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My Journal - Alex


AlexTheGrape

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I could have spend my travel time a bit wiser; I did use some of it to plan the afternoon but spend a lot of time looking out the window.

Is contemplating beauty a waste of time? Let your mind wander on its own from time to time. It's like wiping the lens you use to focus. You can try some unguided meditation too.

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I could have spend my travel time a bit wiser; I did use some of it to plan the afternoon but spend a lot of time looking out the window.

Is contemplating beauty a waste of time? Let your mind wander on its own from time to time. It's like wiping the lens you use to focus. You can try some unguided meditation too.

Great post Tom!

I have forgotten to continue the 'no complaining' attempts, but I have unconsciously and consciously been reducing the amount I complain anyhow. I'll restart the counter.

Hey dude, one thing I just want to make sure I mention about this is that more than reaching the # of days, it's most important to just be building your awareness around complaining and shifting your energy to more positive talk in general. Just make sure you aren't getting hard on yourself about this, because to go even one day without complaining is a major accomplishment in today's world. :)

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Attempt II Day 9 - Part 1

It is very rainy today, but I'm out of the house anyway to complete the Game Quitters challenges that I missed doing whilst out camping.

GQ challenge day 6

I needed to try and get a discount for a coffee to experience rejection in a safe environment. I asked for a discount for a mochaccino not long ago for the day 6 challenge. It didn't feel too out of character for me since I'm a cheapskate, but I never ask for discounts, so it was a new experience nonetheless. It went something like this:

"That'll be $4.50"

"Do you think you could get me a discount?"

"Maybe. What for?"

"For being cool..."

"I'd love to but the manager is here. I can't do that today sorry."

"Ok thanks anyway."

The guy at the counter was very polite about it so I didn't get hit very hard with the feeling of rejection, but it was a good experience to get out of my comfort zone anyways. I realise I had many fears about bringing up such a topic, but this was a good experience to get me out there and know that rejection is not about me, just the action I take.

GQ challenge day 7

I needed to ask around for somebody to take a selfie with me holding up the sign shown in the photos below.

I didn't like the exposure to the potential to fail at first, but once I got in a failure in the task and then succeeded, I had a think about why the different outcomes occurred. I had a think about the point of the exercise, and concluded that the main reason the results were different was the urgency of each person's current task. Experiencing failure and the dread afterwards only lasted a few seconds this way.

I finished the task in a couple of minutes, but I wasn't satisfied with the exposure to failure I had experienced (being just once), so I decided to get photos with 5 people! The ratio of failure to success was about 3:1 which was rather good as I experienced a good deal of both 'sides of the coin', and even after rejection convinced some to take the photo with me. After failing some and succeeding some, it became a lot easier to just get on with the task quickly after rejection. The responses to my questions were very varied, but I found that if I explain what I'm trying to do after somebody says 'no' or something else similar, they'll be much more likely to comply (this got me 3 out of 5 of these selfies!). That's enough from me, here are the photos of me taking these selfies less than an hour ago in the rain! 

 

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Whoooww! Those challenges seem so perfect! I love that you felt you didn't challenge yourself enough and kept doing it. I'm sooo checking these out!

I got my sticker this week too! I've like kept it in my purse and I keep looking at it (with fondness just like your joy was over the letter and sticker!) Yet I cant decide where to put it. Have you placed it anywhere yet?

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Whoooww! Those challenges seem so perfect! I love that you felt you didn't challenge yourself enough and kept doing it. I'm sooo checking these out!

I got my sticker this week too! I've like kept it in my purse and I keep looking at it (with fondness just like your joy was over the letter and sticker!) Yet I cant decide where to put it. Have you placed it anywhere yet?

Thanks for keeping up with my journal! I will keep up with more of others once I reduce the time I spend writing my own posts (I probably have the longest average post of the whole community :/

I put mine on the back of my computer. It was the best place I could think of that it fits nicely, and others may ask about GQ this way.

