Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

Jay's Epic Journey


seriousjay

Recommended Posts

Thank you for keeping your journal up even if you gaem in moderation now. It is really interesting too see how it goes for you. Sadly moderation won't work for me. Gaming jsut deletes all awareness out of my mind. As i tried to watch gaming video's kind of regulary to train myself for moderation. I ended up watching things for over 4 hours aday and if i didn't stop it it, it would slowly expanded further. With gaming this process goes way faster.

Doesn't mean in anyway this won't work for you though. Reading and Meditationa are two things wich helped a lot to get the right mindset. It is kind of exciting to learn how you get better at living. At implementing this thing consistency is the key.

Greetings thanks for the interesting study distraction :D

So that's all I am now, huh? A distraction? :P

Yeah, absolutely KEY to this whole thing will be awareness of how much time I'm spending in games, but also the REASONS I am gaming and the reasons I am doing things outside of gaming. For example, instead of playing games yesterday I ended up watching my favorite baseball team play their second game. I'm not sure if that really is much better. You probably don't get the same kind of rush from it (and I'm certainly *not* addicted to watching baseball), but it still feels like a time waster. That being said, I still haven't quite figured out alternate activities yet so it really comes down to what I would do with that time.

I'm not one of those people who can meditate for hours on end or read for hours a day. Not yet at least. Perhaps implementing my idea of watching Cam's videos should be done sooner rather than later. It'll at least fill some time with a useful activity.

One thing my accountability partner asked me last call was if my activities outside games while I was gaming felt like a waste of time because I wasn't gaming. I will need to be very aware of that. If it starts moving in that direction, again, that will be a trigger to re-evaluate my strategy here. I'm not worried about it happening once or twice, but if it is consistent, then it needs to be addressed.

Edited by jaylajkosz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relapse, Day 4 (probably should call this something else at this point)

My morning and work day were actually quite good. My morning meditation wasn't perfect, but it likely set my day up to be pretty good. After work I went to a chiropractic session which put me in a foul mood due to having to take 1 and a half hours to do what amounted to 5 minutes of actually seeing the doctor. As a result, my afternoon meditation and reading (which I haven't quite finished yet) didn't go so well. I didn't end up gaming today either, largely by choice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relapse, Day 4 (probably should call this something else at this point)

My morning and work day were actually quite good. My morning meditation wasn't perfect, but it likely set my day up to be pretty good. After work I went to a chiropractic session which put me in a foul mood due to having to take 1 and a half hours to do what amounted to 5 minutes of actually seeing the doctor. As a result, my afternoon meditation and reading (which I haven't quite finished yet) didn't go so well. I didn't end up gaming today either, largely by choice.

What if going to the chiropractor didn't have to put you in a foul mood? Next time, try just enjoying the whole process. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relapse, Day 4 (probably should call this something else at this point)

You could just take the date as title aslong you don't track a streak.

My morning and work day were actually quite good. My morning meditation wasn't perfect,

The "bad" meditations are the important ones. If it is hard for you to fokus you let your brain to refokus more often, thus the training effect is stronger. "Bad" meditations are the ones wich give you the fastest results in the rest of your life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Relapse, Day 4 (probably should call this something else at this point)

My morning and work day were actually quite good. My morning meditation wasn't perfect, but it likely set my day up to be pretty good. After work I went to a chiropractic session which put me in a foul mood due to having to take 1 and a half hours to do what amounted to 5 minutes of actually seeing the doctor. As a result, my afternoon meditation and reading (which I haven't quite finished yet) didn't go so well. I didn't end up gaming today either, largely by choice.

What if going to the chiropractor didn't have to put you in a foul mood? Next time, try just enjoying the whole process. :)

It's a fair point, though it's worth noting that I usually have to drive 2 minutes away to visit him. It wasn't going to happen yesterday because he wasn't available at that location. Perhaps I should just be grateful that I can see him close to my home at all. Going to the chiropractor itself didn't do anything, it was just the length of time it took as well as the fact that there was heavy traffic on the way home.

Relapse, Day 4 (probably should call this something else at this point)

You could just take the date as title aslong you don't track a streak.

My morning and work day were actually quite good. My morning meditation wasn't perfect,

The "bad" meditations are the important ones. If it is hard for you to fokus you let your brain to refokus more often, thus the training effect is stronger. "Bad" meditations are the ones wich give you the fastest results in the rest of your life.

Hmm, interesting observation. I also believe that doing things you've committed to when you're not feeling up to it are the most important times to get those things done.. those are the times that show your true character. It's easy to do things when you're feeling good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 5

Morning went pretty well, despite waking up a little late. My morning meditation felt quite good overall. Work however was a bit of a struggle today. I was really under pressure in the morning because I needed to get a lot of things done in a short period of time and I found that very draining mentally. It got a bit easier as the day went on but the morning definitely took its toll. Eventually I developed a bad headache which I am still feeling the effects of right now.

