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Alexanderle

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Alright, I will start a little journal here. I have never been able to really start something like this and tend to be sloppy with those things, so I am not starting overly enthusiastic and writing a ton. I am also not commiting myself to write everyday and one specific time. Just a little bit, when I feel like it. It is also the middle of the day, but right now, I just feel like doing it. So yeah, lets get into it.

It is today another one of those excellent days, where I had quite the perfect morning. I woke up at 5 and was immediately awake. I followed my usual practice of opening the windows, drinking some glass of water, shaving, showering and extensive skin care. Since a couple of days I am trying out a new washlotion. My skin feels so good after it. It is crazy, how soft it can become. Besides the usual things like coffee and some oatmeal with apples and a bit of honey. Was then watching some replay of the dallas/phoenix game. Luka nailed it once again. ^^ 

In university, I actually managed to have eye contact with another female student and was saying "good morning" to her. For me that is quite the accomplishment. I was actually proactive instead of reactive. The same, when talking to another girl during programming. We then worked together for a while. I know, those are just minor things, but for me this is quite big. This is all probably to the nice podcast "the art of charm" as well as my recent shift regarding my mindset. So this was quite the success. Now i will work a couple of hours for university. Later I will watch a Harry Potter movie with a female friend. We will to this via discord. After that probably playing some games together and then it is time for bed. I know that I should not play games, yet I just do not feel ready yet to give up this kind of connection with my online friends. It is just not possible yet. I will now also write something in this group that I think is worth sharing and then it is time to get active.

That is it for now. Not important whether it was day 1 or whatever. I think, numbers are overrated. It is not about the numbers.

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It has been a pretty good day for me. It actually started a bit shitty, because I was playing a bit with friends the evening before. Therefore, when I woke up early, I was pretty tired. I still managed to being quite effective with learning and was productive. Brought some gift for friends and family and also managed to bring some snacks to university. Think the people liked it. So yeah, overall an exceptional day. Hope I can keep up with the vibe.

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Yesterday I had two noteworthy experiences. First, I was buying stuff in a store and when the female seller was looking me in the eyes. I managed to hold eye contact. Overall, nothing special, but usually that is a struggle for me.

The second thing was that I managed to sray alert and focused during a 4 hour drive. Usually, I get extremely tired, but this time, I made it trought the whole thing with ease. Ofc I took a break, but might it be that my new lifestyle gives me more energy? An interesting observation, which I will observe further throughout the journey. 

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Yesterday, my family was quite surprised by all the changes, I made. I tend to be against the idea of external motivation, but I have to say that this was a slight confidence booster and it also makes me wonder, what kind of impression I had give them over the last years. I seems that I have been quite messy in the past. It really feels good to be on the right track now. Right now, I will give this nofap thing a try, but I already feel like I could explode. Let's see, what happens. Maybe the tips of one member of this forum will help out a bit.

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15 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

Yesterday I had two noteworthy experiences. First, I was buying stuff in a store and when the female seller was looking me in the eyes. I managed to hold eye contact. Overall, nothing special, but usually that is a struggle for me.

The second thing was that I managed to sray alert and focused during a 4 hour drive. Usually, I get extremely tired, but this time, I made it trought the whole thing with ease. Ofc I took a break, but might it be that my new lifestyle gives me more energy? An interesting observation, which I will observe further throughout the journey. 

About the eye contact, I have the same issue. A trick you can use is to look at the nose bridge in between the eyes. People react the same way but it’s less intense anxiety wise.

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2 hours ago, Vidar said:

About the eye contact, I have the same issue. A trick you can use is to look at the nose bridge in between the eyes. People react the same way but it’s less intense anxiety wise.

Wow,  thanks for the idea. Will try it out tomorrow. So are you also doing this when passing by strangers or only when you are in a conversation?

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1 hour ago, Alexanderle said:

Wow,  thanks for the idea. Will try it out tomorrow. So are you also doing this when passing by strangers or only when you are in a conversation?

It’s something i learned in therapy. To be honest I forgot the trick existed so I don’t use it. Try it and let us know if it works. 

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A little update about yesterday, because I was to tired to do it after driving back home. I really get shit done now. I just start working and finish pretty much whatever I want. However, I still think that I could do so much better. Youtube, facebook and other kind of websites really pose a huge source of distraction. On my main browser, I installed an extension to block those websites after 20 minutes starting from my wakeup time (5 to 6.30) to 5 pm. This absolutely helps me to stay productive. The best option is the nuke ability, where I do not have a timer, but it is blocked immediately for as many hours as I want. I can not deinstall the extension during this time and I never really want to. But it is just crazy, how often I still open youtube or something just without any good reason in the middle of my work. Since there is then the message that it is blocked right now, but it is insane how often this happens. I swear, at least 5 to 10 times within a 60 minute timeframe. Despite all of my huge changes and my work ethic, there is still this procrastination mentality. I have to fight this. Such a time waster. Regardless, yesterday was pretty great. It was nice, just to get the positive feedback of my family.

