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DaBest's Journey For Self-Discipline


DaBest

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Mixed bag day.

Got up late and enough's enough. I'm going back to my old back of tricks and "practicing" getting out of bed so I can strengthen the cue-habit response. I also need to start going to bed earlier on a work night. On the good side though I still started work on time.

I got onto a new project today and I have a tight timeline on some deliverables that I've never done before. I gave a first stab at it in the afternoon and I wasn't happy with how it turned out. I'm going to look at some similar projects and incorporate more things I like about them even if it takes me extra time during this first go round. If whoever did those did a good job, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to. I might put some time into it this weekend. I also had a hard time focusing since my brain was screaming "You're new to this so you'll suck, which means 100% of you sucks, so why even try? Just go on your phone." I fought through it better than in the past. I'm just going to keep meditating and challenging those notions until they're gone. It's just going to take time.

After work I had the quickest happy hour with an old buddy, but he had to leave because of a work emergency. We will catch up next week. Still glad I went though. On the bright side, I had time to hit the gym after. I'm really motivated to get ripped right now. 

Tomorrow the goal is to be very productive and see if I can find a social outlet on Saturday. I do have something set up on Sunday. And no esports or other drivel like last weekend.

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18 hours ago, DaBest said:

I also had a hard time focusing since my brain was screaming "You're new to this so you'll suck, which means 100% of you sucks, so why even try? Just go on your phone." I fought through it better than in the past.

I think it's important to realize that whole process of queueing and introducing new actions when you have those triggers to go on the phone. Work stress = something else instead of phone. Something like that overall. 

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On 1/23/2021 at 5:31 PM, BooksandTrees said:

I think it's important to realize that whole process of queueing and introducing new actions when you have those triggers to go on the phone. Work stress = something else instead of phone. Something like that overall. 

100%. Yeah, I started to do this a little bit better last week. I was opting for more stretching, walking, going to the bathroom even though I didn't really need to, meditating, etc. My phone usage was pretty low last week with the exception of yesterday. 

---

I suck at being present, lol.

This isn't self-hate, just it is what it is right now. The meditation has helped immensely but I fucked up hard this past weekend. Things were good up through mid-day Saturday, and then I saw an article on Google News about a different esport that I was interested in during the past and, HEY, there's a big event going on RIGHT NOW! So of course I caved because the alternative was studying since my house was relatively clean and orderly at that point. Then I justified watching LoL again. Then I justified another bad action and another and another. Meanwhile, there were some very important activities which I was postponing, which made the stress and shame much worse as time went on. I went to bed very late.

This morning rolled around and I swore to turn over a new leaf and didn't do so good.  Watched some of the other esport. Thank God I had something planned with a friend in the afternoon, and that helped to snap me out of it somewhat. I got home, and tried to maintain a semblance of focus and not watch esports, and instead do the things that made me feel better and improved my situation. I watched about 5 minutes of League before getting disgusted and turning it off, which was an improvement over yesterday.

Here's the breakdown of why it happened:

1) Overwhelm. From work, from dumb corona restrictions, from lack of social life, from lack of romantic life. This turned me into a kid again, which is hilarious, because I've also been meditating with specific intent to cultivate my masculine energy and discipline, which has worked and was making last week pretty decent, all things considered. Out of anything right now overwhelm and loneliness are my biggest triggers.

2) No meditation. I didn't meditate on Saturday or Sunday morning. DUMB. This goes back to the presence thing. I got so stuck up in my own thoughts. There is only one thought I need right now--step forward no matter what. I was really happy with last week's progress--I hit the gym five times, my sleep was better, my diet was better, I was meditating--and I want my default mode to be constantly pursuing fixing my problems and being okay with just doing that. If I'm present, I can focus on that much better, and I don't turn into a kid. For a decent amount of last week I actually felt like a man, which is a big deal for me. 

The fixes to these are possible:

1) Overwhelm--continue to develop the habit of running to the obstacle. I think this habit is like a muscle, and I might have just overworked it a bit. Next time, just go further.

1B) Notice when this is happening by practicing meditation, and learn how to better appreciate and accept the feeling.

