How to Get Motivated After You Quit Gaming
I’m back in my hometown today and thought I’d answer a question about how to get more motivated after quit playing video games. Press play:
Motivation is definitely one of the obstacles we run into whenever we want to make any big move in our life, and this is especially true when it comes to quitting video games.
When you quit it’s easy to feel lethargic and a lack of energy and this is completely normal, and one of the things to think about is that when you’re gaming, your lifestyle doesn’t really contribute to you having a ton of natural energy.
Just think about it: you’re likely staying up late (gaming), you’re sitting around a lot (gaming), you’re drinking a ton of energy drinks (caffeine) and your diet in general is likely poor (pizza, junk food.)
So when you quit gaming it’s not like you’re magically going to have all of this energy and in fact I think this journey of quitting is one of the biggest wake-up calls you can have about what the real state of your lifestyle really is.
And although it’s easy to feel down about this, it’s actually an incredible opportunity to begin learning more about what does motivate you, how you want your lifestyle to make you feel and even how your diet is serving you in your life.
If we want to be successful in being more motivated, first we need to understand what the components are that contribute to motivation.
One of the components of motivation is your sense of purpose – why are you doing what you’re doing. Now I’ll be honest, I used to struggle with feeling motivated (and still do sometimes). People would tell me to find my purpose and all that hippy hoopla, but it would only frustrate me because I could understand it logically, yes… finding your purpose sounds great!, but how?
And feeling frustrated would cause me to feel paralyzed and, you guessed it… less motivated. But I had a breakthrough that changed the way I saw purpose and motivation forever, and it came in the form of a short story:
Imagine you are in the dessert and you have a forty pound bag to carry across to the other side.
… How motivated would you be?
Not very much, right?
Now imagine that forty pound bag is your son and he’s sick. … How motivated would you be?
It’s a silly question, right? You wouldn’t even question whether you were getting your son across the dessert or not. You would get it done. It’s just a primal reaction. You sure wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not you had motivation.
So what’s the difference? With your son, you have purpose. You have a reason to do what you need to do. And because of that your motivation is just, there. It’s not something you need to think about.
If you want to become more motivated you need to find a purpose, a reason to do what you want to do.
And what’s great is that in A Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl shares that the last human freedom we have is our ability to give meaning to our circumstances. The last human freedom we have is our ability to define what our purpose is. We get to choose why we are doing what we’re doing.
So often when we think about purpose we make these two mistakes:
- We think purpose is a singular concept. “Find your purpose” makes us think it can only be one thing. But what if you have more than one thing you enjoy? What if it changes? When in fact purpose evolves. It can be one thing or it can be many things. It’s not a singular concept.
- We think purpose magically comes to us. When we actually need to define it for ourselves. We get to decide what our purpose is. It’s a choice. If we spend our time waiting around to find our purpose it will not come.
I learned this lesson in Christmas 2012. At the time my entire world had just crumbled in front of me: My business failed, I was broke, most of my friends weren’t really the friends I wanted (or needed), my trip to Costa Rica turned out to be a disaster and to top it off, my girlfriend left me.
This all happened within weeks of each other. I felt like shit. Even though I had made so much progress over the years, it appeared as if I was back to square one. I was depressed and had a difficult time getting out of bed every day.
Why did it even matter?
So if you’re feeling a lack of motivation right now, you need to find a greater sense of purpose. Now when I say that I mean you need to find a reason why you are doing what you are doing.
So during Christmas when all this crazy shit was going down, I committed to this because a redemption story in my life. This was going to be a turning point for me to learn how to be happy, how to make new friends and how to have an impact on the world.
So what’s your redemption story? What’s your why?
Remember, motivation is more like a volume knob than a light switch. It’s something you have to turn up
over time. Hope that helps!
