Here are the three ways to beat procrastination after you quit gaming:
You may not find the perfect replacement activities right away. Don’t worry about that. Keep experimenting and you will find them over time. It took me a few years to find surfing. But if I kept gaming during that time, I would have never found it. The transition from gaming (something you are very good at, and something you know you like) is different than these new hobbies you’re trying. So be PATIENT.
Be vulnerable. Sharing your story in this community and sharing what’s coming up for you (good or bad) is really important. You don’t need to be PERFECT every day, you will have some good days and some bad days, hang in there.
Don’t wait for MOTIVATION before you take action. Take action NOW, that’s what leads to motivation. Motivation comes and goes, you can’t rely on it. Even now after so many years of not gaming, I still struggle with motivation some times. But if you focus on ACTION first, you’ll find far more motivation than you ever imagine.
“The lies allowed me to continue with the bad behaviour. Play games all day, lie about shit I needed to take care of, repeat.”
Growing up, school was easy for me. I got well above-average grades without much effort.
Gaming was an integral part of my life, I’d play on my Gameboy all day and later I moved to playing purely on PC. I’d combine playing with paying attention in school and that worked until I was about 16 years old.
I had to choose my major and continue in that, but in higher education, I noticed that I had to put in the effort. What the schools would give me was not enough to succeed, so my methods didn’t work at all.
I didn’t notice how bad my behaviour was.
I’d game all day, sometimes go to school, notice that I wasn’t going to make the cut, so to escape I’d game, and game, and game.
Instead of changing things up I just continued, because the world of games was all I knew and everything else was boring, not as exciting and just couldn’t hold my attention.
I’d play to be the best, and try to join a more competitive scene… which sucked up even more time and attention.
I slowly started to notice a pattern where I ran away from anything as soon as I had to act like a responsible human being and take action. No matter how small the thing I needed to do was, whenever I had to take action I just felt like there was this sort of barrier that I couldn’t get through.
This caused me to not take action in just about anything, and this started to penetrate my social life as well.
I turned to lying after some time to avoid dealing with people.
It felt like the lies allowed me to continue with the bad behaviour. Play games all day, lie about shit I needed to take care of, repeat.
It took me too long to realise it pushes people away. People don’t want to deal with someone who points fingers all day. Someone who acts irresponsible and never takes responsibility for their actions. Someone you can’t rely on. All traits of a despicable person when I look back.
It gets comfortable, never having to deal with anything. And man, practice makes perfect, so constructing lies got easier and easier.
This got to the point where I’d photoshop a report card so I could avoid disappointing others and fake success.
Gaming allowed all of this.
It allowed me to keep up this lie and avoid thinking about it. Gaming just let’s me avoid feeling bad and often a motivation for lying would be having more game time. It was a vicious cycle that just built upon negative things and caused even more negative things.
6-14 hours a day of game time at a time.
I took a wrong approach. I was trying to look for the reason behind the barrier and I couldn’t find it, so the barrier stuck around.
I Needed to Stop Lying
That helped me a ton. My social life slowly got better, however, I still kept fucking up my education. This should’ve been the first realisation that I needed to take action, instead of just thinking about it.
Five years later, a year back from when I’m writing this, I started talking to others more. I started to listen more. People said to me that my gaming habits were unhealthy, that maybe quitting might be the right thing to do.
I tried moderation, failed horribly, and I got so so sick of myself and my own behaviour that I decided that a change was long overdue.
I’m 21 at This Point.
20th of June 2016. I quit smoking and gaming on that day. I’ve changed so much for the better.
I’m getting compliments from people around me, setbacks now motivate me. I’ve learned that life can hit me in the face and I can still continue.
I’m no longer a zombie. I am now honest towards others.
I must admit, over the last 7 months there have been some difficult times. I’ve had days where I fell back into the old behaviour of avoiding everything. I’ve learned that if I can remove two huge addictions in my life on the same day and keep at it for 7 months (and counting), then I can basically eliminate any other bad behaviour and keep the good stuff around.
This is one of the major reasons this has been such a huge success for me. Eliminating the bad forces me to deal with myself, which in turn allows me to think and deal with bad habits.
Confronting myself and being honest with myself allows me to be a better person.
This all turned the second half of 2016 in a year where I deal with being responsible. Being responsible towards both myself and others is now something I take pride in. I no longer point fingers and blame others for my own mistakes. I confront myself with that head-on and I learn from that experience.
I’ve been growing since day 0 and I’m still growing on day 222 and I do not plan on stopping. Part of my growth can be attributed to this community. Thank you, Cam and everyone else, especially everyone in the Discord Chat!
As the mother of two adult sons I have become aware that my parenting continues into their adult lives, but it takes a different approach.
That magical age of 18 doesn’t necessarily give licence to full maturity for every young man (or woman); some are ready to launch sooner than others
When approached by my sons, I am constantly assessing and asking myself if this is the adult coming to partner with me, adult-to-adult, or if this the needy child who requires me to nurture?
And I have had to ponder, at times, when I should step back and allow mistakes and stumbles to be made, for learning to take place, when I need to step-in with advice and/or parental authority, and when I am running to save one from themselves.
Childhood emotional and social issues don’t always get resolved when one becomes an adult, and sometimes they are magnified, tipping into a full-blown crisis.
This is my story of my youngest son, as he embarks to take on the world, entering university, the struggles he encounters, and how we both come to understand that strength comes from a willingness to be vulnerable; asking for help is a necessity.
Blurb from Jake
It’s hard to reach out. Admitting you aren’t strong enough, that you don’t know, or that you’re incapable of doing what everyone else seems to be able to is terrifying. It feels humiliating, like you’re failing everyone you care about, or at least it did for Jake.
Seeing Through the Cracks is a story about how he learned to reach out and accept help as an adult child from his mother. And he learned it the hard way.
“I would pretend that I was sleeping for an hour or two to use the device which I had hidden under my bed.”
I’m a freshman in college. I’m from a city in the northeast, and I’ve also lived abroad for four years. I love sports, dancing, and plays. This is my fourth day on the Respawn Program.
I suppose my first interaction with video games was in the beginning of 1st grade. I walked into the school lobby and noticed clusters of students standing around something. They seemed so animated on the wooden benches.
I walked over and saw a lizard with a fiery tail attack a small bird. The screen was about the size of a playing card, but nobody seemed to mind. The device was a show for us, my friends at the controls. Over the next few days, I saw more and more people come to school with the devices. I later learned that it was called the Nintendo Gameboy Advanced (GBA). Conversations in the classroom began to revolve around these devices and the games that were played on them.
I Didn’t Want to Be Left Out
As a fan of card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and the actual Pokemon card game, I loved strategy and challenge. However, I could never find kids at school to play trading card games with. I have to give credit to my dad for the countless hours he played with me using the decks I created for him. Since beating him was easy, I’d let the game go on even when his life points dwindled. I wanted to extend the competitive moment, to savor my victory, and to enjoy the game.
Video games seemed like the perfect platform for me, mentally and socially. I knew how to dedicate myself to the game, yet my parents wouldn’t relent and buy me a device. It wasn’t until 2nd grade when I told my teacher that I felt left out of social activities that my parents relented and got me a cobalt-shaded GBA. However, I didn’t play the games obsessively, I just wanted to understand the experience. I wanted to be a part of a world I didn’t quite understand.
If I was bored in between soccer or little league baseball practice, I’d play Advance Wars or Super Mario III. The games were fun but I didn’t always feel driven to play because I was surrounded by a loving family and friends. I also had other things to do during summer and school holidays.
I also had sports to take my competitive instincts out on. I wasn’t attracted to massive online games initially because my parents filled my head with stories of pedophiles and thieves on Club Penguin, a massive online game with customizable penguins.
In the summer before 3rd grade, I had my first real experience surrounding gaming. I had just received a Nintendo DS and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl had arrived. On the way to a day-camp, somebody issued the challenge that we all reset whatever progress we had in Pokemon and have a race to beat the Elite Four, the final challenge of the game.
With nearly three hours of bus ride per day, nine kids including myself played constantly to win. There wasn’t even a distinct award for winning. As I took my penguin type Pokemon and beat the Elite Four after the sixth attempt, I nearly threw my DS as I yelled “DONE!” Every kid stopped playing, looked at me, smiled, one congratulated me, and then continued playing. If I wasn’t so euphoric about beating the level, I should have noticed that my hard-won victory was so hollow.
My Father Moved Abroad
That January, my parents told me that my father was moving abroad for a year, then we’d join him. According to my mom, I took it pretty well. Before Dad left, he gave me a game called Big Bang Board Games. We played chess, checkers, connect-four, and backgammon online together while talking through Skype. I’d sit on our grey couch in the living room while propping my feet on the ottoman with the screen open.
Eventually, one of us suggested Disney’s Toontown Online, a MMORPG, with cupcakes and pies as weapons. I took the player tag AstrixAndObelisk127 after my favorite comic. Since, I didn’t have a full-time job (duh), I played more than my dad. When we played together, I felt happy and in control teaching my Dad how to beat the evil cogs, oblivious that the cogs represented businessmen and bankers.
Video games weren’t bad or even a distraction, they were a way to connect to my father nearly seven thousand miles away. Isn’t that great?
Then, I moved abroad. I attended an international school. In the north-east, I attended an all-boys school and wasn’t used to hanging around girls. Also, I was bullied by other kids in my expat school. When I did make friends, they could always leave later that year. There was no sense of permanence in my friendships. Despite the lack of social activity, it was in 4th grade that I found the sport I would play into college, squash.
I Started Playing Squash
Squash was fun for me because it was completely independent from school, and I had a great coach. However, on the hour bus rides to and from school, I still played with my DS. Despite playing some video games, I began to push my efforts into my studies. After seeing gradual improvement in the academic and sports fields, I moved away from video games. Nevertheless, a different problem appeared, YouTube.
I used YouTube as a method to stream anime and other cartoons online. I know that anime and certain cartoons aren’t video games, and I’m not recommending that people also shy away from those environments. However, I quickly developed a problem watching YouTube either in the night or while I was supposed to be working. Thus, I lost my iTouch and computer privileges, sometimes for months.
After receiving the devices back, I would still watch YouTube videos or play flash games on easily accessible sites like Miniclip or Armor games. I enjoyed flash strategy games like Time Wars or shooters like Raze, Sierra 7, or especially The Last Stand: Union City.
I enjoyed The Last Stand: Union City in particular because of its complexity. The idea of having to regulate food, sleep, supplies, weapons, and ammo in a zombie-fighting game was fascinating to me. The multitude of statistics and the rapid improvement of my character seemed so cool. Over the next six years, I would return to the game many times. In the future, Armor games served as a launching pad into deeper video game addictions.
I Suddenly Moved Back to the Northeast
Unexpectedly, I found out that I would be looking for schools to finish out the seventh grade. While I was accepted into two respectable schools, the K-12 school, I had attended before leaving the foreign country would not let me in despite my circumstances.
My mother and I were living in a micro apartment nearby said school for accessibility. My mom took the couch-bed and gave me the bedroom, so I could get a proper night’s sleep. I had an interview with my old school again and could finish out the rest of the 7th grade school year with one exception. I would need to take the standardized ISEE exam at the end of the year.
The realization that what I had taken for granted could be revoked along with the sudden displacement, compelled me to forget gaming and work.
From 7th to the beginning 8th grade, I worked hard, passing the entrance exam and learning a school year’s worth of information in three months. When I heard kids talking about the latest Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed game, I ignored or scoffed at the idea of playing such games. That August, I even played in my first national squash tournament.
In high school, I struck a bizarre balance between my outward success and a gnawing addiction, which haphazardly came to the surface occasionally. I was a respected student with a 3.9 out of 4 GPA and beloved by some of the harshest humanities teachers in the school. I rose in the ranks of my school’s clubs and became president of a very elite club. I was considered a top national squash player. I was awarded a national prize for an essay I wrote. I then won an international prize.
I wasn’t normal, and I thought these results showed that being not normal was great. However, high school also had a different side.
Electronics and Video Games Plagued My High School Years
I didn’t have a smart phone, or any form of social media until January of my senior year. Out of my small graduating class, until that moment, only three other kids didn’t have smartphones, but only because they had broken theirs. At night, I vamped, or stayed up late, playing iPad games.
I stayed up to an average of three am to five am. Thus, I felt barely lucid in class at times and took naps every day. When I was caught by my parents, they removed my iPad privileges as well. It got to the point where as a junior and senior in high school, my mother or father would sit in a bean bag next to my bed until I fell asleep.
Even then, I would pretend that I was sleeping for an hour or two to use the device which I had hidden under my bed.
However, since I had the support of my parents and during the day, I worked during the day and vamped during the night. I was under constant watch to prevent me from doing anything stupid. When I got into my top ten college in May, I felt extremely happy. I quickly made many friends nearby who also were going to said college.
Over the summer, I decided to take part in a twelve-week long web development intensive program. The program also included nearly seven hours of computer science per day. I was working with adults who were trying to either turn their current careers around or receive CS degrees within twelve weeks.
It was very interesting figuring out how people had either lost a lot of their livelihood due to being distracted by games or by other means. As an eighteen-year old about to head to college, I was treated as the kid of the group. While I completed all the assignments, I also discovered two websites which allowed me to read an infinite number of comics.
Comics have always been an important aspect of my life. Comics were inspiration, entire worlds, and places to find safety and narrative. I rationalized my reading of comic books because they gave context to the rising media world around me. Also, they weren’t video games. However, when I was spending an equal amount of time reading comic books as working, I should have seen the problem clearly.
My productivity levels shifted depending on Wednesday – the day when new comics were released. When I asked myself why I did this, I thought that I deserved a break for working and that comics and video games provided a heroic narrative. However, comics and video games stopped being a break because they became the majority rather than the minority of what I did. They made me feel out of control and weak, which was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.
Going to College
When I initially got to college, I talked to tons of people and made new friends. However, I was still watching YouTube videos, especially Let’s Play videos. One day, after watching a Markiplier video on The Last Stand, I thought it would be fun to play. I noticed that they had added two new levels of difficulty: hardcore, or permadeath; and head shot only mode, self-explanatory.
Earlier in the day, I had been ignored by two of my friends. I thought it would be a fun challenge after my classes appeared to be relatively easy. I played for about 6 hours before I lost all my progress on the character by dying once. As other gamers might understand, it was a Dark Souls level predicament.
The next day and the next, I played to beat the achievement. After three days of playing, and missing a squash practice, I beat the game. Only to realize I had forgotten to turn on hardcore mode. I decided to try something else.
In high school, I had downloaded but never gotten to try out Steam. I re-downloaded Steam and played Team Fortress 2 (TF2) a multiplayer game, which I had seen played by a YouTuber named Muselk. For three weeks, alternating between TF2 and Modern Warfare 3, I played nearly 5-7 hours a day. I even bought SuperHot a newer game. I became more reclusive, I stopped eating breakfast and overeating dinner. I still attended classes, but I didn’t complete any assignments on time.
When my mother tried to Facetime me, I was loud, rude, tried to get off the phone, and even blamed her for my lack of productivity. I was incredibly depressed and gained weight as well. By the time I realized how far I had fallen, there were only three weeks of classes left.
I Told My Parents That I Needed Help
I told them the truth of what I was doing even though I was really embarrassed because I thought they would get mad. They didn’t get mad; my parents just wanted to know what had been possessing me during college and why I had done those things. I wanted to know why I had done those things, too.
My mother flew to the school and for two weeks worked with me through my finals. I still got pretty bad grades, but I didn’t flunk out. I deleted all of the video games off my computer and iPhone. YouTube and comics acted as conduits into that world, so I stopped visiting those sites as well.
I began meditating using Headspace after seeing an ad. I realized that if I truly wanted to be rid of video games, I needed to end fantasy and learn how to interact with the world even when it’s uncomfortable, embarrassing, abusive, and non-validating. Ultimately, life is based around one’s tangible relationships and one’s ability to cope with the difficulties of life. Instead of going to a virtual world, I am learning how to stay with that occasional feeling of disappointment or anger and process it.
Instead of listening to Let’s Play videos, I’m watching movies and going to museums with friends, and I’m doing my work. Instead of looking for video game achievements, I’m planning out my next semester in college. It’s way better, but I’m still fighting curiosity for gaming culture and reorienting my wacked up fantasy oriented brain to reality. I’ll be fighting my addiction, not zombies.
My name is Luxo, and I’m a recovering video game addict. I look forward to reading your stories as well and getting to know you in the future. Look to see my journal, and I’ll be sure to be reading yours’ too. Thank you.
“Immersing myself in the World of Warcraft gave me a brief moment of happiness, something I did not have at high school..”