2) Meditate, meditate, meditate. I had so much focus this week compared to normal. This cannot be understated. BIG WINS. 

2B) Get more present and out of my head.

Yeah, so, this week will be difficult with the start I've given myself, but I will reel it in as best I can. 

 

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Today went much better than the weekend. I was generally quite focused when working, but got derailed by meetings and home BS today. Due to some car issues, I'm going to be without going to the office at least until Wednesday, and then I might have to put it in the shop again for another issue which I've delayed fixing for about a year and a half (story of my life). While I got nowhere near as much done as I would've liked on my deliverable, I'm going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight so I can attack the day tomorrow. Also taking care of groceries, cooking, and cleaning today took so much mental clutter out of my head, which will make the rest of my work week go better especially if I can't make it into the office much. Honestly, I didn't mess around too much today--was hardly on YouTube, Twitter, or Reddit. 

I'm pretty motivated right now, in general. Really all I want to do right now is kick ass and make stuff better. This is a good feeling and I want to feel like this all the time. Getting back on the meditation train really helped today. 

And that's about it for today, I guess.

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Quick post.

Worked from home today. Got up earlier but still started a little late. Got a lot of work done today, though I ended up short of where I wanted to be by today, per what I discussed with the guy who asked me to help on this in the first place. First time doing this kind of deliverable, and I ran into some obstacles along the way. I'm much more forgiving of myself with the first time doing something. But yeah, today I was focused, not very distracted, hardly reaching for my phone, motivated. Again, all I really want to do is kick ass right now. I like this.

Got to the gym after. Leg day. Added extra weight beyond what I was planning cause I felt social pressure. Still lifted it well. I love squats and deadlifts now. I feel so accomplished afterwards.

Need to get up early tomorrow to get my car to the shop before I have a meeting. No messing around. 

Goodnight.

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@BooksandTrees, caveat: it's only been three weeks. Generally, yes. Mostly because I get to sleep sooner and when I do sleep, it feels much deeper. But then again, I'm also trying to prioritize sleep for recovery. I'll have a better answer in a few months if I stick with it. Why do you ask?

---

Quick post. Car fixed. Found another problem. Fun. Fix later.

Job. Good feedback on deliverable that I started. Still a lot more work to be done. Motivation lagged at end of day when I got home, and I still had some more work to do. Started to get really itchy for my phone. 

Therapy. Talked about how when it comes to things I'm not comfortable with, I view things more as risks and negatives rather than opportunities and positives. This is limiting. Also, I need to get back on the habit with Tinder and such, as I've kind of lagged the past week.

Hung out with friend after, had fun.

Peace.

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Quick post because I'm stupid and I have no idea why I'm still up.

Fell asleep on my couch last night. I didn't realize I was that tired. I don't even remember lying down. Woke up VERY late by my standards, but not late by when I usually start work. Worked from home. Made good progress on the project. Didn't get much interaction with other people online though until late in the day. When my boss-boss called me and gave me another related task. He also gave me really good feedback on the work I've been doing, and that makes me very happy. External validation!!! And I was just happy to talk to somebody too. That's the only part I miss from my old job, the people. However, my mental health is way better with the new job. Oh and I generally did a really good job of not being on my phone and getting distracted.

Got to the gym after as well. Overall it was a really good workout, and I had a nice chat with the really hot check-in lady, who apparently is married. All good though, but man, I sucked with that bar/club scene social interactions with hot women, but man, it was just fun. 

I'm grateful for how today went. Tomorrow, I want to get up when I set my alarm so I can get work done early and not have to work late.

 

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19 hours ago, DaBest said:

Nothing remarkable to report. Got up early. Worked. Went to happy hour. Came home. I'm kind of tired. Think I'll go to bed early and hit the gym early.

Oh, I forgot to meditate today. I'll do that before bed.

Mundane day.

Mundane and unremarkable but still remarkable as you hold on with your commitmet bro

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5 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

Sounds like you're pretty tired. Maybe you can have an uplifting workout session this weekend to really hone in on the energy you need to get back at it. I'd normally suggest resting, but sometimes rest promotes lethargy. Sometimes a light workout like yoga or a walk is more impactful.

