Tim's Weekly Journal

[Guest]

Journal Week 1

 

Hi guys,

 

I'm Tim, 26 years old from Germany and want to quit gaming once and for all (I had previous attempts). I decided for this journal to write down what is currently going on in my head, every monday for at least 15 weeks.

 

Dark Thoughts:

I was unable to play video games from 2010-2013. During that time i became obsessed with MagicTheGathering and a Pen and Paper role playing game, spending 5-7 hours a day on these games. So i fear that even when i quit video games, i will search another gaming outlet as happened before. It's also hard to lose that self identification as a gamer, i always was a gamer. What am i now?

 

Light Thoughts:

During the aforementioned time from 2010-2013 i was suffering from an anxiety disorder related to electronic screens (pc-monitor, smartphones, TV). The disorder was triggered by a bad drug trip and the events that unfolded afterwards. In the worst year, i literally was not able to look at a screen for even 1 second because of my anxiety (yes i went for about 1 years of my life without watching a single screen for more than 1 second: AMA). I beat that disorder and it was by far the biggest obstacle i ever overcame in my life. This makes me confident in my ability to quit gaming, it can't be harder than that.

 

Dreams:

I'm producing music and got a release coming up, 4 electronic music tracks on a German label. Very exciting already but i want to get better. Gaming has always interfered with my music, now i want to work on becoming a better musician.

 

That's it for this week, thank you for reading.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2016 by Guest

[WorkInProgress]

Welcome to the forum,

In my opinion you need to identify the needs which gaming full fills for you? Is it the social activity, the challenge , the competition? You can't totally neglect this needs but you can fill them purposefully with things that energizes you and aren't addictive to you.

[Falky]

Welcome friend

I understand your anxiety, I had agoraphobia so i understand your struggle to a degree. Considering you've overcome that obstacle in your life, use that big WIN to launch yourself onto other things.

I used my own anxiety accomplishment to launch myself into a game detox, im doing fantastic in this now im on day 49 and feeling awesome. Now im kind of in a snowball effect with my personal win's and im now smashing my fat loss  Its all a mind game!

That's great you're into your music, focus on that and become the best you can be! Create lots of goals and smash those goals

Then when you aren't playing your music...perhaps take up another language or learn the English language more in-depth? (this is taking into account your native language is German)

All the best and stay strong

 

[Cam Adair]

Hey! Welcome to the forum it's awesome to have you join us here. 

[Mad Pharmacist]

Hello neighbour!

I'm from Poland, so we're at least at the same time zone!

If you're interested to speak in your native language let me know!

You did a great job to overcome your screen anxiety. If you did it, then you'll also beat the video games. It's just another challenge in your life. Sounds tough, but what life would be without challenges?

[Florian]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 

Did you feel your life quality went up when you did not look at screens, or were screens just something you needed to avoid, and the rest of your life stayed more or less the same?

[Mad Pharmacist]

Well, I had that attitude to avoid screens as much as possible. That's the reason why I once decided to quit using Internet for over a month.

But nowadays it's almost impossible to function without them. We need it to check many necessary things.

However I really like to have day off, at least once a week. Especially to spent time alone with a nature. That's seriously reassuring for me.

[Guest]

Thanks for all the responses guys. Ill respond here and share my experience this week in a separate post.

@WorkInProgress: It was mostly about competition. I was not allowing myself to play other games than dota because I wanted to get better at it (playing other games i therefore considered a waste of time)

@Falky: I'm definitely using that snowball effect too as I'll describe in the post.

@Florian+hycniejsy: I can't say my quality of life went up when avoiding screen. One of the things you'll hear the most is that modern technology makes you unable to focus on something for a long time or go without constant stimulus (reading short vs long texts is a constant discussion). My general focus, concentration and need for stimuli stayed pretty much the same after the long span of screen avoidance. So either it's already so hardwired into my brain I can't get rid of it or it's a myth. Of course if you have loud notifications on your smartphone your concentration will break by hearing them, but if you mute it I dont think there is an overall concentration decline when using smartphones.

Whats interesting is that society already heavily relies screens, and my life got significantly more challenging. You can still get some stuff done without, but communication gets way harder (not so much with old friends, but its way harder to connect with new people) and I had trouble with getting necessary documents for my university and stuff like passports.

 

Edited April 25, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

Journal Week 2

Alright time for a summary after 7 days (I cant believe its been only 1 week, feels like a month already):

Life is amazing.