I haven't done my afternoon reading yet but my afternoon meditation again didn't go so well. It wasn't even that I was distracted much, I just had a really hard time focusing on it and was really anticipating it ending as I got close to the end of it. I imagine this will get better over time as long as I stay consistent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 6

A bit of a trying day. Work was really exhausting and I didn't really feel like doing much when I got home. However, I did both my morning and afternoon meditations and reading, and ended up gaming for a couple of hours. Not much else to say.

Day 7

Things actually went pretty well. Morning meditation was a bit worrisome as I started to feel something like a panic attack or something towards the end of it (mostly due to thoughts of work for some reason), but otherwise the day went pretty well. My afternoon meditation might have been the best one so far since I started them up again so that was awesome. Ended up gaming again for a few hours as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man your nailing the meditations! It's normal that some feelings can come up. Better at meditation then at work.

Yeah it's slowly starting to get better. Actually I just finished my morning meditation today and it went amazingly.

I don't really expect amazing progress day-to-day. I prefer to look at things over a long period of time and seeing the overall progress. It can get very frustrating if you're expecting to see a lot happen day-to-day. That's just not how it works.. except in video games. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work keeping up with your meditations!

Thanks Cam! It's getting better and better as the days go by. :)

Day 8

Quite an unproductive day but I felt I needed a day to unwind and relax as my work week was quite exhausting, particularly Tuesday-Thursday. I did my morning meditation but I ended up gaming most of the rest of the day and missed my afternoon meditation and reading. I intend to make it up today (Sunday).

I also had my weekly chat with my accountability partner which went quite well. I felt up to this point it's been one sided so I'm going to make a conscious effort to try to make things useful for both of us. These chats by the way have been very, very good and helpful for sure.

Day 9

My morning meditation went quite well. It's getting better as the days go by for sure.

One thing I became acutely aware of as I was gaming today (ended up gaming for about 4 hours or so today so far) is that I'm just going to end up bored again once I finish with this game. During my chat yesterday with my accountability partner, I challenged him to come up with a mentally engaging activity that he genuinely enjoys and can do without feeling an obligation towards anything in the process of doing it. I am taking up this challenge for myself as well as I know I'll need to do other things once the gaming is over.

During my make up afternoon meditation, I decided to do a session on creativity. Directly before that, I was trying to come up with things to do as an alternative to gaming. I came up with a four item list: writing, learning a new language, knitting, or learning to play an instrument. As I was doing my meditation, I felt very strongly about writing (and indeed, this is the activity that's come up the most for me when thinking about things I am interested in), so I will attempt to do some fiction writing.

Part of the reason I haven't really started it yet is because I have these crazy ideas about how I should try to do a novel or something right away, but that's just absurd. There's no reason why I can't write up some very simple short stories just to start with, or even something as simple as poetry. Just to start with and get the creative juices flowing. So, one of my goals by the next Saturday is to have written a story that's maybe 2-4 pages long. I might even end up sharing it with you guys.. heh.

Two other major goals for next Saturday:

- go on at least one hike during the week
- go to the gym and restart my membership, with the intention of starting to go to the gym again at least once a week within the next few weeks

Now I'm off to do my make up reading.
Ā 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 10

Not a particularly great day I think. I missed my morning meditation due to sleeping in, although it wasn't because I didn't get enough sleep. I woke up, turned off my alarm and decided to lay down for a couple more minutes. I'm not sure why I do this as I always end up falling asleep again and not waking up for another 30 minutes to an hour.

Work ended up being rather exhausting as well as it was quite busy. I'm not too sure what I can do to make the experience a little easier on me. There's a lot of labour both physical and mental, so it's quite taxing. Then I got home with a rather bad migraine. I didn't end up doing my afternoon meditation or reading until just now, and I gamed for a couple of hours.

Pretty meh all around.

I did become quite aware of the fact, however, that my gaming really isn't getting me to where I want to go. It's little more than a stop gap until I start filling that time with more meaningful activities. I have noticed however that even while gaming, I am getting better at consciously keeping myself emotionally distant from the games. I think this is a positive step, but it is also creating an effect where the game is starting to seem quite dull.. this is probably a good thing though.

Also, I told my accountability partner that I was going to try to quit caffeine again this week, but I don't think that's going to happen. It looks like it's going to be a rather busy week and I do not want to go through a day of withdrawal during work. I'll try to cut it again around Thursday this week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Day 11

Despite slightly sleeping in yet again, I managed to get my morning meditation in which compared to yesterday, I believe set me up for a pretty good work day. I went into work with a very positive mood and managed to mostly keep it throughout the day.

My afternoon meditation and reading also went fine, but I think I need to start expanding out from here to other things. It's starting to get a little stale. I haven't gotten my intended writing past the planning stage - that is likely what I will work on tomorrow evening.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok so let's try this again..

I've decided to give the 90 day detox another shot. Let's see how it goes this time! I think as time goes on I'm feeling more and more confident about it. I've been very intentional about ensuring I'm only allowing positive thoughts and feelings to occupy my mind and I've also made it a point very recently to be very aware of when negative things arise and stopping them in their tracks. I think this has been very beneficial for me to this point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok so let's try this again..

