 39 days streak of nofap. So that´s when I decided I need something to help me push over my fears and make make my life better so I decided to purchase 30 days challenge by Cam. Soo here I am at day 1.

Day 1 - Gamequitters challenge Day 60 - Without any games

 

Letter to myself:
Positives

Right now I feel pretty good about myself. I have been on the right path for the last 60 days. I started doing cold showers in the morning, read a book (wich i haevn´t done for a long time). Started waking up earlier. I have been also working out for 2+ years and I am starting be really happy about my results (especially squats :D), fact taht I lost weight means my abs are finally starting to show (i am like the best example of endomorph very strong legs, able to eat everything, wide shouders and waist, easy to build muscle and get strong and hard to loose weight). I started helping my randa with the garden.

I also found a job and met some new people but did not really connected wit the becuase I did not find them interesting. Relationship with my family got much better, I actually haev time to talk to my mum and I would say my mood is overall better. Lastly, I moved out of the house and thought of the new (or old hobbies i dropped to do.

Negatives

On the other hand I quitted games kinda too late to save my exams and I got kicked out of university it is not that big of a deal though because I wanted to leave anyway (1st year there), the university was really hard and I knew it when i went there but I did not expect it to be this hard an to consume so much time I also did not really find the subject interesting soo yeah. I still did not find a girlfriend. I am okay with starting a conversation with a girl my frieds introduce me to and I am okay wih that but only if I don´t like the girl, as soon as I start liking the girl I get scared the conversation gets kinda cringy and I usually and it in some sort of way. I was also on a date and I was very proud of myself becuase I kept the conversation going there were no weird moments and I felt like the girl really like me (this might should have been in the positives), but all of this went that way because I wasn´t really interested in the girl to put it lightly she wasn´t on of the smartest... I still waist a lot of time randomly browsing internet, looking trough the photos on instagram and I also watch tv - still spend less time on these things than i have spent playing video games though.

Conclusion

I am definitely on the right path I am just walking really slowly.

My social skills improved a ton, I am much better at conversations and I don´t have a problem talking to a stranger - As long as it is not a girl I am starting to fall in love with though

My discipline improved a bit, started taking cold showers and waking up earlier but stil nowhere near I want it to be.

My courage still sucks ass and I am super afraid of creating a bound to a girl.

Contribution - I was never reall a selfish type of a guy but I can definitely improve on this one a lot.

Tenacity - oh yeah I suck at this one a lot, right after i quitted games I started playing piano again, but I haven´t touched it for a weak

How other people percieve me honest, outgoing,goofy, very loud, can get easily mad, always late, sometimes kinda confused

I am guessing this is how they percieve me becuase I am really big extrovert and I kinda say everything that is on my mind I don´t really have troubles opening myself to anyone after knowing him for few hours (i have to like the guy/girl ofc) 

Where I would like to improve is that 1) I would like to be more stable with m emotions not be so easy to piss of or get mad at someone. 2) I would like to be able to have a deep relationship with a girl - so yeah i guess that means stop being afraid of rejection. 3) Be consistent with my hobbies so I guess improving my tenacity+discipline I think that these 2 are kinda connected anyway.

Days left - 20842 that means i should be dead at 20th april 2073

Idk if I formatted this right but I think I completed every task that I should have for day 1 of GQC. Hope this wasn´t too booring or annoying to read if you chose so.

Wish you the best, fuuck this took me way longer than it should have - about 2,5 hours lol

 

[WorkInProgress]

Wasn't boring at all. Thank you for sharing your progress.

Congratulations on the 60days! You seem to grasp your problems in a pretty clear way wich will help you a lot at improving yourself in these problematic areas.  I surely will read more of your journal if you decide to make this a regular habbit. Check out this article about vulnerability wich gave me some insights about the importance of deeper relationships,

 

[Cam Adair]

Hey! This is awesome to read, thanks for sharing (and for purchasing the challenge!) I loved Czech when I was there a few years ago. Actually one of the members of the community gave me a tour of Prague and then we hung out in his hometown of Brno. Very beautiful country! I will return soon.

[David]

WorkInProgress: Thank you for sending me that article, I knew that honesty is something girls are attracted to, but I was afraid that if I open up too much I might just sound weird/creepy/desperate, I thought I had to be "flawless" with everything conversation-related. I guess showing her right amount of a "weak" side can ease the situation a bit. I will definitely try to keep that on my mind next time I talk to the "right one" . 

Anyways thank you for your comment, I´ll definitely be updating my journal, Good luck on your journey!