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Of course, I can't read all of yours but I try to stop in when I have the time. My journaling is too long as well, trying to mitigate the length I go on personal tangents I'm not sure I need to elaborate on.  It's odd because it's a public journal, not "just for me", weird balance but also great because of the community.

Also the grateful section is hard for me to fill out on days where I've been depressed. 

Edited by Laney
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Also the grateful section is hard for me to fill out on days where I've been depressed. 

this is the most important time to do it, because it will help you shift out of it. To make it easy, think about things like how nice it is to have arms and legs, or being grateful for your depression, or how even though you feel shitty, at least you can feel something. That helps me. 

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Great job with the pictures, hahaha. Reminds me of the PUA training challenges I used to do back in the day. In retrospect, while the PUA community may be a place where you find a lot of crap, doing stuff like this actually works. 

I might pick up the GQ membership just for the challenges alone... need to save up, though. My pockets are extremely shallow as a college student :P

Edited by games_be_gone
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Thanks everyone for the support! I am very grateful for all the encouraging responses to my last challenge post.

Here is what I should have posted to finish off yesterday:

Attempt III Day 9 - Part 2

So for day 8 of the challenge, I needed to pay somebody I liked the look of a compliment. This was rated at 4/5 difficulty, but I thought 'I just need to pay somebody a single compliment. How hard can it be?' I was sorely mistaken.

So to start off I had to be a bit of a creep and look around for people that I liked the look of. The first person I found I followed into a store and started a conversation with them, but she must have picked up on the fact that I was following her and she avoided me outright. It took a minute for me to gather what factors at play influenced the outcome, but I needed to be 'open to any outcome and not attached to any'. Next I was a bit more wary and unconfident so didn't make another attempt for another few minutes. When I did, the response I received was mumbled, either out of shyness or being weirded out. I continued on my way and had a think about why what I was doing had the previous outcomes. I came to the conclusion that it IS weird for somebody to randomly comment on another's looks out of the blue, as I had never seen it happen before and it has never happened to me. Like earlier in the day, I wasn't satisfied with the outcome so I tried again, but I thought I'd try my own methods rather than the reccommended one that I tried earlier.. I saw a girl around my age working at an ice cream shop nearby, and so I bought an ice cream and asked about how many customers she had during the rainy day. That way it was not 'out of the blue' to give her a compliment on how she looked. The response I got was much better than before, she genuinely appreciated the compliment and went on to tell me about how she got her hair cut yesterday (I complimented about her hair). On that good note, I found that showing my appreciation was great for both my own happiness and the happiness of others.

A close friend that I haven't seen in a while came over in the afternoon, which was why I didn't post. It was relaxing catching up with him and playing a board game. I didn't get any of my daily habits done other than my morning ones (running, meditation, visualisation).

I will now change the layout of my journal for greater accountability to do all my daily habits, with a heading for each one. I will start this tomorrow, so please prod me over the forum if I forget!

3 Things I'm grateful for:

I am grateful for the challenge's tasks that push me outside my comfort zone.

I am grateful for the people that were willing to take a selfie with me.

I am grateful for the time to catch up with my friend after his holiday in the South Island.

One amazing thing that happened today:

One of the people that I took a selfie with today was hesitant to take a photo because they were "sorta busy". Regardless of the indecisive reply, I gave a short explanation of what I was doing, and he was then happy to take the photo with me. Afterwards he asked more about what the 'mission' was that I said I was doing and I told him about Game Quitters. He was glad to hear about GQ and that I was making the effort to get out of the house. I also had a very similar experience with another person I asked, and they were even more enthusiastic. These experiences make for the best experiences I had today because of the credibility that complete strangers encourage and were enthusiastic about what I'm doing, and they're not gamers!

What I did well today:

I did a great job of summing up the courage to talk to many complete strangers, including those that looked hostile or generally grumpy. It became easier the longer I was at it for, hopefully this ease I will retain if I continue pushing my comfort zone.

What I could have done to make my day better:

I could have tried even harder to connect with those who were hesitant, but I reckon I did a great job today.