I've decided to give the 90 day detox another shot. Let's see how it goes this time! I think as time goes on I'm feeling more and more confident about it. I've been very intentional about ensuring I'm only allowing positive thoughts and feelings to occupy my mind and I've also made it a point very recently to be very aware of when negative things arise and stopping them in their tracks. I think this has been very beneficial for me to this point.

Welcome back :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok so let's try this again..

I've decided to give the 90 day detox another shot. Let's see how it goes this time! I think as time goes on I'm feeling more and more confident about it. I've been very intentional about ensuring I'm only allowing positive thoughts and feelings to occupy my mind and I've also made it a point very recently to be very aware of when negative things arise and stopping them in their tracks. I think this has been very beneficial for me to this point.

Welcome back :)

Thanks! :D

Day 2

Still having trouble finding motivation to do much of anything except just mindlessly browsing the internet. I have committed to catching up with a friend on Wednesday so that should be fun, but aside from that I don't know what I'm going to do in the near future. For some reason I just have such a hard time getting started on anything new.

Anyways, tomorrow morning I intend to get started on my meditations once again. I also think I'm going to try reading one of the books I have on habits and see if maybe I can find something in there to jump start new routines for myself for the future.

Changing For Good
In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts
The Power of Habit
The Willpower Instinct

All seem good.

EDIT: Started reading "Changing For Good". It seems like it should be really useful as it actually explains how the process of change works and it appears to be a book about guiding people to making meaningful changes in their lives. If it can help me kick my fast food habit, that would be a tremendous victory.

Edited by jaylajkosz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

OK so my accountability partner suggested I should keep posting here even if I'm still gaming and I think that's a good idea. Just to get a sense of my progress and I also mentioned to him that you never know when some awesome tidbit of wisdom can come up that gives you that push you need to get going.

I have also started to re-read my journal as well just to get a sense of where this has gone so far and the reasons why I wanted to quit games in the first place. I am honestly amazed it hasn't even been a year yet.. not even close! Seems like it's been forever.

I finally got around to reading your journal!Ā  I would like to offer a belated welcome to you.Ā  I try to read every post on the site, but it takes me quite a while.Ā  In your first entry, you said that we can bombard your inbox with messages, and I want you to know that you can do the same to me.Ā  I will answer any PMs before I get to reading other posts.

As for education, I would like to suggest taking a class or two at a community college if you have the time to do it.Ā  That is where I found out that I really wanted to study architecture.Ā  I was just taking interesting sounding classes until I took a history of architecture class and just kept going!Ā  I don't know if I will ever pursue a career in architecture (I probably will), but it is my dream to get my degree.Ā  I enjoy learning all about it!

You know what, this is something that I've thought about lately. Instead of going straight to full blown full time school, to go for some night classes to see if something is a good fit for me. I am going to enroll in a publication course that starts in September to see if fictional writing is something I can turn into a career.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome back :)

Yes sir! :D

I just read something somewhat interesting. I won't even bother trying to paraphrase:

A few weeks ago, I was at a venture capital dinner with a bunch of CEOs. As we went around the table introducing ourselves, they told us to say:

  • Our name
  • Our company
  • If we werenā€™t at the dinner, where we would be

Common answers were: ā€œIā€™d be with my newborn,ā€ ā€œIā€™d be working more,ā€ or ā€œIā€™d be at the gym.ā€ My answer was that Iā€™d be at a new hot-sauce shop in Brooklyn.

When I finished my introduction, the woman next to me spoke up. She told us that she ran a company in NYC, and if she werenā€™t here, sheā€™d be trying to cook.

ā€œIā€™ve lived in New York for 10 years and I never, ever cook. So my New Yearā€™s resolution is to cook once a month.ā€

Everyone started laughing. Once/month? Come on.

But I thought she was the most honest person in the room.

If you know people who live here, you know that a ton of people NEVER cook. But itā€™s politically incorrect to say that. So you say something like, ā€œYeah, I donā€™t cook that often,ā€ when the actual truth is many people have never even turned their ovens on.

I loved that she was honest about setting the bar low and getting started. Once a month? AWESOME!

This is an e-mail from Ramit Sethi, a fairly successful businessman in the profession of helping people achieve their dreams. What I found interesting is that this guy, in his what I would call fairly lofty position, feels setting the bar as low as cooking once a month is such an awesome thing. The lesson here probably is that it's better to set a low goal and actually do something about it as opposed to setting these crazy standards for yourself and then never achieving any of them.

This is actually pretty much in line with what my accountability partner and I have laid out for myself, just achieving a few things at a time on a week to week basis. And on that note..

Morning was good. I'm trying the cold shower thing and going on two days in a row now. It's pretty intense and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. One of the big benefits is supposed to be a huge energy boost but so far I haven't felt anything like that. Maybe I need to stand in the cold water for a longer period of time to really reap that benefit. I also read some more of my journal and a few paragraphs out of Changing For Good before I went off to work.

Still gaming in the evening so not much to say about that. Also watching baseball in the evening when it's on. I think I'm starting to get too emotionally invested in it so it might be a good idea to not watch it anymore for the time being.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...