I started playing games when I was four years old.
The first console I had was the Super Nintendo. I started to play games such as Super Mario and Donkey Kong. A year later I received the Gameboy Color with Pokémon Yellow.
I was hooked and played the game almost every day.
I liked gaming because it gives me the opportunity to escape reality. In my first years of high school I got bullied a lot. People were calling me names because I was overweight and said some nasty things behind my back.
I started to isolate myself from others. I was pretty much alone and gaming gave me the opportunity to escape the shitty reality I was stuck in.
Playing a FPS or immersing myself in the World of Warcraft gave me a brief moment of “happiness”, something I did not have at high school.
At the age of 20 I noticed gaming became a problem for me personally. Instead of focusing on my goals and being productive, I was too busy chasing fake achievements in a virtual world that doesn’t exist.
Without noticing it I did spend playing a game for 6-8 hours a day. I gained weight, isolated myself even further and became almost a shut-in.
The true realization when I knew I had to quit playing games was when I saw my time I had spent playing them.
6,000 hours in total. I played for 6,000 f*cking hours.
Think about it. That is basically 250 days. I could do so much better things at that time, for example learning a new language, learning a new skill, or travelling abroad. Yet, I was stuck behind my screen leveling my fictional character instead of myself.
My parents are the greatest people I could wish for. But instead of spending quality time with them I did spend my time behind a screen leveling up my character in a MMORPG game and obtaining the best gear that was available in the game.
I was also a socially awkward person when it came to communicating. I was a terrible communicator. Really bad. Like extremely-nervously-terribly bad. Isolating myself gave me no opportunity to improve it.
At the beginning of the year 2016 I decided it was a good time to quit playing games and focusing on my goals.
I was searching on the web for support groups and organizations that perhaps could help me to combat my gaming addiction. It was a bit difficult, because there were a very few organizations that were specialized in helping people who were addicted to playing video games.
One day I discovered this video of a TEDx talk of a guy (Cam) explaining game addiction and sharing his story. His story was very similar compared to mine. I was socially awkward, played video games every day for 6-8 hours, and there were even times I wanted to commit suicide. I knew I had to contact him to get help.
I Started with the 90 Day Detox
It was difficult at first. Playing video games was pretty much the only thing I knew. But I told myself I had to move forward, and after a while I managed to finish the 90 days detox without relapsing.
There were a lot of benefits I have gotten from quitting gaming. I started to prioritize my goals that I wanted to achieve.
I decided it was time to lose weight. I started to go to the gym and decided to do lifting 3-5 days a week.
I also started to eat more healthy and counting my calories. I managed to lose more than 25kg (55lbs.) and gained more muscle. I am not at my end-goal yet, but I am confident I will reach that goal sometime in 2017.
Currently, I am also heavily involved in learning how to program and 3D modelling. My ultimate goal is to work in the VR/AR sector. I believe these developments can be beneficial and successful in other industries besides the gaming industry.
Quitting gaming gave me the opportunity for personal development, and doing the things I love, such as 3D modelling, travelling and spending quality time with my family.
I’d Like to Leave You with This…
Gaming itself was not the problem. It was me. I was simply unable to play them in moderation, and played it so much it negatively affected my life.
Looking back I am glad I took that decision to quit gaming. It was perhaps the best decision I took in my life to improve myself.
If anyone is in a similar spot I was years ago, I highly suggest you to try out the 90 days detox. It is tough at first, and there are moments you could relapse. But don’t kick yourself if you relapse. You fail and you get back up. Keep on moving forward, and do not let others tell you that you are never able to achieve your goal. It is possible.
Difficult, tough, frustrated, but possible. Don’t rely on motivation. Build discipline to reach your goal. Good luck on your journey.
Are you about to relapse, or feeling that quitting video games is just not worth it anymore? Before you make your decision, here are a few quick thoughts to consider:
Relapsing is a decision.
No matter how you’re feeling in this moment, you are still in control of your actions. As Viktor Frankl says, “The last human freedom is your ability to give meaning to your circumstances.”
You may feel hopeless, anxious, or insecure about whether you’ll be able to be successful or not. Remember to be aware of your choices, whatever they may be, and the active role you do play in your life.
1. What you are feeling right now is normal.
You have been playing games for a long time and they have had a significant impact on your life. Sometimes when we struggle to quit because we think quitting means gaming wasn’t as meaningful to us as it was. But that’s not true. Gaming was meaningful to you, and you are now at a point in your life where you desire something else.
Honor that and remember why you decided to quit in the first place. Cravings are normal and part of the process. And they pass. Be patient and give yourself some time.
2. A relapse is not going to fix anything.
But neither is quitting by itself. Quitting is a positive step in the right direction, but it’s only going to start the process of turning your life around, it’s not going to do all of the work for you. Growth is a process, and by relapsing you are only delaying the inevitable decision you’ll need to make eventually – to move on from gaming for good.
3. Think of the reasons that make you play.
Games are a tool, a means, not an end. You are playing for specific reasons encouraged by human needs (such as escape, challenge, social connection, and progress). Know your reasons and how they work for you. What makes you play? What is your motivation?
If you’re considering relapsing because you’re bored, make sure you’ve found new activities to replace the same needs that gaming fulfilled for you, and that you’re using a schedule or daily agenda to manage your time.
4. Are you fueling the cravings with nostalgia?
Games were, and are a part of yourself. They are a core piece of your identity. There’s nothing wrong in acknowledging this. Gaming was an experience for us. We learned, we played, and we had a great time.
But during the 90 day detox we do not recommend watching streams, listening to gaming soundtracks, or keeping up with gaming news. They will only make you want to play more, causing your recovery to be challenging. Create space for the new stage of your life you have committed to by removing things in your past.
5. Create new environments.
Fill the void of games. Otherwise you are just abstaining. Are you trying to swim forward (or upwards), or just holding your breath in place? What is it that made you think about games? Boredom? Loneliness? Purpose? Where else can you find these needs fulfilled? Think practically. Shift your current energy into something new and exciting.
6. We have your back!
If you are feeling in a funk, or your drive not so good these days, you can always go back to the forums, subreddit and all our resources for guidance and support. You are not alone.
Recently I was asked about the meaning of life, and whether or not there is one. If there is no meaning to life, shouldn’t you just game and kill your time anyways?
Personally, growing up I found myself frustrated whenver I would think about this question, and it even left me feeling depressed at times. But then I had a breakthrough.
If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, how are you supposed to get there?
When you quit gaming, you feel a strong desire inside to make a change in your life. But a big mistake we make is not being clear on where we’re really trying to go after we quit gaming. That all begins with having a vision.
This past Sunday TVNZ released a segment called Silent Addiction where they discuss video game addiction. This segment features a member of our community, Alex Monk, also known as AlexTheGrape on the Game Quitters Forum.
Watch the segment by clicking play below:
Our community is incredibly proud of Alex for being courageous to share his story – it will inspire many people who are currently struggling with a gaming addiction in silence to reach out for help. By leading by example, Alex will also inspire other Game Quitters to share their story with the world.
Want to share your story with the Game Quitters community? Click here.
We would also like to say thank you to Sunday TVNZ for doing a great job with the segment. Unfortunately, too many segments that cover video game addiction focus on the most extreme examples (bootcamps, gamers committing suicide or murder), which tragic in their own right, do not represent the majority of those in our community who simply struggle to quit gaming and need support to do so.
It is a very positive sign that Sunday TVNZ shared our story with the world in a way that was honest and true to the majority of video game addicts around the world, and we hope other media outlets will follow their example.
Once the segment aired, Alex was asked how he copes with his brother continuing to game, and whether or not he finds it tough to see. You can read his response here.
If you are struggling with a video game addiction and you’re ready to overcome it, check out Respawn. It wasn’t featured on TV, but it does contain 10 videos!
My name is Cam and by the age of 21 I had been addicted to playing video games for over ten years.
This addiction affected many areas of my life, including being a major influence in my decision to drop out of high school not once, but twice. I never graduated, never went to college, and struggled with depression for many years.
I want to be very clear, I don’t blame video games for why this happened, nor do I think video games were the problem.
I’m not here to vilify gaming, tell you that it’s bad or debate with you about whether you or not you should play; because I don’t believe gaming is bad and if someone wants to play then I would encourage them to go ahead and play.
What I do want to share with you is about my experience playing video games and how the decision to move on from them has taught me more about living a meaningful life than anything I’ve done before, and how over the last five years my journey has led me to founding Game Quitters, the largest support community for people who struggle to overcome a video game addiction. Today Game Quitters has members in over 60 countries around the world.
Growing up
I was a fairly normal Canadian kid. I went to school, I played hockey and then I would go home and play video games. I was happy, I felt smart, and I had friends.
My nickname was even “Smiley.”
That all changed in the 8th grade when I began to experience intense bullying. For example, the fun game to play for kids in the 9th grade was “Can we put Cam in a garbage can?”
Every day during lunch hour kids would chase me around the school, trying to put me in a garbage can. I would kick and scream and squirm and do everything in my power to avoid this happening, because otherwise I would be humiliated.
Life on my hockey teams wasn’t much better, and after a game in Red Deer, Alberta we all got on the team bus to head back home, and for an entire hour I laid at the back of the team bus in fetal position being spit on.
To be honest, sharing about these situations now feels very odd and bizarre to me. They seem like a different life. But they are true and they are experiences I went through, amongst many others.
What these experiences did was cause me to isolate myself away. I didn’t really enjoy going to school much anymore and hockey wasn’t any better. The less I went to school and the less I went to hockey, the more I played video games. They were a place for me to escape to, a place I had more control over my experience.
I didn’t have to worry about kids bullying me online because if they did I could just block them, move to a different server or play a different game. Eventually I dropped out of high school, and retired from hockey, the game I loved more than anything else.
For the next year and a half I was depressed, living in my parents basement, playing video games up to 16 hours a day. My parents would get on my case that if I wasn’t going to school then I had to get a job, so I worked the odd job here and there, but I would rarely last over a month before I quit.
I Pretended to Have Jobs
Every morning my dad would drop me off at a restaurant where I was a prep cook. As soon as he drove off I would walk across the street, and catch the bus back home. I would sneak in through my window and go to sleep — I had been up all night playing video games.
A few weeks later my parents would wonder where my paycheck was, so I would make up an excuse that I quit, or I got fired, or whatever else I could confuse them with. Then I would “get” “another” “job,” rinse and repeat. After doing this a few times my parents just gave up and left me to figure things out.
Looking back I’m embarrassed by this behavior, but I was doing anything I could to play video games. They were a way for me to check out and escape from my situation.
When I was gaming I didn’t have to think about how bad my life had gotten, and how depressed I was.
Unfortunately, although I could escape from dealing with it, games didn’t fix the problem, and things only continued to get worse, until one night when I wrote a suicide note.
Thankfully I didn’t go through with it because I’m writing this to you right now, but what that night did make me realize was that I needed to get professional support. I no longer felt safe with myself. So I asked my dad if he could help me and I started to see a counsellor.
My Counsellor Made Me a Deal
He said I either had to get (and keep) a job, or I had to go on anti-depressants. I’m not sure why, but if there was anything I was certain of at that time in my life, it was that I did not want to go on anti-depressants.
I’m not specifically against them or anything, but I just knew they were not something I wanted for myself. So I got a job.
What the job gave me was stability and with stability I felt inspired that I had a second chance. My life had gotten completely out of control, but this was an opportunity for a fresh start. And I could make this new life anything I wanted it to be. I wanted to see what I could do with it.
I didn’t have very many goals at the time, but one of the goals I did have was to learn more about social skills and how to make friends.
With all the bullying I went through growing up I never really understood why it seemed like 50% of people liked me, and 50% didn’t. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that’s just something called life, but at the time I wanted to feel more in control of my social experience.
So I figured if I was going to improve my social skills, I had to start going out to meet people. I didn’t really know anything else I could do, so I committed to going out every single night to nightclubs. I would be there to learn so I wouldn’t drink alcohol, and I would carry a journal to write down the lessons I was learning. Eventually I started to post these lessons on a blog.
But I knew if I was really going to do this, then I couldn’t play video games, because I would avoid going out, and just stay in to game.
So I quit cold turkey and for two years I didn’t touch a game. To succeed, I was just never home. I would work from 7am to 4pm, come home, nap, shower, get dressed, eat and go out.
But Then I Relapsed
I had just moved to Victoria, B.C. because I was feeling depressed again, and felt like I needed a change of scenery. Looking back I was just running away from my problems, and instead of using video games to escape I moved to a new city.
I had just moved in with new roommates, and one of them was a professional poker player named Ben. My first night at the house Ben and I started talking about our past gaming histories, and we realized we used to play the same game — Starcraft. Ben said he was going to go to the store and buy it for us to play.
I told him I had quit, and really didn’t want to play video games anymore. He just laughed it off. Later that night I was sitting at my desk working on my blog when he came home with a big grin on his face and put the game in front of me.
“Just one game,” he said.
I sighed, and agreed to play. Over the next 30 minutes he absolutely destroyed me.
Humiliated in defeat, I committed to doing everything possible to improve so he could never beat me like that again, and for the next 5 months I played 16 hours a day, and did nothing else but game.
I stopped working, never went out to meet new people, and barely even left the house. I would eat, sleep and game. Every single day.
About one month later my two roommates left on a three week trip. I remember being so excited to have the house to myself, where I could just game all day without anybody knowing, or having to feel a single ounce of guilt anytime my roommate, James, would invite me to go on adventures.
Around this time I realized my gaming was out of control, and I needed to quit again, but I decided to do it at the end of my 5 month stay in Victoria to give myself the closure I was looking for. This isn’t something I recommend to others because it’s a slippery slope, but I do recognize that for me, this helped.
I Quit Once Again
I took time to reflect on why I was so drawn back to games, even after I had quit successfully for two years. How did I go from not gaming for two years to playing 16 hours a day, again, overnight?
What I discovered was that there were four main reasons why I played. It wasn’t just because games were fun, but because of these specific reasons:
1. Temporary Escape
With games I could escape. When I was feeling stressed out or needed a break from the day, I could just game and forget about the situation. And I certainly didn’t have to deal with my depression or anxiety.
2. Social Connection
Gaming is a community, and it’s how you interact with a lot, if not all, of your friends. It’s where you feel welcome and safe. It’s where you feel accepted.
In our society we stigmatize gamers as being nerds, loners and losers. We say they are lazy and they are wasting their potential, so they don’t feel accepted outside of games, and because they feel this way, their online gaming communities are a place where they all have a special bond. It’s them against the world.
Also because I was playing with friends, I didn’t feel like I missed out on being social by staying in on a Friday night, because I was being social — I was gaming with my friends.
A lot of parents believe the relationships you have with your gamer friends are not real relationships — and this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Last year I traveled to Singapore and for the past seven years I’ve been interacting with a fellow blogger online named Alden Tan. We spent the week together hanging out and having a great time. We still stay in-touch today. The relationships gamers have online are real and meaningful relationships.
3. Constant Measurable Growth
Games give you a feedback loop. You get to see growth and progress, and it happens immediately through instant gratification.
Today I DJ, and I surf, and both of these fulfill the same need for constant measurable growth, but it’s much harder to see my progress. I don’t have a scoreboard, a badge or a new level to achieve; I just fall on my face less.
4. Challenge (Sense of Purpose)
Games give you a sense of purpose, a mission and a goal to work towards. And they are specifically designed this way. It’s part of the invisible game design. You always know what the next thing is that you need to do. You have to beat this boss, get this weapon, achieve this level. If you don’t have a sense of purpose outside of games, they will provide it for you.
These four needs are all human needs we have and there’s nothing wrong with them.
We all need a break from stress. We all need to feel social connection. We all want to grow, to be challenged and to have a sense of purpose. The power comes in understanding what these needs are, and then being intentional to choose how we fulfill them.
For example, if you were going to stop playing video games, you would need to fulfill these needs in alternative activities — otherwise you will continue to be drawn back to games, just like I was.
Gaming is just an activity. You don’t game just because you “love video games,” or because games are fun; your drive to game comes from your desire to fulfill these needs.
After I learned these reasons I figured if I struggled to quit playing video games than surely there were many others out there in the world who struggled as well, so I looked online to see what the current advice was about how to quit playing video games, and let’s just say I became pissed off.
Imagine identifying that you have a problem, a real problem, and you feel inspired enough to search for an answer.
You don’t really know where to turn. You know your family won’t empathize, and will instead take the opportunity to shame you for playing in the first place: “told you so!” and you certainly can’t bring it up with your friends, they all play and will wonder why you’re making such a big deal about it.
You Don’t Have Anybody Else.