What I will do differently tomorrow:

I will make sure to write my journal with the new layout I have been thinking of.

I will complete all daily habits I have planned.

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Attempt III Day 10

GQ Challenge Day 9:

So I planned on getting days 9 and 10 of the challenge finished to fully catch up. For day 9 I needed to record a video of myself dancing and upload it onto YouTube. I fussed around for what music to pick, so I just went with one that I liked the sound of in the end. Here is the link and I hope you enjoy my not-so-professional dancing! I was also reminded of how to do video editing through adjusting and editing the video to take out my most boring dancing and reducing its length to around 30 seconds. Here is the link to the video if you'd like to watch it: https://youtu.be/x1maw-IOvLc  please let me know if there are any issues with watching it, and I hope you enjoy the video.

For day 10 I need to sing karaoke... I am up for the challenge, but there aren't any local karaoke places I can see with google maps, so I will need to travel to Auckland city to complete this task. I'm not too keen on doing this all by myself, so perhaps I could bring a friend with me. In any case I'll plan it out tomorrow.

Today has been an uneventful one, but I am pleased because that means that everything has been good. I got up late last night and as a result got up late. I stayed in bed for longer than I should have, and because I skipped my morning run I was slow at getting ready for the day in general. As a result I wasted a lot of time that could have been used for other things.

I will write my post in the new format I was planning:

Meditation

Tick. I managed to do my daily meditation this morning.

Visualisation

Half tick. I tried to visualise a few different favourable scenarios but didn't feel them in my body very well. I will need to decide on a few set scenarios to visualise to make the feelings stronger. I give this a half tick because I forgot to visualise my business statement.

Running

Tick? I weasled out of my morning run, but made up for it with two afternoon runs. I noticed a lack of energy today because I skipped this run, so it is important that I do it tomorrow.

Guitar

Tick. I have now finished the guitar learning book I have been using and had a good time practicing the other songs I have gotten familiar with.

Programming

Big fat cross. I started out by loading up the web pages I would practice on, but I found other distractions, went for an afternoon run, and so on. I did not end up doing any programming today.

Thank you letter

Big fat cross. I 'didn't have time' to do it today, which really means that I didn't make time for it.

 

Reflection:

I did better than yesterday in terms of habits, and I should be able to complete all of them tomorrow. I am on the path to success, but I haven't taken many steps today in a metaphorical sense. I will make sure to use a timer for myself for many tasks that I do during the day to keep me on my toes, as 'work expands to fill the time available for its completion'. I will have a morning run whether I am tired or not. I didn't end up going to sleep earlier, so I need to do that tomorrow.

I will add 'one amazing thing that happened today' and '3 things i'm grateful for' in the morning. Thanks for reading so far down my post!

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90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 11

Challenge Day 11

Today the difficulty was ramped back down to start on the new topic of discipline. I needed to take a cold shower to improve my discipline. I had tried this about a month earlier, but I didn't have the right attitude. The attitude I've picked up on of "if I can't be uncomfortable for 5 minutes in a shower with nobody impacted by my decision other than me, how the hell am I supposed to make important decisions in real life?". Personally I love this attitude because I am a believer in discipline as an integral part of making good decisions, not just the rewards side of things. The shower was very refreshing, and I was surprisingly motivated to other dull activities. Not only will it solve this problem, but if I will continue having cold showers, I will never have a shower longer than 5 minutes again! (I will lose track of time if I don't use a timer, and even if I do I will want to stay in for longer). I accept the 30 day shower challenge, so I'll be adding 'cold shower' to my daily list of habits and in my journal.

Today has been wonderful! I enjoyed playing a full length song on my guitar and found it easy to play. I tried using different tones and more staccato with my voice, which made for a much more interesting performance. I have made good progress in programming today (for the first time in a while!) and generally got done what I wanted to, especially in terms of habits.

Meditation

I got my meditation in today, and I identified my current emotions, which I wouldn't normally do.