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Anyway, I just write something for today as well: I relapsed on my nofap adventure. It is such a hard thing for me. But it is not as much of a problem, as it may appear to be, because the most important thing is to get rid of the pornography addiction. Since that did not happen. I am still happy. The curious thing however is that immediately after relapsing, I fell back into some kind of old habits: I immediately started look for ways to procrastinate.

When I think about it, this often happened to me after fapping. Normally, this would lead to a procrastination cycle and I would waste valuable hours with bullshit. However, this time I am breaking this cycle by writing this text right here. I will soon start to work again, because I still have two more hours, before I have to go to university (woke up at five). Today I will try to focus on this nose thing, to see, if it helps me with my eye contact issues.

But I feel confident today despite my earlier "failure". For instance, I shaved quite nice, even though my skin reacted a little bit to the razor. But I have some nice lines and contours, so this is awesome. Btw, I also listened to another episode of the art of charm podcast. It was episode 266 with Josh Shipp - Wishful thinking is not a strategy. It was so good and so insightful. I can really recommend it. Those guys really manage to create this "aha-moment", which makes you feel caught, because some of the things you struggled with yourself. And now it is time for me to get to work. A failure is nothing that should put me down, but encourages me to work harder. It is a long way to go.

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You get razor bumps? I stopped getting those after I switched to a safety razor and brush and realized the neck is shaved up not down. Also use a lot of a product called "high times bump stopper" sometimes Walmart has it nothing else works. Nowadays I only use a clippers and have a rugged look.

Anyway as to eye gazing when I was younger I didn't really do it. Don't use that nose trick. Just pick an eye and look at it. It is easier with some people than others. Some people naturally enjoy it and others get a little ansy. It is especially important in professional settings and with women. Not making strong eye contact is a sign of submissiveness. Women won't be attracted to it and bosses won't see you as strong.

One trick I used to use is to at least make eye contact long enough to notice what color their eyes are. That one is kind of fun. You don't want to overdo it anyway. Sometimes I do. If you are talking about deep and thoughtful subjects it is difficult to maintain eye contact and think.

The only way to get over it is to just start doing it. It is fun. The eye color trick can be really helpful. People sometimes have very interesting eyes and if you are like me you will find yourself making eye contact with a smiling stranger every so often and it is a quite pleasant experience.

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@voidedhalestorms Another good trick that I can use.Thank you for that! Right now I am in this position, where I can do it occasionally. But especially, when I am talking with someone, all the sudden I just start to look down or avoid their gazes. Not very good. So every new insight might be worth trying out. I like the idea of thinking about it as a fun activity. But we will see how it goes.

 

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Really cool new experience

Yesterday, I went to the hairdresser, because it has been a couple of months, since I have been there. What was strange was that for the first time in my life, I actually managed to have a good and smooth conversation with the woman cutting my hair. This is not about sexual interest and this stuff. Just causal smalltalk. I tried not to think about it too much and it actually worked out quite well. It did not really felt forced, but was very intriguing actually. I had conversations before, where I briefly answered a question of the person and all the sudden the convesation would be over. So many visits, where I silently were just waiting to be done and get our of there. Trying to look away and not really communicating with everyone. But this time was different. So the way I am behaving right now must have some kind of influence, which I think is rats. But even more the fact that the woman immediately asked me, what is a modern right now and showed me some magazine. I now have a new haircut and feel sooo good. Before, they only just did, what I asked them to do and that was it. 

So this was just one visit that was surely giving me some unexpected surprises.

Today, two girls noticed that I have a new haircut and said that it looks good. So I guess that is the way to go now. If I continue like that, I will never have a desire again to go back to my old life. I mean not everything is perfectly smooth yet. Today I was so tired after awaking early that I still had to nap for another 20 minutes before going to university. But that was just the result of not enough sleep. Still a lot of adjustments necessary for my new lifestyle, because sleep is important. I am not beginning to talk about that nofap thing. That is one big struggle. But still no porn ever since.

 

Fun fact: Yesterday, all the sudden I had the desire to start steam and check out, how many hours I have played in total over the course of the last years. I had this Steam account since 2014, so this is only a number for this time period with steam alone. I am not starting with other platforms or the time before that. To make it fast: The time was around half a year. This was actually a shock!!! It is like for half a year, I was doing nothing. Not learning anything new. Not meeting people in the real world. Not working on improving myself. Just sitting in front of a screen and trying to achive something meaningless. But the good news. In the last two weeks. It has only been around 1 hour that I played something. This is a process still, but I am going forward. Not stopping now.

And this community is already helpful. The idea with the journal is nuts. So good to just write down stuff that I would never really share with anyone. So yeah. Thanks already, even though I am still quite new. For everyone out there struggling. Start now. Don't wait any longer to change your life. Don't waste another 6 months.