When I previously quit video games I made no real plan of things to do to fill the void. This time I did but I didn't even use it so far, for 2 main reasons.
1: A great boon for me is that, aside from gaming, I've always had a second big passion in music. I always produced a ton of music when i broke with gaming, and this time it's even better because I have a foothold in the industry and can actually release tracks. This motivates even more to produce new songs, because I know there is some interest in it, and it might get released/published.
2: I read a lot now and one book I just finished 3 days ago had a big impact on me "Models: Attract women through honesty". It's not the usual PUA material some of you might be familiar with but it instead takes a similar approach to Cam, in that it encourages you to build a good lifestyle, get confident, honest and break with bad habits. I always hated the fake PUA strategies, but at the same time struggled with women, so this book deeply resonated with me. So now I'm busy working on myself and trying out different activities like working out, meetups.com,etc. 

 

It feels very early to say but I don't think I'll have a relapse ever again. For times when I might be tempted I have prepared a list I wrote down 1 day before before i quit. It describes my happiness for different parts of my life on a 1-10 scale. My average that day was a 3.5/10. I rated myself today and my average was at a 8/10.

In one fucking week.

 

______________________________________________________

Ressources I used to quit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TX-Nu5wTS8 (TedX talk on breaking habits long time, not just the usual 2 days from a willpower surge)
http://www.amazon.com/Models-Attract-Women-Through-Honesty/dp/1463750358 (The Book I mentioned)
http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339 (While poorly written, this book has a very powerful idea. The character type discussed in this book will not apply to everyone here, so don't blindly buy it)

Edited April 25, 2016 by Guest

[Mad Pharmacist]

Great work Tim! Keep doing like that! I've just achieved first week of being game free too!

Btw. believe me or not, but PUA (The Pick Up Artist) is delusion. That's because people in this movement have only one goal: to sleep with as many women as possible as fast as possible. If you want to do the same and fight with created by them "shit tests", then it's a path for you.

If you want to create a happy lifelong relationship instead, I can recommend for you Doctor Love for the start.

[Guest]

As I said I don't really like PUA because most of the time the philosophy behind it is very outcome dependent. I also am not looking for a lifelong relationship just now, so I'm focusing on building the life I want to live, while getting more confident and be naturally more attractive that way.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Guest

[WorkInProgress]

Loved Models, Mark Manson bashes The PUA-Coaches all the time in this book

[SpiNips]

Just finished Models too! I love the content and the way Manson writes

[Guest]

Your post motivated me for some reason.

Edited April 25, 2016 by Guest

[Cam Adair]

Big fan of both Models and No More Mr. Nice Guy. These aren't PUA books, they are the books that will help you be a more confident attractive man.

[Florian]

@Florian+hycniejsy: One of the things you'll hear the most is that modern technology makes you unable to focus on something for a long time or go without constant stimulus (reading short vs long texts is a constant discussion). My general focus, concentration and need for stimuli stayed pretty much the same after the long span of screen avoidance. So either it's already so hardwired into my brain I can't get rid of it or it's a myth.

I think it's a myth. Gary Vaynerchuk once recalled how he built his business up by using Twitter to reach out to potential customers: 15 hours a day. You have to define a specific outcome and the steps to get there, then distraction should not easily happen.

For example, I don't get distracted when making my coffee in the morning. I know how the end product looks like (coffee in a mug), I know the steps to do: coffee into the filter, water into the machine, switch the "on" button - now it's only a matter of directly executing them. If I don't know what to do, I would have numerous sources of distraction: looking for a suitable filter, mulling over whether I should take a tea spoon or table spoon to measure the coffee, worrying if the coffee machine needs to be wiped beforehand etc.

Define the steps you need to take, and you will not suffer distraction anywhere.

[WorkInProgress]

I don't think it depends on screen time. But if the distraction( check your emails/check reddit/check gaming forum) gets the norm to avoid your work, you train your brain in a way that focus on one task is unimportant. If you are deliberate with your screen time there is no reason why it should cripple your ability to focus

[Guest]

Journal Week 3

 

Another week of not gaming, another week of productivity.

This week I've been very working hard on becoming a better musician, it's a real deep drive and motivation I have never experienced during my gaming days. I always saw myself as an inherently lazy guy, but last week especially I discovered how many hours I can put into something when I really want it. I had a desire to be one of the top Dota2 players, but it wasn't that strong and deep.

I'm kind of sad about all the hours I dumped into gaming, and while I try not to dwell on it too much, it is a good regret to have for controlling cravings.

In the last 2 days I've made some great new contacts, including 1 musician with whom I'll collaborate in the near future, and a girl doing social media marketing, who wants to help me out with my online presence.

During the next 7 days I want to focus on improving my confidence. As mentioned previously I read 2 books so I've got the knowledge, now I need to get active and apply it.
If someone has similar goals (for example read "No more Mr nice Guy" or "Models") I'd be happy to share experiences via whatsapp or whatever medium, so thatwe can reinforce each other.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Guest

[Cam Adair]

Great work on another good week. Maybe try posting a thread in the accountability partners subforum and I bet you'll find someone. I know a few other members were talking about reading that book.