So you go where you know you can find an answer: Google, and with a subtle rush of hope you type “How to quit playing video games” and hit enter. If anybody knows how to quit, your friend Google will!
Instead of getting practical advice that can help, you get advice like, to study more — when the whole reason you’re playing video games is to avoid studying — or, to hang out with your friends — when all of your friends play.
Is there anything more frustrating than being courageous enough to admit you have a problem (and need help), and then assertive enough to actually search for an answer… only to get one you know is shit?
What I do know is that this process is discouraging, and the consequence of it is that people who were originally open to seeking help are now just like “fuck it, I’ll just continue to play video games.”
These gamers didn’t need a “typical adult” to pretend to have the advice they were looking for, they needed a fellow gamer who had been through the same experience, who understood it and could speak their language.
So I felt called to share what I had learned through my journey as a hardcore gamer who struggled with the same question, and what helped me recover from my addiction, and into a new chapter in my life.
In May of 2011, I published my story and what I had learned in a blog post online titled How to Quit Playing Video Games FOREVER and the article (more of a rant) went viral and instantly became the go-to resource online for those in the gaming community looking to quit.
Every day I woke up to new comments.
And these weren’t comments just saying “thank you”, they were thousand word essays of fellow gamers sharing their life story. It was an outlet for them to finally speak up about their experience, and today there are almost 1,600 of them.
And they were young. I received comments from gamers as young as 10, 11, 12 years old, young teenagers opening up and being vulnerable. I also got comments from other demographics as well, including wives of husbands who were neglecting their families for these games, concerned parents, and everything in between; but it was this group of young teenagers that really stood out to me.
Imagine being 12 years old and you’re self-aware enough to recognize that you might have a problem.
So you search for the answer in Google, and read an article that is six pages long. Then you go through the comments — many of which are over 1,000 words — and you’re courageous enough to leave your own.
At school your teacher struggles to get you to write three paragraphs for an essay about something you don’t care about, but here you are writing multiple pages about how you struggle to quit playing video games.
And then you’re assertive enough to click “Contact” in the menu bar, and email the author to ask for additional help. And you’re 12 years old.
So between the quantity of comments, the quality of them and the ages, I knew there was a real problem here, and it wasn’t a problem only I dealt with.
Two years later, in September 2013, the article turned into a TEDx talk, which today has over 125,000 views, and over 1,000 comments.
With an incredible response to the TEDx talk I realized I needed to do more. Sure, I could answer all the comments and emails I received on a daily basis, which I did, but in almost 3+ years since my article came out there were still very few resources outside of mine available.
You Deserved Better
You deserved the best tools and resources to support you to overcome this problem, and instead of waiting for someone else to solve it I would take matters into my own hands.
In January of 2015, I launched Game Quitters and it’s been an incredible ride ever since.
Today we have members in over 60 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Singapore, South Africa, Russia, China, Japan, India, Morocco, Poland, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, the U.K., New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Tunisia, South Korea, Israel, and the Netherlands, amongst others. Our members represent all six habitable continents.
We have a YouTube channel with over 90 videos and over 150,000 views. We have over 5,000 members, a community forum with over 14,000 journal entries in the past year alone — where members share their journey and interact with others — and over 80 new posts on average each day.
We have an online program to help you quit playing video games called Respawn.
We have 20,000+ unique visitors to the StopGaming community on reddit every month — with growth doubling over the last six months. Our community is growing rapidly, but…
We’re Only Scratching the Surface
Research from 2009 suggests that in the U.S. alone, 8.5% of youth show diagnosable signs of pathological gaming. That can be as many as a few million youth.
If you add in countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, and European countries such as Finland, France, Germany, and Poland, I estimate there are at least between 10 and 50 million video game addicts in the world right now, many of whom struggle in silence.
This issue is much bigger than me and I’m only one of millions who struggle with compulsive gaming or a video game addiction. You can read the stories of others in our Case Studies section.
There is also a need for research and that is why we have partnered with Dr. Daniel King from the University of Adelaide in Australia to run a scientific study on our 90 day abstinence protocol – the “90 Day Detox” – a first of its kind in the academic literature.
Imagine a world where if you’re a gamer who struggles with a video game addiction, you are able to find a support community who you resonate with, where you feel welcome and safe, where you feel understood.
Where you get to learn and be educated on why the problem happens, and exactly how to recover from it. And for this recovery to not just be about surviving without games, but thriving and living a meaningful life.
That’s the world I imagine; that is my dream, and our mission is to positively impact at least 10 million video game addicts in the next three years.
Today I am not only a recovering video game addict, but the leading expert and pioneer of the video game addiction field.
I speak regularly at international addiction conferences, and on college campuses. Recently I have been signed by CAMPUSPEAK, a higher education speaking agency.
My work has been featured in two TEDx talks, and in major media outlets such as VICE, FOX, CW, The Huffington Post, TV Asia, and the Gavin McInnes Show.
In my spare time I enjoy traveling (22 countries to date), DJing, and surfing. I currently live in beautiful San Diego, California.
“I look back and remember who I was a year ago. I was a completely different person.”
We all have our own reasons for why we want to quit gaming. For some of us, it’s to get better grades. For others, it’s to improve our social skills and confidence. For Josh, it was to improve the relationship he had with his family.
I’m in Grade 7 and making a change now will be crucial, not only for my future, but also for my family. I know I might want some games to play, but if it hinders my family’s relationship it would be something that would be hard to mend.
Josh began gaming when he was four years old with a gameboy. Like many of us, his gaming began as just a side hobby – his gameplay limited by his father.
As he got older he moved on from the gameboy and started to play computer and console games, including League of Legends, Rocket League , Roblox and Minecraft in the 6th grade. He wasn’t allowed to play on the weekends, but after school he had a lot of free time and would play for three to four hours until dinner.
He didn’t enjoy gaming as much as others, but it was a way to hang out with his friends, and he didn’t really have anything else to do. Video games provided entertainment.
Gaming didn’t have a negative impact on his grades, but he did start to circumvent the rules his parents had for him, including playing on the weekends and buying new games which led to arguments with his family.
Arguments Became More Frequent
Midway through grade 7, with arguments happening more frequently, Josh began to think about whether he should continue gaming or not. Gaming was becoming a big issue, he was having emotional breakdowns and getting really sad – he didn’t want to have a bad relationship with his father.
Plus, if he was to quit now, it would probably have a positive impact on his future, and the earlier he started building his future, the better, because he would have more time to grow. This became part of his why – the purpose behind his decision to quit.
“It’s great that people out there have the same problem, and we can come together as a group and sort things out together.”
For the first month he joined a club for Gunpla, which are plastic models you can build and customize based on the Gundam animation series. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he used this time to explore the world around him instead of the virtual world online.
He also found cycling which was a lot of fun, but he would still spend more time than he’d like watching streams on YouTube. This is something Josh is still working on.
His friends would try to get him to play – they didn’t really believe him when he said he quit – and he would just say no. They eventually gave up. Instead of losing his friends, Josh focused on going out more often and organizing things to do together, like going to Disneyland.
He found his social life improved a lot by quitting video games and it helped him to take more of a leadership role with his friends. He also met more of his classmates, instead of just being friends with the ones that were gamers.
He found that by taking school more seriously, his classmates would approach him for advice on doing well in school.
He worked on developing qualities like showing appreciation and having empathy for others. He also found his attitude and personality improved, as he became more friendly and social, since he was no longer pre-occupied with 4-5 hours of gaming.
And then Pokemon GO came out…
Josh hadn’t played a video game in over 350+ days, but the social pressure to play Pokemon GO became too much to handle. He had also been thinking about playing it for a year before it was released.
Two weeks later he realized he was playing too much again. He was pre-occupied, thinking about it all the time and he even had a hard time sleeping one night. He began to wonder what else he could be doing with his time instead.
Road Cycling, including pursuing opportunities to enter a competition soon
Spending more time with his family
There is still social pressure for him to play Pokemon GO, but he has other goals now. He wants to find a purpose for his future career, continue to be more social, and taking time to reflect on who he wants to be after school is over.
His Advice For You
not Josh
During our conversation, Josh continued to reiterate the importance of getting out of the house. He said:
Going out is key to avoid cravings. Whether you’re socializing or not, it doesn’t matter, but by getting out of the house you’ll see a lot of things you wouldn’t normally see. When you’re in your house, you’re confined to the things you always see. And that can be boring.
To get out of the house, Josh recommends to keep it simple. When his family goes out for lunch, he joins them, and then he roams around the area to explore.
He also encourages you to be more social and talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to. When you were gaming there were a lot of people you may have been judging, and now this is an opportunity to build your own personality.
Finally, he encourages you to reflect on your actions. There will be times that you think you will want to play, but in these moments you need to pause, and remind yourself what your purpose is – what your goal is by quitting. Sometimes you will forget it, so it’s key to remind yourself of your why.
Best of all, the relationship he has with his family has improved, and that was important to him, not only to have a better relationship with his father, but also his grandparents.
I encourage everyone who is struggling with video games and thinking about quitting to go for it. It helps you secure your future, and it also brings happiness to those in your family.
Josh turns 14 in the fall and he has a bright future ahead of him. And that future is even brighter because of his decision to quit playing video games.
Game Quitters has partnered with E.P.I.C. (Everyday People Initiating Change) to build a clean water well in Tanzania, Africa.
In October 2016 I will be heading to Tanzania to oversee the project and ensure it’s a success. Below you will find the full details of the trip, including why it’s important and what the impact will be.
I just want to quickly say how excited I am, and that this is another step closer to fulfilling the vision we have for Game Quitters – to bring a community of people together to make a positive difference in the world.
We need your support to make it happen, so click here to support our mission of bringing clean water to Tanzania.
Why I’m involved:
A few weeks ago I traveled to Tijuana, Mexico on a Sunday to help paint a home for a deserving family, and the impact blew me away.
This family told me in tears about how their dream was to have a home for their five kids, but they would have never been able to earn enough money to afford it – even though they work hard.
Yet, here they were, with a new home for their family, thanks to the support of a foundation and a few strangers who cared.
The truth is, I’m privileged that this was just a Sunday I took off work to make a difference for someone else. But to them, this was their life dream realized.
Their kids no longer had to sleep in the cold, on dirt floods with the wind keeping them up all night. They finally had a home, with a kitchen table and bunk beds. The joy I saw as tears flowing down their face is something I will never forget.
Now we have a chance to do something special, in Tanzania, Africa!
We’re partnering with E.P.I.C. to build a clean water well in Tanzania. E.P.I.C. is an organization cofounded by Alexi Panos and Tennille Amor over ten years ago.
What’s the impact?
Imagine waking up this morning to brush your teeth, but instead of turning on a faucet with safe and clean water to use, you dump your toothbrush in a bucket full of bacteria, mosquitoes and dirt.
That’s the reality of 1.1 billion people in the world who do not have access to safe and clean water. Contaminated water isn’t just gross, it also leads to diarrhea, the leading cause of child death in the world. More people die each year from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war.
We have the power to change this!
Each well provides water for about 500 people for 20 years, and we’ll also provide hygiene and sanitation education to the youth and women of the village in order to help ensure the projects sustainability.
This will make a real and lasting difference for people who deserve our support.
Our goal is to raise $5,000 total.
The first $3,000 will go directly to E.P.I.C. for our share of the water well, including materials, testing, labor, implementation, training and maintenance.
A tax deductible receipt is available for the first $3,000 pledged.
The additional $2,000 will go towards helping to cover my flights there and back, and to purchase a new camera to document the trip for our YouTube channel – to further spread awareness and inspire other leaders to take action themselves.
On a personal level, this trip will help me become a better leader, to further my mission of positively impacting 10 million people in the next three years.
We can’t do it alone and we need your support! Together we can make a difference.
Game Quitters began with the vision of creating the ultimate platform for someone who struggles to quit playing video games.
To do this, we would provide the best tools, resources, and support for people of all ages and backgrounds, to get the help they need, and the help they deserve.
Our vision from day one has been for this to be a fully integrated experience — not only on the platform itself, but within the business model as well.
Throughout each of these years, he received thousands of comments from fellow gamers who shared their own story of the struggle they went through to overcome this issue in their lives. These interactions with fellow gamers would continue until the end of 2014 when he realized he needed to do more.
We needed to do more.
So we launched Game Quitters with the vision to provide the best tools, resources, and support for any person who wants to quit playing video games — regardless of why they may want to do so, and we would provide this opportunity, for free.
The Journey Begins
In 2015, our mission was to build infrastructure; the foundation of our platform.
We began by launching our YouTube channel to provide free educational content for all; then we built our website, curated a structured and affordable online recovery program, and added a free community forum for members to interact and share their journeys together.
YouTube
Free educational content
86+ videos
2,600+ subscribers
150,000+ views
Respawn
Affordable Online Program
Curated content
360+ customers
As low as $27
Forum
Free Community Membership
10,000+ total posts
60+ new members/month
50+ new posts/day
Theme of 2016: Growth
Now that we had the infrastructure setup, it was time to reach out to gamers around the world who struggled in silence. Based on our calculations, research suggests 10–50 million gaming addicts worldwide. Today we are reaching upwards of 20,000. It’s a start, but it’s not good enough, and our community must do more.
Focusing on growth also meant taking steps to fill gaps that exist in the academic literature. By leveraging the power of our community — those who identify with compulsive gaming or video game addiction challenges — we are able to facilitate research on those who actually struggle with this issue, and bring more legitimate credibility to our cause.
An incredible partnership with Dr. Daniel King and The University of Adelaide that we announced earlier this year is a major step in that direction.
Changing the Conversation
Growth also means changing the conversation in the media about video game addiction. Until now, that conversation has been a debate about whether video games are good or bad, whether you should play video games or not.
Further, the conversation revolved around the fact that video game addiction was not real. The every day experiences of our members says otherwise, but it is up to us to share the real story behind video game addiction with the world.
This year we have formed important relationships in the media, with interviews by VICE Broadly, CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, and CBC Radio One; the time has come for our message to get out to the world.
Cam has also been signed to CAMPUSPEAK — a higher education speaking agency with a mission to bring the message of video game addiction to college campuses around the world in the coming years.
Video game addiction is a major obstacle to student academic success and retention.
A Pew study showed 48% of student college gamers agree that gaming keeps them from studying. Another study in Ontario, Canada “found that 13% of participating students (equivalent to 122,660 youth in Ontario) reported symptoms of a video gaming problem, including preoccupation, loss of control, withdrawal and disregard for consequences. That’s up from nine per cent in 2007, the first year that problem video gaming was monitored.”
Reaching students in high school and college who may be struggling with a video game addiction is a major initiative of ours as we move forward. When at least 70% of youth play video games in 2016 (and rising), we believe there is a coming tsunami of problematic video game play in schools around the world.
Sharing Inspiring Stories
Finally, in 2016 we have reached members in at least 62 countries, including all six habitable continents. Our members have incredible stories, and we will feature as many of them as possible in Case Studies.
Although this movement began with the story of Cam, his story has always been one single representation of what so many of our members identify with. Our movement is about each of us, and each of our stories matter.
Soon we will be making a major announcement about a new project that will help us share our story with the world, and reach the people out there right now who are struggling in silence. (Hint: Yes, we have been working hard on the book.)
2017 and Beyond
As we look ahead to 2017 and beyond, integration will be a big theme.
The vision for our community has always been to create the ultimate platform for someone who wants to quit playing video games, and for this platform to be a fully integrated experience.
A fully integrated experience means when a member signs up they get personalized feedback and a seamless transition to the support they need. Personalized feedback is important because although many of our members struggle with similar patterns, video game addiction is more complex than that and our platform must be prepared accordingly.
For instance, if someone plays video games because it’s what they do to spend time with their friends, then we need to address that for them in specific ways; whereas for someone who plays because it’s a way to escape from anxiety or depression in their life, the solution for them may also be different.
It also means a fully integrated business model that is not only sustainable through profitable revenues by the community, but one that also gives back to that community.
We Exist “For Benefit”
Our vision has never been to be a “for-profit” corporation, nor has it been to be a “non-profit” charity. The problem with the former is pursuing profits at all costs. The problem with the latter is spending all of your energy fundraising, instead of doing the work you need to do to impact the people who need your support.
In the coming months, Game Quitters will be listed as a “For-Benefit” Corporation, meaning our business model will exist to not only make a profit (be independently sustainable), but also to make a difference — and this philosophy will be integrated into every way we operate as a business.
The specifics of how our business model will be integrated “For-Benefit” is still under discussion, but as an example, we love the TOMS one-for-one model. If you buy a pair of shoes, they give a pair of shoes. Game Quitters is not about selling shoes, but we are excited to explore how to integrate impact into our business model. Maybe that will look like X% of profits go into impact, or something else.