Visualisation

I got in some visualisation, but I will need to 'schedule' in a task for myself tomorrow to define a desired moment to visualise. I have forgotten to use music, as this has helped me in the past; I will use it tomorrow.

Running

I did well to run today, I didn't push myself too hard but I got out in the morning which is the main thing. I still used the 30-20-10 method which makes for a great workout.

Cold shower

I had a cold shower, and it was amazingly refreshing afterwards! Braving it out for the 5 minutes was worth it.

Guitar

I played at least 30 minutes of guitar, and I loved it! I think it may become a habitual fun activity I do when I'm bored, which would be hugely beneficial for my guitar playing skills!

Programming

I got some good programming done, but I could have done a lot better if I had a better focus environment. i.e. not listening to music, not texting other people.

Thank you letter

I haven't written one yet, but I will write one on paper. I will post about it tomorrow.

Reflection:

I reckon I have done well within my waking hours today, but I got up late due to staying up late again. Thankfully I have started writing this post early and can get to bed on time.

What I could have done to improve my day:

I could have not listened to music whilst programming today. I could have gotten up earlier.

What I will do differently tomorrow:

I will listen to music whilst visualising. I will make sure to be more efficient with my programming by removing distractions. I will get up much earlier.

3 Things I'm grateful for:

I am grateful for the guide provided of why a cold shower would be beneficial to me.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have a yummy lunch today.

I am grateful for the opportunity to meet new people tomorrow!

One amazing thing that happened today:

Today I played guitar with a lot of energy, and tried out using my voice differently. I enjoyed playing immensely today, I also started on a full length song which showed me I am making real progress (being a milestone).

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Morning Journal

So the challenge for day 12 was to do the 7-minute work out as part of my success routine. I already do exercise as part of my morning routine (a 20 minute run), but I added the 7-minute work out anyways because I need to exercise my whole body. It was pretty easy, and I will make sure to continue doing this into the future as well as the cold showers. My cold shower this morning was refreshing again, despite having to grit my teeth and having to get angry at the shower to get through it.

3 Things I'm grateful for:

I am grateful for having the freedom to run wherever I want.

I am grateful that I have been a lot more grateful recently, as others have visibly noticed it.

I am grateful for the simplified 7 minute workout so that I don't have to think about it.

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Interesting thought with the cold shower! I'm scared I wouldn't be able to do it, as I wake up at 5am for work when it's freezing..My reward is a warm shower :( but! I force myself to end the shower with cold water, and I've seen alertness improvements since then. My length is still very much longer than 5 minutes though. 

The dancing video is fantastic, good job on these challenges. :)  Also I do think it's more natural to say a greeting and then a compliment, but I have gotten very many positive responses from complimenting people out of the blue. It may be less creepy because I'm a chick? Hm.

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Interesting thought with the cold shower! I'm scared I wouldn't be able to do it, as I wake up at 5am for work when it's freezing..My reward is a warm shower :( but! I force myself to end the shower with cold water, and I've seen alertness improvements since then. My length is still very much longer than 5 minutes though. 

The dancing video is fantastic, good job on these challenges. :)  Also I do think it's more natural to say a greeting and then a compliment, but I have gotten very many positive responses from complimenting people out of the blue. It may be less creepy because I'm a chick? Hm.

Well after a run in the morning, I am very hot so the cold shower is quite rewarding for the first few seconds. If you don't do exercise in the morning then I suppose that a cold shower might not be for you (assuming you're not trying to build discipline).

Thanks for the compliment on the dance video, I really don't deserve praise for it though as I reckon I am a pretty boring dancer. :P

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90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 12

Today I went ice skating with a older friend of mine and her other friends (who I didn't know already). I pushed myself to do this to expose myself to opportunities to meet new people and all that jazz. I reckon I did well to start off with, but trying to connect meaningfully with couples is difficult and I ended up feeling left out a lot of the time. Regardless it was good for my social skills to get out there and hopefully I can learn from how I did today.