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It is happening in this very moment. I had this moment of epiphany yesterday in the evening. When I want to really make this a reality, I have to go all in. This morning I deleted the following things: My steam account, my twitch account, my uplay account, my battlenet account, my subs for everythingn gaming related on youtube and even my facebook account. Everything that holds me back to achive great things. It just had to happen. There is no going back for me. I had a burst like this around 10 years ago. But I never had this kind of mindset. So I think that now, my journey really starts. I am not a gamer anymore. It is over. I now that there won't be something like a relapse. I will never be able to game in moderation. I am one of these people, who just has a tendency for addictions. They are, what controlled my life. Now it is time to finally take control and to be in charge. After 20 years of die hard addictions. I will not spend another minute with wasting my life. 

Right now at this moment. I have this weird feeling in my stomack. I can not really explain, how I feel right now. Kinda feels like this moment after giving a presentation. This feeling that it is finally over paired with the excitement that I did it. Puh. I would have never actually do that without this community. 

Ofc, I will not start counting the days. This will otherwise imply that I would have to count forever. It is not worth it. It is actually counterproductive. If you read this right now: Stop counting your days of being gaming free. It is the same like a being on a diet. There is always this implication that you will stop it! But this is not the time to stop. This is the time to make progress. Thanks for everyone in this forum. You are amazing.

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I was with friends over the weekend. I mean real life friends. Not discord or something. One person immediately noticed that I look a little different. Later they said that I lost weight. It is interesting that it is visible for other people, while I, when I check out the mirror, do not seem to notice these differences. Guess, because of daily habituation. Overall, it was a fun weekend. Not as productive as I wanted to be, but on sunday morning I was already working a bit, before the rest of them woke up. 

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What Alexanderle is talking about is like a pre-emptive strike.

When you enter an oasis of temporary ease, you may want to slack a bit. At this exact momemt you have to attack the addiction that withdrew for a moment. You attack it by doing the right things, for your physical fitness, family relationships , work related. This is true initiative

 

compare this to a failing addict who starts attempting something wheb things go bad, but when things go good, goes into the default lazy mood.

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Like Amphibian220 said the default lazy mood or more like mode is trying to fight his way back. I can feel it in the morning. Staying up becomes a little bit more difficult. The last two days, I woke up a bit later. Guess I just need a bit more sleep. Since my work right now is learning, I really need to get enough sleep. But besides that, I am finally able to just start reading a document and sticking to it. I still immediately start  yawning, but I can stick to it and really read anything. So this is nice. Because of university, I had no time to work out the last days, so like right now in the next moments, I will do that, than I shower etc. and guess I will clean my appartment. All these little necessary things to make me feel better. With that, working on university stuff will be quite effective I feel. 

Interesting fact: I really really take care of my teeth. Like brushing them every morning and evening for exactely three minutes. On the outer surface, they look good. So, when I was visiting the dentist on monday, I expected to have perfectly fine teeth. Could've not been more wrong. I need dental filling for seven! teeth. However, the dentist said that those issues are not necessarily related to my present behaviour, but could also be the result of my tooth brushing behaviour and lifestyle like 10 to 15 years ago. When I think back, it was horrible. xD This makes me think, what kind of things I did 15 years ago will also affect me today or in the future. Kind of like a motivational booster. In 15 years, I would like to look back and thank my older me for making the right decisions, which will help me then in my current presence. 

 

I also have to learn programming python at the university. I don't just want to learn basic things, but really be advanced to have something nice added to my bio. The same with learning dutch. I am studying at a dutch university, but never really tried to learn the language, which is a shame in my opinion. So those are two goals, I would like to address in the future. Never be content!

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I do feel weird right now. It is evening and I was capable to work out, work a lot for my university stuff and made great progress. So in terms of effectiveness, it was once again alright. It is such an amazing feeling not to feel bad due to procrastination. I am no longer a slave of my self.

The problem right now: I have never felt so good about myself in virtually my entire life, but at the same time I have never felt more lonely than now. Earlier I was close to tears. There is nothing to go to, nothing to distract me from facing the reality that I am a loner and do not have a lot of friends. I know that this will be the next big challenge to adress. One year earlier I started with myself, now at some point I need to also start with other people. I know, I will regret it, if I won't do it. But it does not change the fact that right now, I feel like the most lonely person on this planet. I am not a gamer anymore. Anything, I would do right now, whether it is gaming, or watching on twitch, is not available anymore. ?

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Feeling a lot better right now. Managed to wake up according to my goals and will work a bit on study stuff. Feels good to be way ahead of probably most of everyone. But this is not about comparing myself with others. It only matters to compare myself with myself. Yesterday, I would have the opportunity to play a bit of scribbl with some friends online. I am still very occasionally doing this. In the last 2 weeks probably one time. Or watching a movie together. Still not feeling ready to give all of that up. Not even sure, if I have to. Anyway, deciding not to do that yesterday and going to bed was a smart decision. I feel awake, fresh and ready to rumble. So lets get going. ^^

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Alexanderle, what sort of loneliness are you talking about? There is the good loneliness I think, when you leave a harmful thing you will first “miss” it and gradually the sense loneliness will disappear.

Today I just wanted to abandon one remaining task and go home daydream. I did that task despite my body going “no”. Im not very happy, but Cam Adair mentioned if you do that, you change.

still have low energy and I think its just this stretch of time, hopefully that will pass.

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