Impact will be fully integrated into every way we operate our business, and we will be legally accountable to it.
Giving Back
Our first project to give back as a community will happen in October 2016 when Game Quitters will team up with E.P.I.C. (Everyday People Initiating Change) to build a clean water well in Tanzania, Africa. Our community will fundraise the necessary funds to provide this life-changing experience for a village that needs help.
Cam will be on the ground in Tanzania to help implement the well and monitor the project from start to finish. He will be recording YouTube videos throughout the trip.
Look for an announcement for this fundraising campaign soon.
A Moment of Gratitude
As our journey together continues to unfold, we just want to thank you for being a part of it. This movement is about each and every single one of us who struggle with compulsive gaming or a video game addiction. It’s about each of you reading this right now, and all members who will join us in the future.
It’s about every person out there in the world right now who struggles in silence, who wants support and simply does not realize it’s available.
This journey together will be long, and it will be hard. It will be fun, and it will not be easy. At times, we will fail. And we will always learn from it. We will push forward. We will persevere. We will work hard. We will never quit.
Because every person in the world who struggles to quit playing video games deserves support. And it’s up to our community to reach out to them.
Cam Adair is making small changes over time with his support community, Game Quitters for people with video game addiction.
What’s your story?
By the age of 21 I had been addicted to playing video games for over ten years. This addiction affected many areas of my life, including influencing my decision to drop out of high school not once but twice. I never graduated, never went to college and struggled with depression, until I came to a point where I wrote a suicide note.
That night inspired me to make dramatic changes in my life which have led me to where I am today: Founding Game Quitters, the world’s largest support community for people with a video game addiction.
What excites you most about your industry?
I love being able to help people. I get to do that all day long and be paid for it, so that’s pretty awesome. But it’s not just helping people I love, it’s being able to completely redefine the way we approach mental health and addiction in general that excites me as well. Being able to show that we can “rebrand” mental health and addiction from being bland, boring and sterile to being fun, cool and accessible.
What’s your connection to Asia?
Last year I travelled to Bali, Singapore and Thailand on a three month trip to work on building Game Quitters and I loved it. The people I met in these countries I will never forget. Game Quitters also currently has members in 46 countries including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Indonesia and I love being able to interact and help members in Asian countries every day.
Favourite city in Asia for business and why?
I love Bali because it’s a great place to focus on building your business. The energy in Bali is something I have never experienced before. I also appreciate all the amazing coffee shops, restaurants and coworking spaces to easily get work done while I travel, which is what I love to do!
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
Kaizen – continuous improvement; change for the better.
Who inspires you?
There are so many but Elon Musk is one. I watched an interview with him once where the moderator asked him why he’s building companies in solar energy, electric vehicles and space. He simply replied: “It’s too important for our world and nobody else seemed to be doing it, so I guess I’ll do it.” That really stuck with me because in video game addiction I felt similar. It’s too important for our world yet nobody else was doing it, so fine, I’ll do it.
What have you just learnt recently that blew you away?
That your ability to trust others has more to do with your ability to trust yourself to be ok regardless of the outcome of any relationship. So often when we think of trusting someone else we list off the reasons why they are or are not trustworthy. But that makes us dependent on them and causes anxiety. Instead, trust yourself to know that regardless of the outcome, you will be fine and that will make it much easier to trust others.
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
Everything in my life has brought me to where I am today and I really like where I am today so I’m unable to regret or wish things were different. If there was a lesson I could pass on to those who are younger, I would say, “start focusing on developing positive habits now, because over time they compound into incredible results”.
How do you unwind?
I love to DJ or go surfing. Sometimes I watch Casey Neistat videos on YouTube.
Favourite Asian destination for relaxation? Why?
Bali. The energy of the people is so relaxing and it’s very affordable to pay for a massage every day. Combine that with the ability to go surfing and you’ve got me!
Everyone in business should read this book:
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. Small changes compound over time into big results. If you apply this to business you can trust that over time things will work out instead of needing to change them overnight.
How can people connect with you?
I reply to every email and message I receive so I’d love to hear from you! Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, FB, Snapchat, I’m on all of them!
—
This interview was part of the Callum Connect’s column found on The Asian Entrepreneur:
Callum Laing invests and buys small businesses in a range of industries around Asia. He has previously started, built and sold half a dozen businesses and is the founder & owner of Fitness-Buffet a company delivering employee wellness solutions in 12 countries. He is a Director of, amongst others, Key Person of Influence. A 40 week training program for business owners and executives.
80% of your results are going to come from you just showing up, 80% of your results are going to come from consistency.
The reason most people don’t have the results they want in life is because they lack consistency.
I see this every single day. I see so many people trying to start their own business. So many people trying to get into shape. So many people trying to eat healthier.
And then they lack consistency.
I’ve been in this position too, and it would happen because I would get caught up in the monumental task or the large amount of action I had to take to get the specific result I was looking for.
In order to build a big channel with a ton of subscribers and views… that’s a lot of work! And if I focused on how much work it would be, I would never take action.
So instead what I did was I focused on consistency – and using it to my advantage.
I knew if I just showed up every single week and put out one new video, then over time, the channel would grow.
So that’s exactly what I did.
Just over a year ago I launched the channel and we put out one new video every single Monday and over time it’s grown. Now we have almost 2,000 subscribers, 100,000 views, 60 different videos.
If you would have told me at the very beginning that I would now have 60 videos I would probably thought you were crazy.
But I was consistent and from being consistent now the channel is much bigger!
Your advantage is your consistency.
Consistency comes from commitment.
If you’re not fully committed, 10/10 commitment in some area of your life that you’re looking for results for, you’re not going to get it. Period.
In September I started working out and decided that nothing was more important for me than being consistent.
And I’ve been working out 4-6 days/week and I’m much stronger, I’m in much better shape, I look better, I feel better and it’s all come from consistency.
Yes, there’s different exercises I could do that would help me get more specific results, but just for overall improvement consistency is all that you need.
Another example is learning a new language.
If you just focused on learning a new language for 30 minutes, every single day… over the next year you would be more fluent in that language. 30 minutes a day makes a huge difference in your ability to get results.
It doesn’t take a lot of action, just a little bit- 30 minutes, every single day and you’ll get results in any area of your life. I’m certain of it.
80% of your results come from consistency.
So let’s bring this back to you:
What’s an area of your life that you’re not being consistent with?
Is it not playing video games? Is it not going to the gym? Is it not eating healthy? What’s an area of your life that you’re not being consistent with that you’re going to commit, 10/10 commitment to, moving forward? Share yours in the comments below.
A year from now you’ll look back and be thankful that you did.
Definitely follow me on Snapchat as well for more behind-the-scenes of what my life looks like every single day.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
You have a mission to go on, you have a boss to defeat, you have a level to achieve, and this is all done in an easy-to-follow structure way. Having a sense of purpose means you actually have a reason to be playing.
So what happens after you quit is that you no longer feel that same sense of purpose in your life and a lack of purpose can lead to lack of motivation and even depression.
If you listened to the advice I’ve shared previously to find new activities, great job, but the mistake we make (and so many of us make this mistake), is that we start filling our time with these new activities, but without being intentional with what the activities are and giving ourselves the reasons why we want to do them.
This is where goal setting comes in.
If you have chosen new activities instead of gaming, make sure you set a goal for each of them.
Next I want to walk you through a couple different steps you can take to set proper goals, because there’s a very big difference between the quality of goals you set.
The right way to set goals is to follow this formula: S.M.D.A, which stands for:
Being Specific
Being Measurable
Having a Deadline
Having Accountability
These are the four pillars of goal setting that make a huge difference.
An example of being specific is “I want to learn how to play guitar” vs. “I want to learn these specific songs on the guitar.”
Those two goals are going to give you a very different experience when you’re pursuing it. The latter is much more specific.
Measurable: you want your goals to be measurable. You want to know if you are making progress on them, and it’s ideal to see your progress, daily.
An example is again if you have specific songs that you want to learn, you’re able to see how much closer are you today to being able to play say even one of those songs, than you were yesterday.
Next, you want to have a deadline.
A deadline gives you a very specific time that you need to accomplish the goal by, which is why even though you’ll procrastinate on doing your homework or studying for your test, when it’s the night before you stay up all night to get it done.
You have a deadline.
So same thing needs to happen with your goals: you need to have a deadline.
The last pillar is accountability and having someone holding you accountable to pursuing these goals or working on them makes a big difference.
An accountability partner is someone you will work with, to help each other out, support each other, give feedback, encouragement and hold each other accountable to going after and pursuing your different goals.
To recap, you want your goals to be specific, to be measurable, to have a deadline and to have accountability.
The next step is to take each of your new acttivities and create a goal for each of them using the SMDA formula.
Here is an example from my experience:
When I first quit gaming I started to learn how to DJ and what I decided to do was to launch a podcast where every single month I had to put out a one hour mix full of different songs that I liked, and I had to release it publicly.
Now throughout the month I was able to see my progress: how much closer was I to getting it done? What else did I need to finish?
I had a deadline, I had accountability and it was something specific – an hour long mix – so that helped me brainstorm different ideas, find new songs, mix them together and then every day when I went to DJ, I actually had a very specific reason why I was DJing.
Having a specific reason why you’re doing something helps you avoid doing it just to kill time, which you will easily justify going back to gaming because you’re just killing time anyways – might as well do it gaming.
Setting and accomplishing goals is a lot of fun. You feel that greater sense of progress, you develop more confidence in yourself (because followed through and got it done), instead of just procrastinating.
Goal setting is great and it’s something I do all the time, so it’s something I encourage you guys to do too.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
So should you or should you not become a game developer?
It’s certainly something to consider. Within the community programming is very common and it’s a natural fit due to your strong computer and technical skills.
Now game development might be a fit for you because of your experience gaming, but the other idea I would throw at you is that you can always pursue other avenues than game development, such as building apps or websites, joining startups, or even machine learning and AI.
You don’t have to go into game development, although there’s a possibility that it can.
Some members have found game development to be really interesting, and something that they didn’t feel triggered by after they quit playing video games, while other members have found that it did trigger them and cause them to play.
If you’re someone who will be triggered by game development I would recommend for you to avoid pursuing it for at least the 90 day detox.
But is it even ethical to be a game developer?
That’s a bit of a tough question.
I try as much as I can to not blame game development companies and/or games themselves for the situations we find ourselves in.
Now I do believe there is an ounce of responsibility within the gaming industry, especially as it relates to mobile games – including freemium models and turn based delays that sort of psychology that they are bringing in.
I believe companies have a responsibility to their communities to be helping people who may be struggling with gaming addiction issues to be able to get the help they need, instead of pretending that it’s not there or that the issue is not real.
In other industries big companies put a lot of resources into helping people not have problems using their products.
Game companies have been just behind on this issue, which happens because there is a lot of guilt and shame about gaming and the community overall has been just very defensive about anyone suggesting that someone could be addicted to playing video games.
We’re beyond that debate now.
As research, like the research we’re doing comes out, game companies will have no choice but to start facing this head on.
I’m really excited about being able to partner up with our community and game development companies to find solutions for how game development companies can help their communities while also allowing people to still play video games.
So that’s what I think, what about you?
Are you into programming? Have you tried game design? Have you tried it and it didn’t work out? What kind of responsibility, ethically, do gaming companies have? Let us know in the comments – I read and respond to every one.
If you aren’t following me on Snapchat, I encourage you to do that. I show a lot of behind-the-scenes of what my life looks like on a daily basis and that can give you a lot of different ideas or inspiration to continue moving on from games.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
To quit gaming has a lot less to do about video games and a lot more about who you are and who you become in the process of moving on from games.
So often when we quit gaming we focus so much on the games themselves and honestly this isn’t really about video games, it’s about who you are and the current place that your life is.
So when you go to quit gaming and you go through the 90 day detox, that process is actually a 90 day process for you to expand yourself.
When you quit gaming you get so concerned about things like:
Are you going to be bored?
How are you going to deal with boredom?
What are you going to do with all of your time?
What about all of these friends that you have and losing all of them?
What about your sense of identity?
All of these things have a lot more to do with your own personal development than games.
Think about it like this:
Do you really want to be someone who is so concerned about whether or not they’re going to be able to make new friends that they continue to game just to avoid that?
Do you really want to be someone who is so concerned about being bored that you continue to game just to avoid that?
That’s not really the place that I wanted to be any longer, so I decided to quit gaming and expand myself and become the person that I wanted to be.
So when you go to quit gaming you want to focus a lot less on the games themselves and a lot more about expansion.
You need to become the type of person who can be bored and be fine, who can go out there and make new friends and be fine, who can find a new sense of purpose and new passions and be fine.
When you start to see it from this perspective, you stop focusing on the little things and instead you focus on how that exact obstacle in your way, that exact moment where you’re bored or you’re lonely is exactly what you need to go through to expand and grow.
It’s like when you go to the gym.
You’re a little bit sore after, your muscles are sore, but that’s because your muscles are growing.
Quitting games is no different and your own personal development is no different.
If it’s going a bit tough right now, if you’re having a bit of a hard time, that’s exactly what you need to go through to expand.
So let me ask you:
Who do you need to become? What’s one trait or quality of who you are that you’re looking to improve after you quit gaming? Share that in the comments below.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
Up until then I was in a french immersion school and then I switched into an english school and this is actually something that I wish I did differently when I was younger.
I wish I had stayed in the french school because having another language is actually really cool.
Random fact #2:
Util I was about 21, 22 years old I thought reading was a complete waste of time.
Since then I’ve completely changed my mind and since 2013 I’ve actually read over seventy books, and I think reading is one of the most badass, best decisions that you can make.
If you follow me on Snapchat you’ll be able to see some clips of me at the beach and as soon as I get a mount for my GoPro I’ll hopefully have some clips of me actually surfing or more likely me falling on my face for you guys to enjoy.
Random fact #4:
I once DJ’d in Prague and the story behind it is kind of cool.
So when I was flying to Europe I decided to bring my USB sticks with all my music on it just in case I had the opportunity to DJ, because you know, why not? What did I have to lose?
So I walked into this lounge, and they were playing house music, so I just walked up to the DJ booth and started a conversation. I just said “hey, my name is Cam, I’m actually a DJ back home in Canada” and the DJ turned to me and said “Oh, do you want to play?”
Of course I was like, “YES! That would be awesome!”
So I ended up playing for about an hour and a half and almost missed my train to Poland that night, but it was a really cool experience and I’ve always been really thankful that that DJ gave me an opportunity to play because in that moment you could have the complete opposite reaction and said no.
So for her to give me that opportunity was really cool and we still talk every now and then on Facebook.
Random fact #5:
My favorite TV show is probably Suits.
I don’t know if I have a top favorite TV show, but I like Suits, it’s one of the few shows I watch, including House of Cards and Game of Thrones.
I don’t watch to much TV as you guys know because I’m always telling you guys to stop watching TV.
Bonus random fact:
I’ve never really felt like I fit in to any particular group.
Even with gamers I never identified as a gamer, like I know some of you guys do.
For a long time I thought that was something weird about me or something that was wrong about me and over time I’ve come to realize that it’s actually just something unique about me.
I don’t necessarily fit into one group because I fit into a lot of groups and the fact that I don’t fit into one allows me to connect with people who do identify as say a gamer and I can resonate with you guys, so those are a couple random facts about me.
So what about you? Share in the comments below one random fact about yourself. I would love to learn more about you.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
Today’s message is simple: nobody is coming to save you. IT’S ON YOU:
So often when we go to make a big change in our life whether it’s to quit gaming, move to a new city, to quit our job, or to change what we’re studying in school, we sit around and wait, thinking that somebody else is going to come and do the work for us.
But that’s not how life works, because no one else can change your situation, except YOU. It’s all on you.
Now that can be kind of scary especially when you go to make a big change in your life, but just as it’s scary because it’s all on your shoulders, it can also be liberating, because you don’t have to wait around any longer, you can just go for it right now.
So my question to you is this:
How much longer are you going to put off going after the things you want to go after?
How much longer are you going to continue to play video games even though you don’t want to?
How much longer are you going to continue to just play small and feel like you’re trapped and give in to a victim mentality – where you think that you’re a victim of your circumstances instead of someone who gets to choose their own reality?
How much longer?
Is it going to be a week? A couple weeks? A couple months? A couple years?
When are you going to make the choice to finally go for it?
Because just as it’s all on your shoulders, that also means that regardless of whether you make the choice today or a year from now, the choice is still going to be the same thing, which is for you to choose, to go for it.