Working out isn't a question anymore, lol. If I can get there I will. I'm increasingly becoming obsessed with lifting big heavy things and becoming stronger. It's been in my personality for a LONG time, but this is the first time I'm really committed to doing something significant about it. Honestly, it was just lack of sleep from the week. That's the thing I need to manage better.

54 minutes ago, Stev1989PL said:

Mundane and unremarkable but still remarkable as you hold on with your commitmet bro

Fuck yes.

---

Today is a mixed bag, and I'm near going off the rails so now I'm going to set some direction.

Recap so far:

Passed out on my couch last night. Apparently I was insanely tired. Got up. Had a great workout. Hot damn I love squats and deadlifts! Went to the driving range, and kinda sorta figured out how to not slice my 3-wood, which is my nemesis. I was hitting it consistently straight, and then I started to try and murder the ball, and I was still kinda hitting it straight! It's only taken six months, but I'm happy as heck about this. Went to go grocery shopping but the store had a line due to the Covid capacity restrictions. I'm really getting over these restrictions, the majority of which don't do anything appreciable nor have appropriate peer-reviewed and controlled data to back it up. I'm going to get off my soapbox before I start ranting about science. 

Goals now:

My apartment is messy. Time to clean. After get groceries. After meditate. After hit up Tinder and start studying because even though I got nothing going on right now, I can still improve myself. 

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Interesting 48 hours. 

I've been kind of cooped up at home the past few days, and I can't say I've done the best with it. Sunday I made it out to the gym and started a recovery week, and probably for the first time ever, one that was actually earned. I'm aiming for roughly three weeks on, one "off" to avoid injury. Ironically enough, I didn't even notice it right away but I tweaked my neck when I was golfing on Saturday. It's a recurring thing. It's nearly 100% at this point and I think I'm going to modify my warmup a bit for golf, especially if I want to get homicidal with the ball. 

Sunday night and Monday night was a bit of an internet binge, lack of sleep from the first helping the second. I did put in a full day of work on Monday though. I was watching the dumbest shit on YouTube, and reading the dumbest shit on Twitter and Reddit. This pattern has been increasing recently, and I'm not happy about it. I was dead tired when I got up today. I'm sick of this. I want my time back so I can craft the life I want regardless of Covid. I took care of some early work and then I had to take a few hours for myself to do the following:

1) I'm completely revamping my internet usage for the next week. Signed a contract to myself (hmm). I've done stuff like this in the past with zero success, but this time, instead of making it "Here's all the stuff I'm going to not do ever again," it's time-bound, and I identify THE THINGS THAT WILL REPLACE THEM!!!! I also give myself a little hour-long window every day to let the vice live pretty much unrestricted for now. I also identify the need that I think each thing services, and I was remarkably more content with the restrictions I'm putting on myself. There will be some hard tasks in here. Sparing yet another essay, I'm probably most afraid of "No laptop or phone (less music or podcasts) while eating, and "turning off router at 9/9:30 Friday - Sunday." The first one was already really hard, but I did it.

2) I cleaned up a lot and did some more cooking that I was postponing. 

I did do some more work in the afternoon, but fell well short of a full day. I'm going to get to bed early, so I can get up early, get OUT of my house tomorrow, and just focus and kick ass at work. I can make up the time over the next three days. No factor. Company is pretty flexible because nearly everyone is out of the office.

Anyway, I'm a little hopeful right now. Felt like a good step in the right direction, and I'm not running off the deep end like I was last night and the one prior. 

I may fuck up a lot, and I may be quite the hypocrite at times, but I am NOT going to stop fighting. 

 

 

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I'm very on-edge today. The internet restrictions I put in place are hard as heck. I'm so uncomfortable without distraction. However, I think this will be good as it will teach me to stay more present, just like meditation has been doing. 

As a result of basically banning all my normal vices, I got a lot done at work today--thankfully, at the office. Overall, I had more focus, but I also noticed a lot of the intrusive negative thoughts throughout the day. I had to take some time to handle those and think through them rationally. 

Just got finished hanging out with my friend and now I can't go on and do the dumb stuff I normally do, so I guess I'll read a bit and go to bed.