Cam: If you do some kind of a meet up in Czech republic, you can definitely count me in!

Thank you for creating so much awesome content. Your dedication and passion for this problem is truly inspiring to me. Wish you the best!

[David]

Day 2

Allright, so I don´t really know if these aren´t more of a goals rather than projects but this is the best I could think of for now.

Let´s start with the happiness part (it my turn into a wealth one day, also who knows?). So I have been playing piano since I was 6 years old. I was playing classical music for most of my life but at the end I got kinda bored of it and started to play jazz. I always really liked this type of music and admired people who could improvise for hours without repeating themselves over and over. Well, it has been over 3 years now and I am stil really bad, I have troubles finding the right cords and their "alternations"(? sorry I don´t really know the english terminology in this one) I also still can play only (if even) one scale belonging to the given cord so my improvisation gets really monotone/boring and quite annoying after certain amount of time (even to myself ). I also have been playing diatonic harmonica for 1,5 years and my progress is much more visible, but I guess that´s more due to a fact that I am playing mostly blues wich is much less complicated and it is also easier to make visible progress when you start from scratch.

Sooo my project will be playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyHAzlaKF2I this version of Georgia on harp (wich is pretty hard becuase you have to bend tons of notes wich I am sometimes struggeling with) + create my own piano backing without using any notes and being able to play it more times without (ideally) repeating myself.  Mabye I could post it here if I will be satisfied with the final product.

For the wealth part I still have to prepare for the entrance exams wich will be June, they are nothing too hard and I should be more than prepared in few weeks, but the is no reason to be procrastinating it more and then catching up to do it on last minute. (I know this is rather a goal than a project but I don´t really know what project I should create with math I guess I am the project in this case lol). So at the end of the challenge I want to be able to write the sample test on 85% atleast (50% is minimum required to be accepted).

Health - I´ll just keep working out, I also want to start meditation and add some kind of cardio for the summer  .

Mah "impossible" bucket list: Master these - piano/harp/guitar, Be fluent in German/Russian/Spanish, get the grill of my dreams, be happy/have a deep relationship, get really good at windsurfing, master some kind of martial art, get more muscles, loose a bit more of fat, travel around the world Sweden/USA idk there is tons of places I want to go , make tons of money/make a good use of it->inspire people/help people/travel/enjoy life n stuff... , be more athletic learn muscle ups/handstands/some jumps and kicks - all that cool stuff that "Ido Portal" does

So yeah there is tons of other things that I would like to learn or try, places to visit, people to meet, but at the end of the day I want to spend good times with my friends and family and be happy overall.

 

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by David
formatting

[Cam Adair]

Great goals. Is there a "deadline" you can set to learn the Georgia on harp? Having a date that you will post it is good!

[David]

Day 3 and 4 of QGC

It is pretty late so I am going to make it short. My time managment is terrible. I was also really bussy today and yesterday, so yesterday I even skipped the challenge which I felt really guilty today so I told to myself that I will read the first bit no matter what.

Slight Edge seems really awesome and nice to read (even tho english is not my native language) and in the 1st time of my life I am actually excited to read a book!  

My morning routine: Wake up at 6, meditate (I am curious how this one will go), have a cold shower, eat some scrambled eggs, and get to work, I have 1,25 hour to all of this so I should be ok. I will try to move my alarm half an hour earlier so I can read in the morning but one step at a time (I was used to wake up at 9 for last few months). I will try to read in the subway + I have should have some time to read in the work I also found out that (today ) that reading before you go to bed is pretty nice.

@Cam Adair Well, it is hard to explain but playing harmonica is kinda like singing, u sometimes hit the right notes and sometimes you dont (if you press one key on the piano its always the same note, if you draw one hole on harmonica it could be 4 different notes) so I can play Georgia right now but it wouldn´t be really nice to hear. Bending is something you can always get better at. But! I will publish my "cover" at the end of the april.

ALSO NOTE TO MYSELF: TOHLE BYLO NAPOSLED COS NESPLNIL MISI V ČAS TY LÍNEJ KRYPLE! 

[Cam Adair]

Are you using an agenda/schedule each day? Schedule your priorities - HUGE difference if you do that. 

[David]

@Cam I am trying to, I am just really bus atm. I have been helping my grandma a with some stuff and I also had some unexpected journeys in the car I had to take. I am also being really bussy because I have to work 12 hours/per day, for these 3 days so I am glad, that I am able to write something in the journal and do my other stuff I promised myself to do.