So what decision are you going to make? What are you waiting for? What do you want to pursue? Are you going to go for it now or are you going to continue to wait? Leave a comment below. I love to hear from you guys.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
So often when we play video games we’re having a lot of fun and I’ve detailed a lot of that in different episodes especially the episode on the detox, but the distinction you need to make is that although you’re having fun playing games, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily happy.
Life isn’t just about having a ton of fun, life is about happiness and fulfillment.
I went through this myself because when I was gaming I had a lot of fun playing games but as soon as I turned the game off and I looked around and I looked at what my life was like my life was a complete mess.
I was depressed, I was socially anxious, I didn’t really have any friends and I had dropped out of high school (twice).
Things weren’t going so well for me and the same might be the case for you.
So today I just want to bring this distinction to your awareness. I want you to think about it.
Are you just having fun playing games? Are you happy? What’s the difference if there is one.
Think about that and share your answer in the comments below. The more involved you can be in the community, the more we can help or your story can inspire others.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
If you haven’t completed your 90 day detox yet, than no, you can’t play games on the weekends.
If you’re playing games on the weekends in the middle of your detox than you’re not really completing the detox.
The whole point of the detox is to take 90 days off gaming to experience what that feels like in your life, and that means even if it’s hard, even if you’re bored, even if you’re stressed, you still should not be playing games.
However if you’ve finished your detox, then sure I definitely think that you can try it, but you also just want to be aware of whether games are having a positive or negative impact on your life.
When you are thinking about gaming on the weekends, if you’ve completed your detox, then you want to think about why you’re drawn to games on the weekends?
Is it because you’re bored?
Is it because you have nothing better to do?
Is it because you are looking to fill time?
Is it because you’re feeling lonely?
What are the reasons why you’re drawn to games on the weekends?
Try finding those in something else.
Games are cool and I’m not against gaming but I also know that gaming didn’t really lead me to accomplishing any of the other goals or dreams I had and really it was just a way for me to kill time.
And I know it’s something similar for you too.
You can learn more about where I stand on this and another example of someone who does game in moderation in my video on gaming in moderation with Richard Kuo:
The most important thing guys is that you need to think about how gaming is in your life and the relationship that you have with it, and whether or not it’s actually empowering you towards the things that you do want to do or if it’s just a way for you to procrastinate.
That’s the difference.
If you haven’t started your detox yet, begin it now.
90 days no gaming, it’s a great experiment to learn more about yourself and your relationship with gaming.
If you’ve finished your detox and you want to try gaming on the weekends a little bit, go ahead but also be aware that it’s really easy for that to snowball into gaming a lot more and if you find yourself doing that then you definitely want to put a stop to it right away.
I’d love to hear what you think. Are you gaming on the weekends? Are you trying moderation? Or did it not work for you? Share your perspective in the comments below.
Finally, a lot of you have been asking me to shoot more videos about what my life looks like on a daily basis, so I have started on Snapchat. If you’re not following me on Snapchat, I definitely recommend for you to do that.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
I hear from a lot of you guys that the reason you aren’t doing your detox or the reason that you’re still gaming is because you just want to play one more game, you just want to finish one more game, your new favorite game just came out and you want to beat it and then you’ll quit.
To quit gaming is to move on from something that means a lot to you, so it’s easy to justify just “one more game”.
But there’s always going to be one more game, you’ll always have another opportunity.
New games are coming out all the time, so it’s easy to procrastinate on making the decision that you ultimately know you want to make, which is that you want to quit and you want to start living a more meaningful life.
Now I don’t know what a meaningful life means to you – that’s for you to discover for yourself – but continuing to game is only going to make you procrastinate.
It’s only going to make you look back at your life a few months from now and wonder why you didn’t just quit back then.
So if you want to quit and you haven’t yet, because you’re just procrastinating on it, you want to think about why.
What’s holding you back? What are you worried about?
Are you worried that you’re not going to be able to have fun? Are you worried that you’re going to be bored? Are you worried that you’re going to lose all of your friends?
Is it that you identify as a gamer and you feel like you’re going to lose that?
You want to think about why you’re continuing to procrastinate and what’s holding you back, because it’s within these answers that you will be able to leverage them into the things you do want to do, and fulfill these needs in new activities.
So think about that and leave a comment below about what’s holding you back. I love to hear from you guys.
If you are ready to start your 90 day detox, click here. Try 90 days without gaming and then re-evaluate.
If you can’t go 90 days without gaming you should definitely not be gaming, so try that. Your new favorite game will still be there after 90 days but you’ll have learned much more about yourself and whether gaming is a positive force in your life or not.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
You had time to play video games for six hours a day.
You had time to play video games for twelve hours a day.
And you found that time, no problem…
So whatever your situation is, whatever the hobbies are that you’re looking to develop, whatever skills you want to get better at… you have time.
“Not having time” is not an excuse – time is a priority. We always make time for the things that are important to us. Period.
Your actions express your priorities.
Whatever your priorities are, that’s how you’re spending your time.
As humans we all have the same twenty four hours every single day, so how does someone like Elon Musk run three different companies and launch rockets and land them and do all of that cool crazy shit?
Because he invests his time where he wants to – it’s not like he has any more time than any of us.
So you have time. Time is not an excuse, time is a priority.
Ponder that today. How are you using your time? Are you investing it into yourself? Are you investing it into reading the books you want to read? Learning the programming you want to learn? Learning the language you want to learn? Hanging out with the friends you want to hang out with?
Are you investing your time or are you merely just sitting around hoping that your situation is going to change?
Share your answer in the comments and let me know what are you doing with your time. Are you investing it wisely? Are you struggling with procrastination?
Hope is not a strategy, so whatever you’re hoping to do, make sure that you have your actions express your priorities because you have time.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
There are games out there right now, such as Lumosity, that claim to train your brain. Are they safe for you to play? Do they even work? Watch today’s episode and find out:
Ultimately brain training games aren’t so bad, and they’re not going to ruin your detox but we should ask ourselves whether or not they actually work.
Research is coming out saying that brain games don’t work – you’re just getting better at the game itself – not that your brain is improving it’s cognitive function.
Regardless of whether brain training games actually “work” or not, what’s important is to understand that, if you’re playing games because you want to train your brain, let’s look at what research already proves to improve the function of our brain:
Exercise
Getting enough sleep
Taking your vitamins (omega 3s)
Reading
Meditation
Etc…
If you’re not doing these things, ask yourself if you’re playing “brain training” games because you actually want to improve your brain… or simply using it as justification to play some silly mobile game for 15-45 minutes per day to kill some time.
Remember there’s a difference between you like to play these games and your brain likes to play these games, so I think it’s really easy sometimes to get caught up in feeling good about playing games instead of actually thinking about the benefits of doing so, and if they actually are any.
My recommendation is this:
If you’re in your 90 day detox, do not play these games.
They can trigger you to want to play more and they’re not really providing you with any real benefits.
In fact, Lumosity just got sued for two million dollars because their marketing claims that their games provide all of this really good stuff to your brain and it has not been proven true.
Instead:
Focus on exercise, getting enough sleep, reading better books, and things like that that actually improve your brain, and let the brain training games go.
So I hope that helps you guys out and if it does, leave a comment below. Do you play brain training games? What has your experience been? Add your feedback to the discussion.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
Now if you look closely, both constant measurable growth and challenge represent a need for accomplishment.
But does gaming actually make you feel a sense of accomplishment?
I don’t think so. I think it makes you feel a false sense of accomplishment.
Although you’re genuinely accomplishing things in the game itself – and I’ll never be someone who will take those accomplishments away from you – gaming makes you feel like you’re accomplishing more than that – it makes you feel like you’re accomplishing things in “real life.”
But what happens is you sit down at your computer, you’re gaming away, you’re beating levels, beating bosses, destroying n00bs, feeling really good about yourself, you’re accomplishing a lot.
But as soon as you turn the game off, you stand up, you look around and your life is in the exact same place – which for most of you reading this it probably isn’t a very good place.
I know mine wasn’t.
I was depressed, I had few friends, I was constantly put in the friend zone, I dropped out of high school twice and I was pretending to have jobs.
My life was a disaster.
In the game I felt really good, I felt that sense of accomplishment, and then I would look around and my life would be in the exact same place.
That was a hard reality to face and it didn’t make me feel very good. So instead of dealing with that, I would just sit back down, put my headset back on, turn the game back on and keep playing.
Why deal with your situation when you can just escape into video games instead?
The reason I share this story is because for many of you, this is your reality right now. You’re gaming and in the game you feel really great about who you are and how you’re showing up, but then as soon as you turn it off your life is in the exact same place.
If you’re reading this and you want to quit gaming or you’ve quit gaming and you’re kind of procrastinating, maybe you’re relapsing, I want to share with you that to quit gaming is a lot less about a decision to not play games, and it’s a lot more about a decision to start fixing the different areas of your life that you need to fix.
Part of why I recommend a 90 day detox is because 90 days is actually enough time for you to really start making some progress in other areas of your life, so you could improve the way you deal with stress, you could improve your social skills, you could even go on a date or two.
These are things that are very possible for you if you remove your crutch, which is gaming, to put yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to look at your life for what it is and where it’s at, and to start improving it.
In the journey, in the process of facing your life for what it is right now, you will learn a lot about yourself.
Guess what, stress is going to happen in your life and you can’t always avoid it. You actually have to learn how to engage with it, how to process it.
But these are just activities and if you want to live a meaningful life you have to be willing to do the harder work – facing reality – and learning to improve your life in the ways that you need to improve it.
And in that process you can find a lot more meaning, you can grow a lot and eventually by doing the work, day by day by day, you end up coming a far way and that’s what I’ve seen in my life.
Right now I’m really happy with my life and you can make that same progress because my life hasn’t always been this way but by facing it and using that as an opportunity to learn and grow I’ve been able to make a lot of progress and you’ll be able to do that too.
To begin your journey, start with the 90 day detox.
You can also join our community on the forum. The community is a great way to have more encouragement and support and the community’s growing a lot.
Finally, just remember: you can pretend that you’re accomplishing a lot by continuing to play video games but when you turn off the Xbox and you look around and your life is still a complete mess, you get to choose whether you face reality or not.
And there’s a lot of power in stepping up to make the right choice for your own life. When you take that kind of responsibility, magic happens. That’s why I always say that to quit gaming and go through the detox can be a turning point for you.
So I hope that resonates and if it does, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
Cam: How did gaming impact you growing up, what brought you to a point where you wanted to quit and what brought you back to moderation?
Richard: So for me, gaming growing up was fun. My brother, who was my biggest role model played, so if he did something it was OK for me to do too.
After he got into college, I was still in high school, he stopped playing video games and the one thing my parents always said was “oh stop playing video games it’s a waste of time,” but I enjoyed it so I kept playing.
I got into college and I played a lot, sometimes I would play twelve hours a day and I would go to class and then I would come back and I would be playing Starcraft, Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2, whatever, and I kept playing.
But because there was a guilt trip growing up, “game shaming” you could say, I would always keep it a secret. For example in college we had roommates and even with my roommate he didn’t care if I played video games but I remember whenever he would come in it was almost like watching porn, close tab close tab close tab you know because I felt ashamed to play video games.
I knew it didn’t make me feel good and what ended up making me want to quit was that reason and then I made a video on YouTube posted it and it was like hey here’s why I quit video games because there’s so much to do in the world and at that time that’s what I believed.
Then a few months later I came back and I was like ah I just want to relax because I enjoy playing video games and I kept realizing that every single time I played video games I had a bad feeling about it, it was just like this doesn’t feel right, I feel like I should be doing something more productive.
So I quit for a combination of guilt from the game shaming growing up but also today I realize I have my own mission and purpose in my life, which is to create content. I’m a YouTuber as well as having conversations, speaking, anything like that to help teens and young adults overcome their self-worth conversations.
I think that’s really important and to me authentically speaking that is more meaningful to me than playing video games.
Going back to moderation I still play in moderation because I enjoy it occasionally, because I always keep myself in check, because I’ve trained my mind I’ve gone back and forth so many times, dozens of times, because I didn’t have the control before, but then I was like no no no Richard stop, just you’ve got to stop right now because you’re letting your bad habits control you.
Cam: So do you think that you had to quit and use that time where you weren’t playing to kind of get your life back to a place where you had more positive habits and that now allows you to be more aware of your gaming and for it to not spiral into more bad habits do you think that was important?
Richard: Ya, I think so. What happens is when we get stuck in a negative habit, in this case video games, we just constantly feel bad about ourselves, I just felt crappy and I couldn’t, it was really hard for me to feel confident and proud of myself.
So once I was able to say ok I’m just going to uninstall League of Legends or whatever the game was, first I would get frustrated because I would want to play again, but I’m like Richard don’t do it, just try to challenge yourself to do something else, that would give me the opportunity to grow and expand myself in a different way.
Cam: Ok last question, how much do you game now? Like, is it less than 5 hours a week, how much are you gaming on a weekly basis?
Richard: That’s a tough question to answer because how my habit is right now is not per week, it’s more like every other month I would pick-up gaming again because oh I kind of miss that feeling, I do. I’m going to say on average every single month I will play less than maybe less than ten hours, something like that.
Cam: Ok so this is really important because a lot of you guys ask me about moderation and you know I always say I don’t play because I just prefer to do other things, it’s not that I’m against gaming or that I don’t think moderation is possible, but if you want to moderate, first, complete your 90 day detox and then you can re-evaluate.
And if you are going to moderate, then as Richard said he’s gaming less than ten hours a month so moderating is not playing three four hours a day, two hours a day I still think that is a little bit too much so you really want to use Richard as an example and if you want to try moderation do it after the detox but then again, you know keep it to less hours than more hours.
So I hope that helps you guys out and if it does, make sure you leave a comment below. Did moderation work for you or did you have to quit cold turkey? I’d love to hear about it below:
Make sure you also check out Richard’s channel, he’s got a ton of awesome content especially around self-worth, which is really important for all of you guys because if you’ve been gaming and struggling with it, you’re probably also struggling with self-esteem, I know I did, so definitely check out Richard’s channel.
If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.
P.S. Richard and I also recorded a video for his channel and you can watch that here:
One of the reasons why you justify gaming during the winter is that it’s too cold to go outside, so you have “nothing better to do.” Especially if you don’t have a car.
So instead of being at home and being bored all day, you might as well game. Plus, gaming isn’t any worse than just sitting around watching TV or mindlessly browsing the internet.
Sound familiar?
But the truth is, we all know that is bullshit. There are millions of people out there in the world right now who don’t game and manage to do just fine during the winter months.
So no, just because it’s winter that does not mean you can justify gaming. To help you, here are the five activities I would recommend for you to try:
In the last six weeks I’ve made $2,250 building websites for my friend. Who wouldn’t want an extra two thousand dollars right now? By developing your skills in programming and web design, you too can create these kind of opportunities for yourself. Check out codeacademy.com
2. Cooking
In the video on five things I wish I had done differently when I was 18 years old, I shared how I wish I had learned more about diet and nutrition sooner, because of the impact it had on my health – my energy, my acne, etc.
In the winter months, learning how to cook is a fantastic skill to develop. Every person on the planet needs to eat, and knowing how to cook means you can provide value to any person out there. How many other skills are that universal? Plus, it will help your dating life. 😉 Check out the 4 Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss(affiliate link)
3. Yoga
As a gamer you’ve spent a ton of time sitting in a chair with poor posture gaming your heart away. This has major health implications. (Just read this.)
Yoga is a great way to stretch and release the tension in your body. Plus it helps you reconnect with your body (something you haven’t been doing when you’re just numbing yourself with games) and yoga teaches you mindfulness – an important skill to develop in your life – especially after you quit gaming.
4. Reading
What better time than the winter to catch up on your reading list. If you need ideas, here are the five books I recommend for you that will help you quit gaming.
5. Music Production
You may not have a guitar or other instrument to play, but if you’re reading this you have a computer and that gives you the opportunity to learn more about music production.
My friend Cam Heathman (also known as Otter Point) was a gamer who played over eight hours a day. After he quit he took up music production and now he has songs signed to record labels and he DJs at clubs. I recently interviewed him as a bonus for Respawn v4. You can listen to it for free here.
Bonus: Still not sure what to do during the winter?
Take the Game Quitters Challenge, which is a 30-day challenge intentionally designed to help you develop skills like courage, discipline, social skills and much more.
A big part of the challenge is about finding time in your life to do the things that are important. The guide Cam provides helps you do that. I wouldn’t turn down this opportunity. His challenge is worth making the time for, especially if you are trying to replace video games.
If you’re curious, you can download a sample of the Challenge here. (scroll down midway)
I hope that helps. Remember, gaming was just an activity, so it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, in order to successfully move on you need to intentionally choose new activities to replace gaming with.
