Gaming identity

[CXXCXC]

Any strategies for getting rid of your gaming identity when everything up until now has been gaming? This is coming from a person who has known nothing in his life but games, games and games.

[CXXCXC]

Thanks for the reply.

Playing Fortnite has been giving me these dopamine rushes to my head especially when I land a tricky shot or kill a bunch of dudes with a shottie while below 10 hp. My brain feels so stretched out and expanded from all that rush and energy pulsing through my body it feels like the only way to get that again is to drive on the opposite side of a freeway with a bus filled with children and holocaust survivors.

[zeke365]

I like to think of this way, what did you enjoy the most before gaming? Is there something you did between gaming you liked to do? Think of this way what would you like to do and make plans to achieve your goals and dreams. 

[Arch]

I've taken on Cam's analogy of "closing this chapter" like opening a new chapter in a book and moving on from the previous one. 

Now, this is quite hard but I'm discovering that the things you want, you're going to have to strive towards with all your energy, habits, thinking and being to get to. You don't simply deny that your identity of loving games but take a real honest reflection of yourself and confront the truth that this is what needs to be done to get where you want.

It is painful to the ego (your identity as a gamer) but as you take small steps to develop your hobbies and participate in life, you can slowly but surely realize how fun life can be.

Take small steps - try a two week detox, the energy level I got from this beginning period was astounding. I happened to relapse two weeks in but came back right on the horse the day after. The relapse offered me a reference experience of how my energy to life was like not gaming / gaming and I naturally gravitated to not gaming as I felt better in my body and mind.

Lastly, find the book The Miracle Morning. If I could pin-point one thing that lit the flame up my arse it was the Miracle Morning. When you're living a 'gaming lifestyle' of going to sleep past Midnight-8AM and waking up in the afternoons, even if you have the desire to quit gaming, you won't have the energy to take the actions to do so. When I started changing my morning routine and sleeping earlier my energy levels completely shifted. Now you have the energy to take action and not be in a perpetual 'brain fog' throughout the whole day that you feel only seizes when you play games. This new-found energy is almost self-fulfilling in nature, you have so much more energy that you want to use it more productively. It also brings structure into your day and with it - a little bit of self-discpline, training yourself to move away from instant gratification which is at the heart of being addicted to video games.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Arch

[Some Yahoo]

Have a funeral.  Your gaming identity has died in glorious battle.  The war is over, the good guys won (unless you're a bad guy, then ... you get the idea) and the soldiers have gone back to their real lives.  That's what you're doing.  

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Some Yahoo