Day 5

So, this was the first time I tried meditation, I was actually really pissed before I started meditating (I slept 3 hours cause my brother came home drunk and woke me up, then refused to go to sleep and kept me awake for another 2 hours. I had also an argument in the morning). After the meditation I felt like I calmed down a lot. wich is a good thing, I am definitely going to  implement that into my morning routine. 

This is my visionboard:

Piano and harp represent my love for music, whether it is listening to it or playing these instruments, this is something that I can always go back to when I am feeling down.

The picture in the right corer is picture of Norway. This is a place I want to visit for a long time and if I dont manage to convince on of my friends to go there with me, I think I will go there by myself. The windsurfing guy represents thing I was doing whole summer. I was working abroad, taking care of windsurfers and I was windsurfing whole day wich was pretty nice. The quote from Mark Twain is something how I would like to  live my life, but I can´t really manage to do it because of constant fear of rejection and failure. Last picture does represent my passion for traveling, once I gather enough money I would like to travel a lot.

Overall the visionboard is lacking a lot of things, but I wanted to put together something before I go to sleep. I will post here new one in Tuesday (btw: normaly I would just say in few days or something like that, but I am actually trying to schedule my time see Cam?  I am unfortunately just very bad at this, its getting better tho, I finally got a diary and I am trying to make longer plans than actually randomly deciding stuff at the last moment - This is something I have been doing for my whole life.) where I will also include my passion for Weightlifting, I also want to put something mediation related so I keep taht in mind and some other things.

Things I am grateful for: Comfy bed, this notebook, the fact that I am trying to get better at time managment, ugh... this is hard, guess I am too tired to be thankfull for things, oh yeah one last thing - the fact that Cam is actualy reading my journal and trying to help me.

Overall, I am coming trough a lot of changes and I have been really confused lately about myself, I have moments when everything looks super good, and then I have moments like my last 3 days. Good thing is - It can only get better :-)

[Cam Adair]

I also want to go to Norway. Maybe that's where I should host the Game Quitters Europe event?

[David]

That would be awesome .

Day 6 of QGC

WOOO, this day was really good. My brother came drunk home yesterday again, so he woke me up at like 2 am, I wanted to make atleast some good use of the time so I read a bit more of Slight Edge, well as I kept reading I felt like the book was talking straight to me. I had nothing to lose pretty much. So I just went to my older brothers room and asked him to go to sleep, well... he said "okay". Aaand I got a bit more of a sleep than yesterday . I did everything as I planned in the morning, I woke up, did the second day of meditation, went for a cold shower, made some good tea and breakfast, and then tried to get back to grattitude thing again. Yesterday I couldn´t think of more than 4 things so I gave it up after few minutes. Today, I just took my pen a piece of paper and wrote one thing after another, I stopped at 11 and had another great things popping in  my head. So I tried to think of them all as I was preparing to go to work.

On my way work I went to starbucks, ordered flatwhite, and asked for the 10% discount. She asked me why should she give me a dicount and I said that I have no good reason for a discount, I just wanted to ask... Well, that was pretty much all, after her colleague asked me what was taht supposed to be, whether or not I was just testing them, or trying my charm. I told her that it was some kind of challenge and that was it. I had a very mixed feeling afterwards, I felt happy that I made it, I felt WAAay more confident actually, I also felt a bit criengy and embarrassed after a while but those negative emotions, were not nearly as strong as the positive ones. After that I had a really good day, I was energetic, comunicative, focused on my work, I also got tons of tips from the customers. I also met me new colleague, and I had a really nice chat with her after a work.

Overall it was an awesome day, and I hope tomorrow will be just as good.

[David]

Day 7 of QGC

Soo I had pretty big troubles to persuade myself to actually ask fr a photo,but the I found out my phone is about to run out of battery and I didn´t have a way to actually charge it, so I went to first aone person I saw and asked him for a selfie .

The photos are pretty bad quality, and Iook retarded becuase I was focusing on the photo so much and it still did not zoom the text on the paper . But here is the proof .

I also think the arrow was pointing in the other direction  but I am not sure about it. I might try it once again to make a better photo, because this was a lot of fun and I felt great afterwards.

Overall my mood over last days has swinged insanely and I have been feeling really great lately .

[Cam Adair]

Haha that's so awesome. Way to go man! Good job pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. With the discount the point is that it's OK to ask and not have them say yes. The "negative emotions" you felt don't have to be a story you create about yourself - which is what we normally do.

[WorkInProgress]

I failed at this point, but I will revisit the challenge in the future. Keep rolling!