What activities are you going to replace gaming with this winter? Share your answer in the comments below.
The simple answer is no, you probably shouldn’t be playing mobile games.
There are a couple of reasons why.
The first is that it’s really easy to justify “just one game” when you’re bored or tired, and we all know that one game leads to another one and another one and next thing you know, you’ve just spent 20-40 minutes or longer playing these games.
Now it’s easy to think that 20-40 minutes here and there isn’t a big deal, but it all adds up, and if you invested that time into things like reading, listening to podcasts, or learning a new language, you could actually make a lot of progress in them.
Another reason you shouldn’t play mobile games is because the game design, including the reward-motivated psychology, and mechanics like freemium models and turn-based delays can be even more advanced than console and PC games.
These changes in game design, especially with in-app purchases, make it easy for you to spend a bunch of money (usually small amounts at a time) and the more you invest financially in a game, the harder it is for you to move on from it.
Plus this money could be easily invested into books, courses, seminars or something like Respawn to better your life.
The truth is, mobile games are just an easy way to waste a ton of time and money… just to avoid “boredom,” and they don’t actually bring anything tangible to your life.
Finally, mobile games take you out of the present moment. If you’re always trying to fill your time with mobile games, you miss opportunities to meet new people, enjoy nature, and so forth.
Gaming over the holidays is something you’ve always done – it’s been your routine. You’re done school for the semester, you’ve been fulfilling all of your obligations and now you have all of this free time, so what better to do than binge game?
But what happens is although during the holidays there aren’t any “real” consequences to your binge gaming, it does create problems as you go back into the next school semester.
One quick example is your sleeping schedule – it’s all over the place and getting back into the school routine becomes a stressful experience, instead of flowing back into school and handling your business like a boss.
To avoid gaming over the holidays you need to start shifting the mindset that you use to justify gaming. Part of that mindset is the way you see your obligations and the way you see your free time.
During the school semester you go to class and fulfill your obligations – something out of your control because you have to go – but what happens is when you are done your obligations for the day, you feel that much more control over your free-time – it’s time that you can do whatever the fuck you want with.
And that tends to be gaming.
However this mindset only keeps us at the status quo. Our time and energy are the two non-renewable resources we have, so if we are constantly using them to just fulfill our obligations and then kill our free time, we aren’t moving forward towards our goals and instead we’re staying in the same place.
Although the holidays are a time to relax and recover from the school semester, they are also a great opportunity to invest your time into the things you truly want to do – into developing new habits and pursuing new goals you have.
To avoid gaming over the holidays, follow these two tips:
Create structure with a schedule.
When you’re going to school you have a lot of structure, you had to wake up at a certain time, you had to be at school at a certain time and most of your day was planned out.
During the holidays you lose all of that structure, and that can cause you to experience a lot of boredom, and boredom leads to gaming. Setup a schedule using an agenda or Google Calendar (what I use) to plan new activities ahead of time.
Create a project.
The holidays are a great time to create a new project that will help you learn a new skill or help you towards your goals. Is there an app you can build? Do you want to learn certain songs on a guitar? Reach a new level in a new language? Start a podcast or website? You have enough time to make progress in one of these during your winter break.
Last year for example I wanted to read five books, so I did that and it was awesome.
If you need ideas for new activities to do during your winter break, download 60+ New Hobby Ideas.
Potential Triggers: Friends and Family
One last thing to be aware of on your winter break is that it’s easy to become triggered by your friends.
You see your friends getting new games… or they get an Xbox or PS4 for Christmas, and it’s easy to feel envious or jealous of them. In this moment it’s important to remind yourself why you’re quitting games and why it’s important to you.
You also want to be aware that because your friends are on their break, they are going to be gaming and will potentially even ask you to play too. If you’re worried about this, watch this video on what to do about your gamer friends.
Finally, your family might want to buy you games because that’s what they’ve always done – that’s what you were into and they know it was important to you.
So if you’re worried about this, Christmas is the perfect opportunity to talk to your family about how you’re moving on from games and share with them the new hobbies or ideas you’re excited about and maybe they can help you with that instead.
For example, last year for Christmas my family bought me a GoPro, because I had talked to them about how I wanted to start a YouTube channel. And voila, here we are.
So use Christmas as an opportunity to connect more with your friends and family (outside of games), and make the most of the time you have to pursue the new goals and dreams you have.
What are your plans over the Christmas break? What new hobby or project are you going to launch? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
If you’re looking for some extra help over the holiday season to avoid gaming, check out Respawn.
Gaming Changes the Brain
This is a free chapter preview of Respawn: How to Quit Playing Video Games, Fill the Void and Take Control of Your Life. Purchase the full version here.
Chapter 6:
When you quit playing video games you’ll notice a shift in how you feel.
For the first few days (or even weeks depending on your situation) you tend to have no energy and your mood sucks. You may get irritated easily, experience headaches, or even have dreams about games.
It’s easy to feel like you are going a bit crazy.
This is all normal. When you quit gaming there are many changes that will happen in your life, and these can happen in both your physiology and your environment.
These changes happen because your brain responds to gaming in specific ways. It’s one of the reasons why you have gamed as much as you have, and this has to do with a chemical in your brain called dopamine.
In the brain, dopamine functions as a neurotransmitter — a chemical released by nerve cells to send signals to other nerve cells. The brain includes several distinct dopamine systems, one of which plays a major role in reward-motivated behavior.
Have you heard of dopamine before? Gaming provides rapid dopamine release. This explains why when you play games, the type of stimulation you receive is so much different than what you experience in other activities (and why you can find other activities to be boring in comparison.)
That doesn’t mean other activities are actually boring or that you don’t enjoy them, it just means that the type of stimulation in games is different than the type of stimulation in other activities.
I’m not going to make a villain out of game designers, but games are designed, intentionally, with the best practices of gamification and reward-motivated psychology. They are designed to get you (and keep you) hooked.
Rapid dopamine release can be dangerous, and even addictive:
Researchers analyzed the levels of dopamine release in the brains of about 20 ex-drug users and non-users as they played a motor-bike riding computer game. They found that video game playing affected dopamine release at levels similar to those exhibited by using drugs like ecstasy. These results imply that excessive computer game playing may resemble substance abuse or addiction in that it may be a strategy that children use to cope with negative emotions like frustration, fear, and stress. 11.Nature: Evidence for striatal dopamine release during a video game×
When you game you experience dopamine surges that provide an environment of hyper-stimulation and continued consumption of this can override our natural mechanisms causing structural changes in our brain.
That was a bit wordy but what you need to know is that the type of stimulation you get from gaming is excessive and with continued consumption over time your brain will experience structural changes.
The science, as detailed in this video by Gary Wilson is the following:
Excess chronic consumption (dopamine surges) cause a binge mechanism (excess Delta-Fosb accumulates) which cause cravings for more which cause continued consumption which cause structural brain changes (detailed below).
The more you game, the more you want to game, the more your brain wants to game, so the more you game, and then structural brain changes.
3 structural changes to our brain:
Numbed pleasure response: Every day pleasures no longer satisfy us.
Hyper-reactivity to gaming: Every thing else is boring, but gaming is super exciting.
Willpower erosion: Due to changes in our frontal cortex.
These changes help explain why moving on from gaming can be so difficult.
I bet you relate to the following experience:
Life just doesn’t satisfy you like gaming does.
Everything else is boring anyways, especially compared to the fun you have gaming.
And if you were going to quit, you just don’t really have the motivation to.
So what’s interesting about this is that for so long you’ve likely thought that either you just really enjoyed gaming (it was your passion) and thought other activities just weren’t really that much fun or at least, just not for you.
Plus, you were just one of those who struggled with motivation anyways. But what I want you to know is that this is likely not true. These experiences can be happening because of structural changes in your brain due to excessive gaming.
With greater power comes greater responsibility.
So now that we know this we have the ability to leverage our knowledge to respond differently. Remember, our response is our responsibility.
Research shows it will take up to 90 days for our brain chemistry to rewire back to normal dopamine sensitivity levels. And during this 90 days we may experience any of the following:
Compulsions, cravings and/or urges to game
Withdrawals, mood swings and/or irritability
Feelings of apathy, anxiety and/or depression
Headaches, lethargy and/or lack of willpower
And really anything else. We each respond differently
I found the detox-type symptoms to be the worst during the first two weeks.
But at some point, you’ll begin to notice a shift happening, one where you have more energy than you normally do (even when you were playing games!), you’re more optimistic, your cravings are less frequent (they always come and go) and you may even experience a feeling of not being that interested in games at all.
This is your detox in action!
Ready to commit to 90 days without games?
Then I invite you to purchase the full version of Respawn. Respawn will walk you through the five steps you need to take to set your detox up for success:
You need to know how to breakthrough the psychology that keeps you gaming.
You need to know how to fill the void and avoid being bored.
You need to know how to stop wasting your time and be more productive.
You need to know how to deal with the urges and cravings that cause a relapse.
You need to know the key mindsets to ensure your detox is a success.
Respawn is the ultimate guide to quit playing video games
“The best decision I have made in my life, honestly.” – David
“I grew my YouTube channel to 432,700 subscribers. Trust me, doing a double backflip is cooler than getting an epic mount.” – Gerard
“Got me a 4.0 in college after quitting games. No regrets and no fear.” – Matt S
“I’m 36 days clean from video games. Your videos were thought-provoking as well as inspiring and have helped me on my journey.” – Galen
“I have run 11 marathons. I also spend more time chasing my son around the house instead of sitting at my desk.” – Jared
“I’m 22 years old from Iraq. Thank you Cam, you were very helpful.” – Thamer
“I’m a 15 year old and your videos have provided me with a lot of great information. Keep up the good work.” – Kay
“You have helped to change my life. I sold my console and have lost 15 pounds. I am forever grateful.” – Sabeeh
“I reached 90 days and it’s the longest I’ve gone without playing video games my entire life.” – Jack
“You have inspired me and changed my life. Thank you.” – Eli
Frequently Asked Questions
If your question isn’t answered below, email me and I’ll help.
Can I play in moderation instead?
Some of us don’t want to quit gaming completely and instead we want to reduce our time. If this is you, what I recommend is to complete the 90 day detox first, and then re-evaluate at the end if you want to try moderation. The truth is, if you can’t go 90 days without gaming… you probably shouldn’t be gaming.
Will the detox help other areas of my life?
Absolutely! One of the reasons why we game is because it fulfills certain needs we have, so going through the detox gives you 90 days to work on these other areas of your life, like improving your social skills, learning how to deal with stress, overcoming procrastination, etc. You can make a lot of progress in 90 days!
Can I still play with my gamer friends?
During the detox I recommend against playing with friends. Instead, use this as an opportunity to enjoy other activities with them. Some of your friends will support you, while others will not. Be firm in your boundaries with those who do not support you.
Do puzzle games count?
Brain and puzzle games can be ok as long as they don’t cause you to have cravings. If your cravings are strong, avoid brain and puzzle games until the end of your detox. Board games are fine.
Do streams count against my detox?
Watching gaming streams or LetsPlays does not count against your detox, but I recommend against them because they will trigger you and cause more cravings. Watching streams is main reasons people relapse. I recommend watching these twovideos.
Won’t I just be bored all day long?
It’s true that when you quit gaming you might be bored. But boredom leads to relapse so I encourage you to avoid this as much as possible. To do that, follow the steps I outline in Respawn.
What happens after 90 days?
This is up to you. I completed my detox and chose to continue not playing video games. I haven’t played a game in over four years! My life has improved tremendously and I don’t regret it at all. But we all have to make our own choice. Complete your detox first, and then re-evaluate whether you want to play again or not.
“I want my life to have purpose. I want it to have drive. I’m ready to take it back. I’m ready to implement the things I’ve wanted to do for so long back into my life to grow into the strongest, happiest version of myself. Grinding out the Terran ladder, planting virtual bombs, and slaying demons over and over isn’t what’s going to get me there.” – Ryan
Gaming has always been your reward. You’ve done well on a test, so you get to game. You’ve finished a semester at school, so you get to game. Gaming is your reward.
But this is also one of the reasons why you can relapse after you quit. You’ve done well and you want to reward yourself. So how do you reward yourself without gaming? Press play:
Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with gaming as a reward. If you want to game, go ahead and game. But if you’re reading this right now it’s safe for me to assume that you want to remove gaming from your life.
So if that’s the case, and you want to avoid a relapse in the future, it’s important for you to find new ways to reward yourself without using gaming.
It’s this notion of being intentional that is so important on your journey. If you’re not intentional with the things you do, you’ll go to what you know (your habits), and in this case, your habit is to game.
There are 2 types of rewards:
1. Extrinsic
This is a reward that is outside of yourself. Maybe it’s something you purchase. An example from my own life is that every time I go to the gym, I buy myself a coconut water. It’s a simple reward I look forward to and it encourages me to go to the gym more often.
Now the opportunity to reward myself with a coconut water isn’t the only reason I go to the gym. I also go because it makes my body feel better, it builds strength and muscle, I look better in clothes and it helps me de-stress. But a silly little coconut water also helps a lot. 🙂
2. Intrinsic
This is a reward that is inside of yourself – how you feel about yourself. An example from my own life is when I spoke at TEDxBoulder.
What you might not know about that talk is that I had never spoken on stage before… so I was very, very nervous. What helped me persevere is that I knew once I finished it my reward would be an immense amount of confidence in myself. I would be able to increase my self-esteem and be proud of who I am.
Not because I spoke at TEDx (although that’s cool), but more that I was able to push through the fear and adversity I faced in doing the talk in the first place.
I didn’t need to have a coconut water after TEDxBoulder because the sense of pride I had in myself was enough.
Back to you
How can you play with this and learn more about yourself? What extrinsic rewards could you have? What about intrinsic? The key is to identify them beforehand so you aren’t making these decisions on autopilot (which is when you’ll go to what you know, which is gaming.)
Share the new rewards you’re choosing for yourself in the comments below.
If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
Should you watch gaming streams? Press play and find out:
After you quit gaming what you realize is that you also spend a lot of time watching gaming streams, which happens because you want to kill time and learn about new games, but also because you enjoy following the different personalities of the streamers.
I used to watch streams as well. I remember following along when Day9 first started streaming and I really enjoyed it… but the truth is, after you quit gaming you need to stop watching streams.
The reason is because streams are one of the top reasons why people relapse. When you watch streams it makes you want to play. It’s easy to think it’s not going to, but the more you watch streams, the more you’ll want to play.
When you quit gaming you will experience cravings to play. Cravings are inevitable, and because of this you want to not only learn how to deal with them, but you also want to mitigate them.
By not watching streams you’re taking a positive step to mitigate your cravings and set your recovery up for success.
Now one of the reasons why you will justify watching gaming streams is because it’s no worse than watching TV, which is true… but you’re not quitting games to just sit around and watch TV all day. This is the same justification you can use to spend way too much time on Discord – because you think well you’re just hanging out with your friends.
You’re quitting games because you want to start living your life to the fullest.
To do that you need to start creating bigger goals for yourself. The more time you sit around mindlessly browsing the internet, watching gaming streams or watching TV, the less time you are spending on your goals.
Remember to always come back to what you really want to do. Why do you want to quit gaming? What’s your purpose? What are you trying to accomplish?
When you were gaming you were thinking of your life from a place of how you can be entertained all day and numb yourself from your life.
Now that you’ve quit, you want to start thinking about how you can set your life up for success, what you can do on a daily basis that will lead you to reach your goals.
When you start thinking of your life on that level… spending your time watching gaming streams just doesn’t really fit anymore. This also goes for websites like Reddit that you waste time on.
3 tips to avoid watching gaming streams:
1. Find replacement activities.
When do you watch gaming streams? I bet it’s when you’re at home and you’re tired and bored. So what can you do instead when you’re feeling this way that will lead you towards your goals?
One of the reasons why you watch streams is because of the different personalities you get to hang out with> Many of these streamers you have been watching for years and this will create nostalgia. (Watch: How to deal with gaming nostalgia.)
To combat this you need to find new role models and mentors to watch instead. Here are a few people I would recommend for you:
Instead of watching streams and encouraging you to play video games, these people will help you live your life to the fullest.
3. Be busier and be out of the house.
The more you can be outside of your house the better. You’ll have less time to watch streams, you’ll be less tempted to game (you won’t be bored at home) and you can invest your time in more productive activities.
So I hope that helps you out and if it does I’d love to hear what your new activities are going to be instead of watching streams. Share your answer in the comments below.
If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
One of the reasons why we justify staying in the house is because we’re introverts – we genuinely like to stay indoors, especially if it means we get to game at the same time.