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Thanks @Stev1989PL. Yeah, that's the thing. At least when I notice when the urges happen, I learn SO MUCH about why it happened as long as I can sit and think for a second. Nice try with selfrevealating, but it's not a word, lol. I think you're looking for "self-revelatory," and yes, it is self-revelatory. 

---

So far so good today. Baby headache for most of the day for not being able to use my phone or laptop for dumb stuff. Yet again, another really good day at work because I wasn't super distracted and I pretty much had to focus on my work because there was no better alternative. I took some time early on to write another mini-journal when I was feeling a lot of resistance to getting started. I realized the thought was really irrational and focused on fear of failure. Once I rationalized it away, I had much more focus for a couple of hours. My focus kind of waned after about 8 hours though, but that could also be due to a little bit of sleep deprivation.

Neck still bothering me a little and because of the late work (to make up for Tuesday), no gym today. I was also pretty good at keeping to my word when I got home as well. I did finish watching a YouTube video on dating after my timer expired, but I started watching beforehand and if I'm spending my time focusing on the things that I've usually tried my best to IGNORE, the rules were made to bent for things like that. I just don't want to be on Twitter for three hours wondering why the heck I'm even there in the first place. Interestingly enough, I find myself "done" with Twitter after about 15 minutes. If I do one 15 minutes session a day, that's way better than 6 x 15 minutes sessions a day whenever I feel panicky. That's so much time back.

Let's see what tomorrow brings. I wonder how long it's going to take to adjust to this. Regardless, I'm happy I've been on the right track for the past few days.

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Mixed bag day.

Got to work early. Made decent progress on the thing I'm working on, which now needs to be done by Tuesday. Not worried, I'll likely have it done Monday. Did really well staying away from my phone, though I did check the Screentime function and saw I was down under an hour for the past 2 days! Hell yeah. Besides that, headaches pretty much all day, urges, resistance, yada yada...I got through it. 

Got home and did my hour of internet escape, which turned into a few more, mostly unproductive since I found a loophole in the rules I set, and wanted to exploit it a little. I won't do that tomorrow, but I'm not mad at myself since the past three days were a big improvement, even with my faux pas right now. I did spend some of that time trying to book a golf tee time tomorrow to be social, but it seems like a lot of places are still closed. 

I'll at least go to the gym tomorrow despite my neck hurting. It's hurting different now...but I think I can still lift. Recovery week is up so I'm itching to go back. 

Big goal tomorrow is to regulate the internet usage with other new activities. Should be fun.

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I GOT TO GOLFING TODAY! IT'S A FEBRUARY MIRACLE!

I checked this morning to see if a few courses around me decided to open up with the warm weather, and sure enough I found ONE spot where I could fit in 18 holes. Neck was feeling pretty good so I figured why not? I needed the social practice more than anything, and I wanted to see how much the work I put in the past few weeks in my golf game worked out.

I ate DIRT. No really! I ate dirt I was so bad. I was so bad, that I literally swallowed a clod of mud that sprayed into my mouth on one of my worst shots. It was gross, but still didn't crack the top 10 of grossest things I've encountered (#1, having an unintelligible homeless man spit into my mouth, and then, in clear and perfect English, insulting my friend calling him a bitch, lol). 

I had a lot of fun though. The course was in understandably terrible condition, and the grass itself was really weird. I hit very few clean shots. I did hit a few nice ones though which felt great. And on the back nine, I putted like a MONSTER--probably around 6 fewer putts over those nine holes compared to my average. I also destroyed my coaches 3-wood as the shaft snapped, the head went flying and skidded down a cart path. I'll get it repaired, but that sucked because I was just getting the hang of hitting it. 

The best part though were the two guys I got paired up with. Both were from South Korea, and one had really good English and the other had really bad English. We all had fun, and that was really the only goal I had. I wanted to be the best random golf guy they could be around, and I think I did a good job. It was hard with the guy who didn't understand even the most basic stuff I was saying, but in a way, it was a good challenge to find other ways to connect. 

For real, I'm so happy I did a good job being entertaining. Making connections with strangers is the best thing. It's so validating. And yeah, "you shouldn't need external validation waaaaaaaah"--screw it, I don't care. 