I signed up for some penpals so I will have fun learning about people in different countries and also be personally accountable not just on the GQ forums.

So today for the challenge

Meditation

I did my meditation today.

Visualisation

I forgot to do visualisation.

Running

I got in a good run  of 22 minutes(just assume I use the 30-20-10 method from now on as it has become a habit), nuff said.

7 Minute workout

As I mentioned in my morning journal, the 7 minute workout helped me keep things simple and speedy. I will continue this into the future, doing it after my morning run.

Cold shower

Done. I felt ready for the day.

Guitar practice.

Done.

Programming

I didn't give myself enough time to program today and so made a short, sloppy effort.

Thank you letter

I didn't make time for this today, I ended up getting caught in the 'just one more video' cycle and spent about a whole hour on youtube.

 

I'll cut it short as one of the things I wanted to get done was sleep earlier. I will do that now.

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Hey Alex, great energy! Props for your first full song!

Music while working: try ambient. Or anything instrumental if it doesn't distract you too much. Of course silence is great. If you just want to drown out outside noise try white noise (although I prefer pink noise as I find it masks voices better).

Cold shower: relax your body as much as you can. That way you blood will flow freely and your body temperature will self-regulate much better.

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Thanks @Tom, I appreciate the support!

I must admit that the full song didn't have any words to it, but yeah it was full length.

I would normally just have silence as it would help with concentration, but since it's the holidays I've been a bit lenient on how I do any activity that I wouldn't normally do in the holidays.

I might try relaxing when taking my cold shower tomorrow, but I have found that getting angry helps me to tolerate being uncomfortable and embracing the cold. I'll try relaxing anyways as I haven't done that before!

Thanks again for taking the time to read my post!

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Just a quick entry as I forgot to post yesterday.

I completed pretty much all the daily habits I am pushing myself to to, including jquery programming. I forgot to do my challenge yesterday as I have been spending too long writing emails to my new penpals. I have now made my 'one-off to-do' list and have started tackling it. I am passing on the 40 minute meditation today to tomorrow to do.

I have been having fun at a beach today and have been spending time with my grandparents. The rest of my time has been drained by talking to penpals (I have difficulty just saying 'no' when they ask me, so I just say hi and get to know them). I am a bit of a suck up so that is something I'll need to work on.

I'll write a full post tomorrow, I promise!

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90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 15

I completed the 45 minute meditation this afternoon as part of the Day 14 challenge, and it was like a self-brainwash! I felt so calm afterwards that I couldn't even recall what was making me stressed right before the meditation, as I had convinced myself to 'blow out my worries' with each breath. I will definitely keep such meditation under my belt for future use if I am overly stressed and don't have much to do on my hands.

I'll get started on day 15 challenge tomorrow as I've been busy with programming and other things today, plus I wasn't comfortable with diving straight into identifying my fears. I know this is a really important step for me, so I'll just get to it as soon as possible.

Meditation

Done

Visualisation

Done, it felt better than normal now that I have a couple of specific scenarios in mind that I have practiced visualising.

Running

I ran during the middle of the day, but I need to make sure I do it in the morning tomorrow.

7 Minute workout

I didn't do my morning run so also didn't do the workout as it is a sequential task.

Cold shower

Again, I weasled out of this one because I hadn't done the tasks I would normally do sequentially before it.

Guitar

No, I didn't make time for it.

Programming

I had a super long session this afternoon to help tackle down the big task of implementing jquery into my website within about a week.

Thank you letter

I am in the process of writing one, so that counts as done by the time you read this.

Reflection:

I reckon I could have done better today to get all my habits done, and to do so I need to start snail-mailing my penpals as emailing them is taking a large chunk of my time away due to the need to reply consistently (whereas I will need to wait weeks for a reply through international mail services).