I get it because I’m an introvert, too. But being an introvert doesn’t mean you have to stay home all day, it just means you recharge by being alone, whereas an extrovert recharges by being with other people.
So it’s not that introverts like to stay home and extroverts don’t. It’s just the way that you like to recharge.
Whether you’re an extrovert or introvert you still need to get out of the house, especially if you want to quit gaming and avoid a relapse.
Here are the three reasons why:
1. You will be less tempted to game.
When I first quit gaming I made sure I was basically never home. I would wake up, go to work, have a quick nap and get out until I could come home and go straight to bed. If I wasn’t home I wouldn’t be able to game.
2. You’ll be able to meet more people.
After you quit gaming you will likely lose some of your friends. That’s normal and it’s ok, however it can make you feel vulnerable. To counter this, you want to start meeting more people and making new friends.
3. You’ll be able to avoid distractions.
When I’m at home it’s easy to get distracted by the TV, the computer or my bed. I find if I’m not at home it’s a lot easier for me to stay focused on doing the things I want to do. If I’m not at home, I don’t get as tired and justify having a nap. I don’t “need a break” to browse Reddit. Etc. Etc.
If you’re not at home it’s a lot easier to not be tempted to game, you’ll meet more people and you will be able to be more productive without distractions.
Now I’ll share a few steps you can take to get out of the house more often in a moment, but before we get into that I want you to think about why are you not getting out of the house?
Is it social anxiety? Is it that you don’t even know where you would go? Is it that you don’t have anyone to go out with? Is it that staying home is just your routine?
You need to understand why you’re staying home, because by identifying that it gives you the power to find a solution to it.
Three steps to get out of the house more often:
1. Plan ahead and have a schedule
I’m a big believer in planning ahead because it helps you avoid making mood-based decisions. If you’re anything like me (I bet you are), I’m rarely “in the mood” to get out of the house. By planning ahead it allows me to get mentally ready for it, and avoid justifying my way out of it at the last minute. “I’m not in the mood anyways..”
Go to meetups.com and find a few events in your area. Schedule them into your calendar.
2. Be consistent by creating new habits
Consistency builds momentum and creates new habits. If your habit is to go home after work, try going to a coffee shop to read for an hour instead, and do it often. Creating new routines that will help you get out of the house will make a big difference.
Action step: Create new routines. What are you going to do after school or work on weekdays? What about on the weekend?
3. Focus on your social momentum
Momentum is something you can use to your advantage. The more often you get out of the house, the more momentum you will have and this momentum will encourage you to keep going. If you only get out of the house every once in awhile, it will be that much harder to follow through when you want to.
Getting out of the house shifts your energy. You get to feel the fresh air, you get to move around you get to meet more people. When you’re moving on from playing video games, all of these will have a positive impact on your recovery.
I hope that helps, and if it does I’d love to hear what your new routines are going to be. What meetups are you going to check out? What keeps you at home so often? Share your answer in the comments below.
If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
When you quit playing video games it’s an emotional experience, and you need to be aware of this because your emotions will influence your behavior. So what are the seven things you should expect after you quit gaming? Press play and find out:
When you quit gaming certain events are predictable. We all seem to go through the same things.
Because of this, we have the opportunity to prepare for them ahead of time and that way, when they occur they don’t catch us off guard and potentially cause us to relapse.
Success is when preparation meets opportunity.
Here are the seven things to expect after you quit gaming:
1. You will have tough days.
Not every single day will be easy. Some days will be easy, some days will be hard. That’s ok. This experience of moving on from playing video games is a new beginning for you, it’s a new chapter in your life.
Don’t get too attached to having a good day every day. Otherwise you’ll get frustrated and stressed out, which will only cause you to want to game.
2. Your experience will be like a wave.
Be prepared to experience a wide range of emotions, and these emotions can come out of nowhere. Some days you’ll be happy, others you’ll be nostalgic. Some weeks will fly by, others will crawl. Ride the wave and keep moving forward.
3. Your detox might take more time.
Although we recommend for you to go through the 90 day detox, 90 days is just a general guideline. Your recovery might take more time. Focus less on the specific number and days and instead continue to build your life without games.
4. You will have urges and cravings.
This is a normal part of your journey. Depending on how much you gamed your urges and cravings will reflect that in their intensity. The more you gamed, the more intense your urges and cravings. That’s ok.
Some of your friends will support you, while others will not. This can suck and hurt in the moment, but what you need to remember is that the ones who support you are your real friends, and you can let the others go.
One of the main reasons you gamed was to avoid boredom, so it’s crucial to be prepared for potential boredom after you quit. Make sure you have chosen new activities.
Also remember that part of the reason why a 90 day detox is so important for you is because due to the amount of gaming you’ve done, your brain may have experienced structural changes and these changes may be causing your feelings of boredom.
Relapse can be a natural part of the addiction process, and although we don’t want to relapse and I don’t encourage it (duh!), the reality is that it’s common and by preparing ahead of time in the event that it does occur, we can bounce back quicker.
Relapse doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you learn from the experience. When I relapsed after being game-free for eleven months it taught me what I was missing in my recovery to be successful.
Now that you know the seven things to expect after you quit gaming, you can be prepared ahead of time and avoid failing in your recovery.
To succeed, take these 3 steps:
1. Focus one day at a time.
Your mindset should be to win the day, every single day. Again some days will be easy, others will be hard, and that’s ok. The key is to just win the day. To win, just don’t play games. Easy right?!
To win the day, I recommend starting your day strong and focusing on the finish. By starting your day strong in the morning you will build momentum that can carry you throughout the day. Start with day with a meditation habit or gratitude journal. Read: The Morning Miracle by Hal Elrod(affiliate link)
Now it’s great to start your day strong but sometimes shit happens, and things come up during the day that stress you out. So whatever happens throughout the day, remember to finish strong. How can you end the day on a positive note, regardless of what happened?
2. Be intentional in choosing new activities.
The key word here is intention. If you’re able to stay busy you won’t be bored, if you’re not bored you won’t be tempted to play games (as much), so make sure you have chosen new activities.
3. Start a daily journal.
Writing is really important to process your experience and clarify your thoughts. Especially right now when you’re mind can play a lot of tricks on you with any number of different justifications to continue gaming.
Start a daily journal, even if it’s just a sentence or two every day. You can start your journal here (and read the journals of others currently on the same journey as you) on the Game Quitters Forum.
Don’t underestimate how much of an impact a supportive and encouraging community can have on your journey.
I hope that helps, and if it does I’d love to hear what your new activities are going to be or which one of these events gives you the most trouble? Share your answer in the comments below.
If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
When you make a big shift in your life, like moving on from playing video games it’s important to take steps to improve your overall perspective.
As I’ve shared in the past, reading books is one of best and easiest ways (Read: 5 Books You Must Read) to do just that, and today I want to share with you another easy and accessible way, using podcasts.
Accessible. (They work on both your mobile device and on a desktop.)
Audio-based. (So you can listen to them on the go while you’re commuting, at the gym or even while eating lunch.)
And there are thousands of different ones to choose from and virtually any topic you can imagine. I tend to focus on ones that revolve around personal development and business, because those are the topics I’m interested in, but whatever your interests are, there’s likely a podcast dedicated to them.
So here are the five podcasts I recommend for you, including an episode to check out for each:
1. The Tim Ferriss Show
On this podcast Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week, 4-Hour Chef and 4-Hour Body interviews a wide-range of guests (movie directors, startup founders, comedians, authors, etc, etc) about what they do that allows them to achieve the level of excellence they do. From the habits they have to the book they read, each episode is different and I always leave with something I can apply to my own life.
Sam Harris is one of my favorite thinkers. If I could only listen to one person speak with the rest of my life, he would likely be that person. His podcast focuses on topics of philosophy, spirituality (without religion), politics, meditation and much more. The thing I love about Sam Harris is that the way he approaches these problems help me understand more about the dynamics at play within each of them, and that helps me form my own thinking about a topic.
One of the top rated and longest running podcasts, Jordan Harbinger has been interviewing guests on personal development, dating and business before many others got into the game. With over 600+ episodes Jordan tends to be a more “in your face” interviewer who likes to cut through the bullshit.
Regardless of how interested you are in history (I wasn’t really), Dan Carlin’s approach to each series will keep you engaged and teach you a lot about our world, where it’s come from and where it’s likely to go in the future. I love this podcast because it helps to expand my thinking in a way that reading personal development books simply cannot.
If you’re reading this you have enough technology in front of you that your opportunities are literally infinite. This is an opportunity you have that is unique to our present day and in my opinion, it’s worth leveraging in every way you can.
One way to do this is to pursue business opportunities, even if they are small revenue streams on the side. Especially with you going through so many changes right now, it’s a great time to try new things and explore the opportunities you may have through an online business. If you’re interested in this at all, take some of the free time you’re spending on mindless browsing and invest it into the Smart Passive Income podcast with Pat Flynn.
So there you have it, the five podcasts you can check out that will help you live a more meaningful life. As I said before, throw some of these on your phone and listen to them while you commute to work or school, at the gym or while you’re eating lunch. I personally listen on 2x speed and always take notes!
I hope that helps, and if it does I’d love to hear which podcast you’re going to start with in the comments below.
P.S. If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
When you quit playing video games it’s easy to feel a void in your life. Initially you think that void is in how you spend your time, but the truth is the void is in the meaning of your life.
When you were gaming you had a strong sense of purpose because of the way games are structured for you to progress. But now that you’ve quit, how do you find your purpose? Press play and find out:
Struggling to find your sense of purpose is something that I’ve personally struggled with too. I remember feeling so frustrated every time someone suggested for me to find my purpose because I knew the advice was correct but I didn’t know how to actually do it!
And I believe this happens because of the way the statement is phrased, which causes two issues: Find your purpose.
1. Find your purpose.
The first mistake we make when we’re trying to find our purpose is that we think we’re supposed to just find it, like it’s some magical thing out there in the world for us to discover.
Now this isn’t entirely inaccurate (especially the “discover” part)… but what I’ve found happens is that we end up waiting around for our purpose to find us, instead of taking action and choosing our purpose.
You don’t find your purpose, you choose your purpose.
2. Find your purpose.
The next mistake we make is that because the word “purpose” is singular, it appears to us as though we only have one purpose instead of being able to have many. So if we have different interests, we get stuck trying to pick one thing.
Our purpose is not one thing, it can be many things. Our purpose evolves over time and it can change. Don’t get too caught up in having to know your purpose right now, allow it to evolve over time as you gain more clarity by taking action towards the things that you’re interested in.
What to do next
Instead of getting overwhelmed with trying to figure out what your grand sense of purpose for your entire life is right now, break your purpose into smaller segments.
What is your purpose for the next year? Next month? What about this week? Today?
When you break it down it’s easier to take action on because you’re not so overwhelmed. Overwhelm breeds frustration, kills motivation and creates inertia.
Breaking things down into smaller steps helps you bypass overwhelm. When you break it down into smaller steps, you can have a great day, today, and use that momentum to build progress over time.
Next, now that you’re beginning to take action on the things that you’re interested in, pay attention to what it is, specifically, that you enjoy about these different things. This will help you gain more clarity. You can also focus on what you don’t want to do.
My three major goals
A few years ago I realized I had three major goals: I wanted to be happy, I wanted to be in the best shape possible and I wanted to create an impact.
This became my purpose, this became my vision. I used this vision to guide my actions, and began to study more about positive psychology, fitness and nutrition and business.
Game Quitters is the project I launched to accomplish my third major goal.
Let your vision guide you, not your current circumstances.
Think about where you want to go. Think about what your vision is, and choose a timeline that suits you. That can be a year from now, a month from now, this week or even today. The timeframe isn’t as important as just having something to focus on, and then allowing it to grow and expand as you gain more clarity.
Finding your sense of purpose is all about learning more about yourself.
Think about this
Right now you’ve just quit playing video games and now you’re feeling a bit confused and lost. You’re lacking meaning in your life.
But you’re on a mission right now to redefine your life. You’re on a mission to create a new life for yourself. And that is your sense of purpose!
It’s about learning how to make new friends. It’s about learning how to be happy again. It’s about learning how to find your passions. It’s about learning how to live a meaningful life.
And in this process you’ll learn more about yourself, you’ll gain more clarity and you’ll find a greater sense of purpose.
So this is all happening right now. Continue to do the work and you’ll get the results you’re looking for.
I hope that helps, and if it does I’d love to hear what your purpose is today, this week, this month, this year, whatever timeframe you choose in the comments below.
P.S. If you are still playing games but you want to quit right now, check out Respawn.
When you’re trying to learn something new in your life it’s easy to get frustrated at your lack of progress. And this frustration leads to discouragement and before you know it you’ve either given up on learning your new skill or gone back to old habits.
This is especially common when you go to move on from playing video games. Thankfully there’s a framework out there (which I will share with you today) that can help you understand the point that you’re at in your journey and what you need to do to continue moving forward.
The truth about moving on from games is that it’s a learning process, and the main thing you’re trying to learn is how to live a meaningful life. The benefit of this is that you can apply different learning models and techniques to improve your chance of success.
One of these is the Four Stages of Competence, and it was developed by Abraham Maslow. This model helps you understand the different stages that you’re at and how to move forward towards the next one.
Here are the four stages
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence
In this stage you don’t know how to do something, you might not even recognize the deficit you have in it and you might not even recognize the value in it either.
For example, when you were gaming a lot, you justified it because life outside of games wasn’t that much fun anyways, so you might as well be gaming. This is unconscious incompetence, you don’t know know what you don’t know.
To move forward: You have to recognize your deficit and recognize the value in learning your new skill. Your desire to learn is really all you need.
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence
In this stage you might not know how to do something, but you recognize the value in it and you recognize the deficit, and you’re beginning to take action and make mistakes to learn.
To move forward: If you’re taking action, whatever action you know you can take, and making mistakes along the way you’re on the right path. Keep going.
Stage 3: Conscious Competence
In this stage you’re beginning to understand how to do your new skill, but it takes a lot of concentration and focus in order to do it.
This is the stage where we tend to get frustrated because we have to focus so much and it can make us feel like we aren’t really making progress. But that’s not true! It’s just we haven’t learned our new skill to stage four!
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence
Now the skill is second nature and we have the ability to teach it to others. It doesn’t take too much effort for us to be consistent day after day.
What you should focus on
To move from one stage to the next there are three principles you want to focus on every day:
1. Desire
The only difference in any of these stages is your desire inside to learn and grow. Before doing anything else, reconnect with your desire to learn and grow.
2. Action
You have to take action if you want to get results. By taking action you are able to make mistakes and learn from them. Try one thing, see how it goes, try something else, see how it goes and compare the difference between the two.
3. Focus
The main difference between people who are more successful than others is that they focus. Without focus you can take all of the action you want but it may not lead anywhere. Focus, focus, focus. I can’t stress this enough.
Applying this to you
If you’re someone who’s just quit playing video games and you’ve chosen some new activities and you’re having to really focus on that and it’s hard for you to not feel bored all of the time, you’re most likely in between stages two and three.
Concentration is your path forward.
If you’re someone who’s quit gaming for awhile but you’re not necessarily feeling fulfilled, this is something you just need to continue to learn about. You need to continue to take action and fail forward.
What helped me was learning through contrast. Try something, see how it feels, try something else, see how it feels and understand what the difference is between the two. This can help you gain more clarity about what it is that you do like.
So I hope that helps and if it does, I’d love to hear what stage you’re at and what action you’re going to take moving forward in the comments below.
If you haven’t quit playing video games yet but you’re ready to get your life back on track, check out Respawn.
I haven’t always been a reader, in the first 22 years of my life I had read a total of three books ever. Recently my father even mentioned how surprised he was that I turned into a reader.
But since then I’ve been reading as much as I can, totaling over 60 books in the last three years alone.
Why the change?
Because reading is one of the easiest ways to become smarter. And who doesn’t want to become smarter, right? Reading has made a huge impact on my life. My only regret is not starting sooner.
A mentor once told me that if I wanted to learn anything about any topic, all I had to do was to pick up the top five rated books on the subject on Amazon, and after reading them I’d have a wealth of knowledge on the subject.
I completely agree. So I try to read one new book each week. And that might sound like it takes a lot of time or effort, but it really doesn’t. That’s a myth.
If you read 10-15 pages per day (about 30 minutes based on average reading speeds), you can easily read a new book every week or two.
If you go with audiobooks instead, and put them on 2x speed, you can fly through books and still retain the information. I put them on during any commutes I have, while I’m at the gym, and any other dead time in my day.