[Guest]

Journal Week 4

 

Last Tuesday I contemplated going to something called "the coaching club" a meeting organized by meetup.com. I had some fears about going there, because I didn't know anyone there. Now also this is exactly the reason why I wanted to go there in the first place, confront fears, so in the end I went and did it.
1 hour after the meeting started we had to choose a partner, there was an attractive girl to my left so I thought "well I'm here to face fears right" and asked here. In the following conversation I told her honestly about why i'm here, why I asked her, and all that stuff about facing fears. She was really impressed and after the meetup I went up to her and we talked again and she asked me if I had facebook.

After that 2,5h meeting and facing so many uncomfortable things I was the happiest and most confident person I've been in years.

The next day I was at a birthday party, and still felt more confident from the day before. After a while I was acting kind of awkward around my best female friend, because I was trying too hard not to be awkward. After that conversation some unpleasant self doubt kicked, but only some minutes later she hugged and kissed me (in a non-romantic way) and told me that I'm great. Maybe she noticed my feelings, and I'm so grateful that she accepts me for who I am.

Despite reading more than one time about how others will "accept me with my flaws" and saying that sentence in different wordings to myself, I still have a road in front of me to really embrace my errors and imperfections. Maybe I'm trying to much not to be awkward right now, instead of embracing it.

 

I'm thankful for this community and love my new life. It feels like nothing really drags me down right now, all I see is obstacles that I will overcome.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Guest

[Cam Adair]

Journal Week 4

 

Last Tuesday I contemplated going to something called "the coaching club" a meeting organized by meetup.com. I had some fears about going there, because I didn't know anyone there. Now also this is exactly the reason why I wanted to go there in the first place, confront fears, so in the end I went and did it.
1 hour after the meeting started we had to choose a partner, there was an attractive girl to my left so I thought "well I'm here to face fears right" and asked here. In the following conversation I told her honestly about why i'm here, why I asked her, and all that stuff about facing fears. She was really impressed and after the meetup I went up to her and we talked again and she asked me if I had facebook.

After that 2,5h meeting and facing so many uncomfortable things I was the happiest and most confident person I've been in years.

The next day I was at a birthday party, and still felt more confident from the day before. After a while I was acting kind of awkward around my best female friend, because I was trying too hard not to be awkward. After that conversation some unpleasant self doubt kicked, but only some minutes later she hugged and kissed me (in a non-romantic way) and told me that I'm great. Maybe she noticed my feelings, and I'm so grateful that she accepts me for who I am.

Despite reading more than one time about how others will "accept me with my flaws" and saying that sentence in different wordings to myself, I still have a road in front of me to really embrace my errors and imperfections. Maybe I'm thinking trying to much not to be awkward right now, instead of embracing it.

 

I'm thankful for this community and love my new life. It feels like nothing really drags me down right now, all I see is obstacles that I will overcome.

Great post man! I bet @kortheo has some good thoughts on this one.

Have you read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown yet? If not, that will be a great book for you right now based on what you've shared.

[Guest]

I actually had that on my wishlist on goodreads.com and bought it now. Will finish the slight edge before that though. Thanks for the tip.

[Cam Adair]

I actually had that on my wishlist on goodreads.com and bought it now. Will finish the slight edge before that though. Thanks for the tip.

@SpiNips is also reading it (again). Maybe you two can share some notes.

[Guest]

Journal Week 5

 

It's been a busy one.

I don't know if I'm just lucky right now, or what it is, but I managed to fill every day of the week with at least 1 social activity. Working from home,  I don't have to leave the house every day, so I'm grateful for all these opportunities and hope (and do my best to ensure) that this week will be packed too.

Tues: Sunbathing  and swimming at a lake
Wed: Cooking with friends
Thurs: Helping somebody move, musician meetup, board game evening
Friday: Local carnival, friends party
Saturday: Barbecue at friends house
Sunday: Friends Birthday, carnival again
Monday: Eating sushi, playing snooker

I hope that I'll get more socially confident with all this and get to know new people.  Especially because I consider cutting out 1-2 old friendships of mine, I don't really connect to these friends any longer, but held on to them previously because I encountered so few new people, it was difficult to replace them. These connections aren't actually gamer friends, those I already have either cut off, or in one other case (a very important friend of mine), told him that I was quitting and see him for other things now.

My conversations are already getting more interesting, as I took the advice from "Models" by Mark Manson and shared my feelings, thoughts and vulnerabilities more openly. This created 2 deep and engaging conversations at the party on Friday. After I initially felt down and self-conscious before arriving at the party, this made me leave happy.

That's it for this week, thanks for reading.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Guest

[Cam Adair]

Way to go Tim! Your effort is paying off