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90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 16

Today has been wonderful in many ways, I got most of my daily habits done, I spend a lot of time emailing penpals (I won't be doing that too much anymore as we'll be moving on to 'snail-mail'), but I spent a lot of time inside :/

The day 16 challenge was to record my voice reading out my first journal entry, then make adjustments to improve how I use my tone. This was pretty easy and I was successful at using a more authoritative and commanding voice to make my conversation more interesting and portray a higher self-esteem. In addition I got my day 15 challenge out of the way by listing my fears and writing the steps I need to take to overcome them. I will be going on an outing in the next few days to do this. Furthermore, I finally organised a karaoke night with some friends of mine, but we'll have to do it somewhere around the 30th of January or later because one of them is in Raratonga and another is in Mongolia right now.

I will be adding 'reading' to my list of daily habits as I have slackened off recently.

Meditation

Done. 

Visualisation

Done, it is getting easier now that I am using a set of desired outcomes I am visualising.

Morning run

Done, even though it was hot in the morning I tanked it out and felt much better after the cold shower

Cold shower

Done, I felt much more alert and ready for the day.

Guitar

Done, and I started practicing a new song.

Programming

I did my Jquery stuff but didn't get through much content today as I ran into a lot of problems.

Thank you letter

It was included in one of my penpal emails sent today, so that's done.

Reading

I didn't read today, I need to get to bed earlier to make the time for it.

Reflection:

I have had a generally good day today and have made progress on my positive habits, but still wasn't 100%. I will do better tomorrow!

3 Things I'm grateful for:

I am grateful for the opportunity to talk to people around the world and share our experiences.

I am grateful for the GQ challenge for getting me out of my comfort zone to in turn expand my comfort zone.

I am grateful for the support I am now receiving from my family for my new lifestyle

One amazing thing that happened today:

organising a day out with my friends was a buzz as I now have the hope and motivation to sing my heart, something I've only ever done once before!

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Here is a quick post for yesterday:

90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 17

So for today in the challenge I needed to talk to three new people and say hi, but bait them for conversation. This was the first time I skipped one of the steps (I forgot to read the challenge in the morning and was running out of time to complete the challenge when I did read it), and so I didn't brainstorm some ideas of what to bait conversations with. This ended badly for me because when I got out go know people, my autopilot just went ahead and I ended up asking questions to further the conversation. This wasn't bad in any respect because I got to know people, but it didn't complete the challenge. 

Today I completed most of my daily habits including the 7-minute workout this time, but i forgot to play guitar and I didn't make time for jquery. A lot of my time has been sucked up by emailing my penpals, but I started telling them I need to slow down with my replies and moving on to snail-mail, so hopefully I will have more time to spend improving myself in the near future.

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90 Day Detox Attempt III Day 18

Today was a wonderful Sunday where I spent some quality time with my dad by biking into and around the city on some new biking paths, we were out for 5 hours! I also spent some great time playing card games (and some cards against humanity :3 ) with my step-brother and a few of his friends for a few hours. So it was a very enjoyable day, but I haven't worked on my guitar skills (again :/ ) and I may have left out another habit.

I'm not going to explain any excuses for not doing the challenge today, I will just bare the shame and make sure to do the day 17 challenge and possibly the day 18 challenge if I manage to reflect on the day 17 one first.

I don't need to continue jquery practice anymore as I now know the basics, so I will be happy to dive back into python programming!

Meditation

Done. I tried to do it unguided, but my focus wandered away from the breath and didn't end up in being a very good meditation. I will go back to guided sessions tomorrow.

Visualisation

I forgot to do my visualisation this morning.

Morning run

Yes, I did my morning run but didn't do the 30-20-10 technique this time.

7 minute workout

Completed.

Cold shower

Completed.

Guitar practice

I didn't make time for it today.

Programming

I stopped jquery but didn't think to start python programming again.

Thank you letter

Sort of done, I wrote an apology letter but I also was very thankful in one of my penpal emails. Tomorrow I will write a proper card, extra shame on me if I don't!

Reading

I'm about to go into bed and read, so consider that done.

Reflection

have made good use of my time to enjoy myself today, but I have had a wake-up call in terms of my challenge commitment and time usage.

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