[Cam Adair]

I failed at this point, but I will revisit the challenge in the future. Keep rolling!

Any idea why you failed at this point??

[WorkInProgress]

Well i was uncomfortable and rationalized that it wasn't important for em at that point to adress my fear of rejection. My plan is to get to this issue after i have sucessful established a workschedule and finished my exams at the end of april.

[David]

@WorkInProgress You can do it buddy it is not that hard. Just go to a center of your city, and look for some alone relaxed person (that is what I did atleast) also the point is to ask them not to get photo, this one really helped me. I had a ton non-cringey conversations with complete strangers without a single problem. It felt so easy and natural to me after taking that selfie.  
@Cam Adair Yeah I know, it wasn´t that bad after all .

Thank you for these positive comments both of you!

Day 8

I can´t force myself to do it, or I feel like I can´t find the right moment or girl. I hope I can do it one day but not now . Otherwise everything is pretty great. I found out that if I don´t wake up before 8 o clock I am kinda useless for the rest of the day. I try to plan most of my stuff for the upcoming day and I am getting lot of my dutties (like doctors and other things which I have been procrastinating for awhile) Done! I try to read a bit of Slight Edge everyday, that book really inspires me and motivates me. I also so far read more than the day before which is a good sign I think.

Day 9  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zEbkoKHfn4&feature=youtu.be uhm, I tried to do some freestylin but it didn´t go that well , well I told to myself that I will post here the 1st video I will take so there you go .

Otherwise no updates on the compliment thing...

[Cam Adair]

Haha boom you did it! 

[David]

Yeah I tried a bit too much to be funny and couldn´t get really relaxd, but I guess the beauty of this thing that it will be much easier next time .

[Cam Adair]

Yeah I tried a bit too much to be funny and couldn´t get really relaxd, but I guess the beauty of this thing that it will be much easier next time .

As long as you do it you win, so good job

[David]

Day 11 + 12 

I had a birthday party on my weekend house so I am going to act like these days did not happen  , but I will do update tomorrow.

Edited April 10, 2016 by David

[David]

Day 11 + 12 

Okay so since I have been doing a cold showers for a while now, I decided to skip to day 12 and try working out in the morning. I had pretty bad headache in the morning tho, and it I felt super tired mabye I need to get used to it, I am not sure. Otherwise I would say I am pretty happy with how the things are going, I am still trying to get better at the time managment, I downloaded "TimeTune" so I can have schedule for whole day.

[Cam Adair]

Day 11 + 12 

Okay so since I have been doing a cold showers for a while now, I decided to skip to day 12 and try working out in the morning. I had pretty bad headache in the morning tho, and it I felt super tired mabye I need to get used to it, I am not sure. Otherwise I would say I am pretty happy with how the things are going, I am still trying to get better at the time managment, I downloaded "TimeTune" so I can have schedule for whole day.

Good job! How much water are you drinking? Headaches can come from that sometimes.

[David]

@Cam Adair I don´t really measure it but I think I drink enough. Especially when I feel like I am about to have a headache I ted to drink even more. I think I was just a bit sick yesterday. 

Day 13

So I did get rid some of the things I wrote on the list. On of the things was to reply to my "friend" who dumped on my birthday party for no real reason, and now was apologizing/making excuses. So now I am kinda trying to explain to him what it meant to me and other emotional stuff...  I also replied to one of my old friends who wanted to meet and I was kinda ignoring her for 1 year almost. I also did some of the more boring and annyoing stuff. Overall I feel really great and I will try to complete this list as fast as I can. I will also try to write it once a week and see if I have anything to complete hopefully it will get smaller as the weeks pass and I will be doing things asap.

I will also try to complete day 9 challenge which I still didn ´t try .

At last I would like to say that I feel really great for last few days, I know that I won´t feel like this forever but right now I am enjoying the moment. I am also trying to implement Slight Edge phylosophy more and more and it feels great. I also finally think that I understand this saying: It´s not about the destination, it´s about the journey. Don´t get me wrong I still think a lot about the future and I hope I will keep improving. But I am FINALLY feeling like I am also living and enjoying the present. I also realised that I am getting close to 90 days of not touching a single video game -> I am not planning to play again but it just feels great.

This is enough for today I think - Thank  you Cam :-)

[Cam Adair]

Happy to hear you're feeling good. One of the lessons you will learn as you continue with this journey is that how you feel is directly related to your mindset and the action that you take. That doesn't mean certain things won't happen in your life that you won't be stoked about, but you always have control over how you respond in those moments.