Also, I didn't watch any esports today, compared to last few weeks where I watched about 4 hours in total, each weekend. That's what connection does. It fixes addictions. Also, internet usage was way down, and I actually have to unplug my router in a few minutes, unless I go on Tinder.

Man I needed that bad. Now I'm going to just do other stuff to make my life better tonight, and go to bed early because I am absolutely wiped. Peace.

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Had a great leg workout today. Bought a book. Went grocery shopping. Read some stuff. Called home and realized my dad is still a tool. I'm kinda pissed off right now and I'm just getting this post out of the way.

Internet use way down.

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Stayed up late last night cooking and being stupid. Took some of the morning to clean up. Still got a decent day's work in. 

Called home tonight. Talked to mom, mentioned some of the stuff from last night. Not the easiest of conversations, but it was worthwhile. 

Just dicked around on the internet a bunch afterwards, but still technically within the bounds of the contract I wrote myself. I have to write a new one tomorrow anyway so I'll just iterate on that. Overall though, the headaches are not quite as bad at work as they were last week. Phone usage is down a ton. 

Tomorrow will be better.

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@TheNewMe2.0 Good stuff on the NoFap! Keep it up (or down, well...you know what I mean :D)

No, I was getting headaches from not going on the internet. It's hard because it's my main way of escape, and it was just withdrawal. I kinda went back a few steps though before getting back on track this afternoon. 

---

Wrote up the new contract this afternoon. Was working from home and it wasn't really going well. I temporarily uninstalled blockers...the whole nine yards. After I re-wrote the contract I had more resolve and stuck to the rules. It's unfortunate I went backwards, but I had some really good days in there that I wasn't having before. I'll try again.

I also got a new egg-timer and alarm clock in today. The egg-timer is for the laptop usage. The alarm clock is so I don't have to touch my phone in the morning when I am at my weakest moment if I'm tired. Though, because I was keeping my phone out of my bedroom, I had to put it at the top of the stairwell near my room, which actually made it really hard for me to go back into bed. I think I'll get a lot of time back from it this year, and that will easily make it my best investment.

I'm also starting to believe that it's not so much the internet that's the issue versus the escapism now. I kind of know that even if I'm really good with staying away from the internet, the escapism will still be there. Same thing happened with video games, but obviously the benefit is that I move from a really bad harm to a lesser harm. If I go from internet to books, or working out, or practically whatever else, I think I still benefit, but that doesn't get at the root cause of my pain. The reason I've been thinking about this, is that while I've been restricting news, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube to an hour a day, I get through it in 30 minutes. 

That's strange as heck.

But it makes sense though. I make the rounds faster and hit all the sites I want, but then at the end of thirty minutes I think, what else is there? Well, what else is there? Nothing. I'm bored. Then I go find something else outside the stipulations of my contract and go to town. This is really all an attempt to shirk reality, responsibility, and purpose. Basically, I am a high-functioning man-child. Nothing I didn't know, but it's a really important reminder for me to stay present and keep cultivating that purpose. I'm getting better at it...slowly, and when I do, I feel like an adult. Funny how that goes.

I'm dedicate all my meditation to cultivating these things, and hope that I can create better habits to be highly-focused on these things, rather than running away.

 

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I recall having headaches during the first week after quitting games. Way back when, I also remember having headaches from being too much on the computer, but that was really a long time ago.

I think the post you made and the one I made yesterday have a common theme of escapism and how do we deal with it. I think there has to be some during the day, but that there's a large space and tolerance everybody has between "I am overworked and have no time to have fun." and "All I do is mess around and do nothing."

For example, I can go and be social every evening and I usually do that (and I like to do that), but I only really start missing it and start feeling lonely after if I do not do it for a week.

I think a part of this "tolerance" could be that I don't think I am very good at seeing the shades of different emotions I might experience. It might be the price for stability that I'm usually very happy to twin myself with and to radiate to others.

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Yeah I'll keep trying with the nofap. Failing so much at it has kind of sapped my motivation a bit. I do seem to be getting a bit better at refraining though like oyou with the internet usage. Good luck finding a better escape. I think there can be healthy escapes if they're not gaming or like unhealthy....

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