Here are the five books I’d recommend you read to help you quit playing video games:
Gaming was your habit, and one thing we know about habits is that if you don’t replace them with a new one, you’ll continue to do what you’ve always done. The Power of Habit is one of the best books out there on understanding how to build habits. Read this book.
My life improved dramatically when I started to focus on the little things I could do each day that would compound over time and lead to big results. The reason most of us fail at the things we want to do is because we get overwhelmed with the task at hand. The Slight Edge will teach you a framework to overcome this and make the real progress you’re looking for.
This is one of the most interesting books I’ve read in awhile. The premise is about how to build habit-forming products, and how apps and games hook us into compulsive behavior. It’s full of scientific research but with Nir’s writing style it’s easy to read and you’ll fly through it.
4. In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté (Amzn)
I love this book because it teaches you how to understand addiction in general, and not only focuses on the physical dependence/brain side of the addiction equation but also the environment influence as well – which you know I speak a lot about. If you’ve ever wanted to get a deeper look into what addiction really is, this is the book for you.
Cernovich is a controversial guy but don’t mistake that with the power of this book, because it’s packed full of gold. I believe there is nothing more important than mastering your mindset, and this book is a how-to guide on how to do exactly that. It’s a refreshing take on a topic that so many self-help books talk about but don’t teach you how to actually master the skill.
As I shared above with Gorilla Mindset, Resilience will teach you about mental toughness and your ability to persevere from another angle. The book is a collection of letters between Greitens and another member of the military who was experiencing PTSD upon returning home. I listened to this on Audible and loved it.
Next:
Pick one book from the above, whichever one you feel most inspired to read and start there. If you think all of them are interesting, read The Power of Habit, first and The Slight Edge, second.
Don’t underestimate the impact reading can have on your life. If you even read one book each month that has the power to change your life (one in the personal development/business/finance realm), you will look back on them a few years from now and be able to see the tremendous growth you’ve had by doing so.
If you want to read a book specific on helping you quit playing video games right now to get your life back on track, check out Respawn.
Mindlessly browsing the internet is a major problem you can experience after you quit playing video games. And this happens for a specific reason: By removing games you’ve removed one of the, if not the, major part of your life. They were a main way you spent your time and fulfilled certain needs you have.
Because gaming was a way you fulfilled certain needs you have, if you’re not intentional with how you fill that time after you quit (if you need ideas, check out 60+ New Hobby Ideas) than you will go to what you already know.
And what you knew was gaming. But now that you’ve quit you’ll go to the next most comfortable thing, which is browsing the internet – especially because it’s a “great” way to kill time.
Before I get into the three steps you can take to quit, I want you to remember that this all starts with you, and it starts with you being honest about why you want to quit gaming in the first place.
You aren’t quitting so you can sit around and be bored all day, browsing the internet. You are quitting because you want to start living your life to the fullest, and gaming is no longer giving you that sense of fulfillment that it maybe once did.
Here are the three steps you need to take to stop mindlessly browsing the internet:
1. Choose new activities.
These activities should fulfill the same needs that gaming fulfilled for you: Temporary Escape, Social, Constant Measurable Growth and Challenge.
Now I believe there are three different types of activities you want to pick, and you can learn more about those in Respawn, but one of the types is something to do at home when you’re tired and bored.
If you need ideas, check out 60+ New Hobby Ideas. It’s best if these activities are off the computer.
The key is to avoid boredom, because it’s boredom that you will use to justify sitting around browsing the internet.
2. Focus on engagement, not entertainment.
Gaming, and browsing the internet both come from a place of you wanting to be entertained. They come from a place of you wanting to be stimulated and instant gratification.
This might work in the moment but long term it’s not sustainable and it’s not giving you what you really want, which is fulfillment. Fulfillment comes from engaging with your life, it comes from you checking into it instead of checking out (with entertainment).
Think about what you really want. What are your goals? What are your dreams?
Separate your desire to be engaged from your desire to be entertained. One way to do this is to create projects to work on. This helps give you something specific to focus on, and that helps your engagement.
When you have nothing to do you will desire stimulation, and entertainment is the quickest way to fulfill this desire. But it’s not leading you to where you want to be.
3. Sit with your urges.
We all experience urges to procrastinate. This is an unavoidable occurrence in our life. There’s nothing wrong with this, but what we need to do is prepare beforehand so when this happens we know how to respond properly.
And that way is to sit with it. We don’t need to escape our urges, we can just be there with it for a minute and once it passes we can get back to what we need to be doing.
Remember, the computer is where your comfort zone is, so even after you quit it’s easy to just mindlessly browse the internet. But this isn’t leading you to where you want to be, and it’s not the reason why you quit gaming in the first place.
You have to become comfortable being uncomfortable, and to do this you need courage. Courage is developed in baby steps, but without the courage to get outside your comfort zone you’ll continue to just procrastinate on living the life you truly want to live.
So I hope that helps and if you want to develop more courage in your life, take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
After you quit gaming it’s common to experience feelings of nostalgia, and this can be a problem because these emotions create cravings to play.
One of the reasons why this happens is because gaming meant something to you, and you can acknowledge that. You don’t need to shy away and pretend gaming wasn’t meaningful to you, it was, but that also doesn’t mean you need to continue to play.
I still experience this from time to time too, even though I haven’t played a video game in over 1600 days. One day in particular stands out for me recently.
I was laying in bed and for whatever reason, I started to remember all the good times I had playing games. I was thinking about one game in particular, I couldn’t remember the name but I knew it started with a G.
A few days later I was answering questions on the StopGaming subreddit, and one members story featured the game I was thinking of a few nights before.
Immediately I could feel my emotions intensify and I began to get a craving to play.
This was no good, right?
Well, although it wasn’t great to have this experience, I was able to overcome it and I didn’t give in to my temptations. And this happened because I knew how to respond in the moment, and that’s what I want to share with you today.
Before I get into the steps you can take to deal with nostalgia, it’s important to remember that your life is going to go through different phases. Growing up I played a lot of hockey, and then I retired at the age of 18 and that phase was finished. This is no different than the various groups of friends I’ve been a part of throughout my life and how that changes too.
Gaming was also a phase in your life.
You’re going to go through many different phases, and that’s ok. They all mean something unique to you and that’s part of the magic of life. Don’t get too caught up in comparing them to each other.
The sooner you accept this the sooner you’ll experience less stress and anxiety in your life. The more you worry, the more anxiety you experience on a daily basis the more nostalgia you’ll have, because it’s a way of escaping the present moment.
Anytime you experience nostalgia, try and pay attention to the state you’re in in the moment, because this will give you an indication of whether you’re just remembering the good times and different phases of your life or you’re anxious and trying to escape the moment.
Here are the three steps you can take to deal with gaming nostalgia:
1. Do a gratitude journal.
To do it, write down some things you’re grateful for. I like to go for ten. This will help recenter yourself and help you focus on what you do have instead of what you don’t. Gratitude is scientifically proven to help you experience more optimism, joy and reduce stress.
2. Stop comparing: then to now.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt
When you compare which phase of your life is better than the other it’s only going to make you feel bad, which is the opposite of what we’re trying to experience. Your life has phases, it’s ok and neither is better or worse than the other because they are all part of your life story.
3. Always be exploring.
Be adventurous and create new memories every day, every week, every month, every year to be nostalgic about.
So I hope that helps you guys out and if you want to live a life of more adventure, take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
As a gamer the chance of your style being poor is high. Sorry, it’s just the truth! But it doesn’t have to remain that way because today my friend Sunjeev Prasad of Street Gentlemen is here to teach us three steps to improve our style:
Improving my style has had a major impact on my life and I know it will help you out too.
When it comes to style it’s easy to focus on how it will improve the way other people perceive you, but I think this is a mistake. Improving your style is much more about how it will improve the way you feel yourself. It will improve your sense of confidence. And the best part is, it doesn’t even have to cost a lot of money.
To improve your style, there are three easy steps you can take right away:
1. Focus on fit.
If it doesn’t fit, you’re not going to look good. Fit is the most important thing. Think about whether your clothes are flattering your body. Go for “comfortably close.” It doesn’t have to be a skinny jean, but you don’t want any boot cuts either!
At first fitting clothing can feel a bit weird but trust me it will feel way better. If you’re ever at a store simply ask a staff member if your clothes are fitting properly and they will be able to help.
2. Keep it simple.
Go with a neutral wardrobe – blacks, grays, whites, and khaki. That way your outfits will always go together. Keep it basic and go with timeless looks.
3. Always plan ahead.
Lay out your outfit the night before and spend an extra five minutes making sure it looks slick. That way if you’re rushed in the morning you won’t neglect your style game.
With a little bit more effort on the three steps listed above your style will improve and you’ll begin to notice not only how people treat you differently but also how much more confident you feel yourself.
From all the gaming that you’ve done, your willpower tends to be pretty weak. This happens for specific reasons, such as the willpower erosion your brain can experience due to it’s overexposure to gaming. (Watch this video to learn more about that.)
When we are stuck continuing to game we tend to be justifying our behavior in some way or another, and one of the ways we like to do it is by claiming that we wouldn’t have the willpower to quit anyways, so we might as well just continue gaming.
But this isn’t entirely true and you need to distinguish between the actual amount of willpower you have (more than you think), your ability to develop it (I’ll show you some ways how), and how much you’re actually being influenced by willpower erosion.
Improving your willpower begins by you recognizing that you are not a victim of your lack of willpower. You’re not someone who’s just not “motivated,” you’re not someone who just “lacks willpower.”
Your lack of motivation and lack of willpower are happening for specific reasons, so by understanding what these reasons are you now have the power to change them. You now have the power to shift your behavior.
Your Willpower Is A Muscle
If you work on your willpower, it will improve. If you don’t, it won’t. And if you overwork it, it will get tired, and we call that decision fatigue.
The quality of your life comes down to the decisions that you make every single day. These small choices that we make compound over time and impact the amount of momentum we experience.
To improve your willpower there are five key steps you want to take:
1. Be aware of your energy levels.
If your energy is low it’s hard to make a good decision, and I definitely relate to this a lot so I try to make sure I’m eating well and eating on time. This helps me maintain a good amount of energy, allowing me to make better decisions more often.
2. Make decisions the night before.
Think of your willpower as a fuel tank. Every time you make a decision, it uses a bit of fuel, so every day you want to try and minimize the amount of decisions you have to make. Anytime you can make a decision the night before, that will save you tomorrow.
Decisions like what are you going to wear tomorrow, what are you going to eat for breakfast, etc are good ones to make the night before.
3. Do the important things first.
Every time you make a decision you lose a bit of willpower, so you want to make sure you take care of the important things first while your willpower is strong, instead of waiting until the end of the day when it’s weak.
4. Make commitments, not decisions.
Decisions are optional, whereas commitments you will find a way to get them done. Identify what your commitments are and schedule them throughout your week, that way you have made the time for them and you’ll have one less excuse to not make it happen.
5. Let go of guilt and shame.
As much as we like to be perfect sometimes we fail to follow through. In these moments it’s easy to be hard on ourselves and experience a lot of guilt and shame about it. But this doesn’t help us.
You need to separate between holding yourself accountable (good to do) and being hard on yourself (bad to do.)
Gaming is an outlet when you experience stress, so the harder you are on yourself, the more guilt and shame you feel, the more stress you experience, the more you’ll want to game to get away. See how it works?
In my life I’ve found a lot more motivation when I’m focused on encouragement and celebrating the good things I’m doing instead of punishing myself for the ones I struggle to follow through on. Remember, this doesn’t mean you don’t hold yourself accountable, just that it comes from a place of genuine intention instead of from a fear of punishment.
I hope that helps. If willpower is an area of your life that you want to work on, check out the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
When you love someone who is a gaming addict it can be difficult to relate to the situation — especially if you’re not a gamer yourself — and it’s common to find yourself confused about what to do. Do you confront them? Do you hope it’s just a phase that will pass?
This experience is stressful as you struggle to understand what’s going on with the person you love, but the stakes are high and you may feel a sense of urgency to figure out a solution. To make matters worse, as your stress increases so does the tension and miscommunication is bound to happen, working against your intervention efforts.
I get it because I’ve been there. During the decade I spent gaming up to 16 hours a day, the relationship I had with those who loved me — especially my parents — was strained. Looking back on this time in my life I empathize with the difficulty my parents must have faced as they tried every option available to break me free from my addiction, with no success.
Although my parents loved me and each of their attempts to help came from that place of love, over the years as I’ve worked with thousands of gamers who find themselves in a similar place to where I was, I’ve discovered key insights into how you, as someone who loves a gaming addict, can approach the compulsive gamer in your life to increase your chance of success in breaking through.
I’ll share these insights with you in a second but first I want to say that it’s great for me to have these insights but for this article I wanted to take it a step further and ask gaming addicts themselves what they wish their parents knew, so recently I asked this exact question to a community of 4,241 gaming addicts.
Here are the 13 things to remember if you love a gaming addict, with quotes included from some of the gaming addicts I heard from:
Take the topic of video game addiction (more) seriously.
Whether you believe gaming is a true addiction or not (research is still inconclusive about this), during your discussions with your child or loved one focus less on the merits of the addiction and more on the feelings they’re experiencing. Otherwise you are likely to cause them to feel alienated and misunderstood, which will only push them further into games.
Realize that gaming is different than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
Game designers now go to extreme lengths to hook players into their game. “Arcade games, Atari, Nintendo and other games from the late 1990s and earlier were all meant to end,” wrote one gamer in response to my question. “There were no patches and expansions that made games permanent staples in our lives. Just like casino slot machines, the games today have mastered the ability to hook us like any drug, using a combination of technology and psychology.”
Recognize that gaming feels safe to the gaming addict you love.
To quit gaming involves much more than simply not playing anymore, because, one gamer told me, “it’s what we know, it’s what we’re good at, and the amount of positive reinforcement in games — every single currency gain, checkpoint, achievement — [is encouraging.]”
Be more engaged with the gaming addict in your life.
As I’ve shared before, take the time to learn more about what kind of games they play and what they enjoy about them. Be proactive instead of reactive and educate yourself on their relationship to gaming.
Don’t blame yourself.
It’s easy — especially if you are a parent — to feel responsible for the situation you find your child in. How did you let this get so out of hand? you may think. But it’s important to remember that games don’t come with warning labels and if you knew better you would have done better. You can’t change the past, so focus on what you can do now.
Understand that gaming really isn’t the main problem.
Games are just the activity; the problem is that gaming is filling specific needs for the person you love. If you want to help them overcome their gaming addiction, identify the needs the games fulfill and how you can help them fulfill their needs in alternative ways.
Remember that confrontation isn’t the solution; empathy is.
It’s easy, especially if you don’t understand gaming, to become confrontational. Recently I had a parent “tag” their son in one of my Facebook videos suggesting that he “watch this video; it will help you with your problem.” As I shared above, gaming is where the person feels safe and that’s exactly where he or she will return after confrontation and shaming. Focus instead on having a relationship built on trust and rapport, so the person knows you’re there for them if they are ready to talk about it.
Live by example.
This is one of the most common mistakes I see parents or loved ones making. Gamers are smart and they won’t respond to hypocrisy. Caitlin, a 12-year-old, said it best: “I just feel so happy being in a place where I feel different and free to make my own choices, to make friends without them judging me like everyone else does, and as an escape from my everyday troubles. My mum on the other hand tries to remove the games. This is basically taking away my little escape. My mum watches TV all day while I’m on the computer. I tell her that she is addicted to the TV and she says it’s her escape and I try to make a comparison but she doesn’t have any of it. She also mocks me and struggles to find how I find it fun to play games all day, but I struggle how she finds it entertaining to watch TV all day.”
Get out of the house for serious conversations.
Try going for a walk or a drive. This will create a safer environment where your loved one can focus. When at home all he or she will be thinking about is how quickly they can get out of the conversation to go back to their games. Put a little thought into an environment that will be conducive to having an honest conversation about your concern about their gaming. During this talk you can share what your experience of this situation is but I’d advise against any accusations (“you’re a gaming addict!”) or shaming (“you’re better than all of this.”)
Don’t panic.
Anxiety won’t help, so do your best to try to let go of it. When we’re anxious we tend to make impulsive decisions out of emotion, like cutting the Internet off or removing the computer from the house; this situation is too fragile for these sorts of actions. On top of that, if you feel anxious you will transfer that feeling to the gamer, and gaming is precisely how they escape from these kind of emotions.
Be present.
A common reason gaming becomes a problem is that somewhere along the way the gamer’s relationship changed from one of interaction to one of entertainment. The best thing you can do to help someone overcome a gaming addiction is to be present with them, without judgment, and spend time together having authentic interactions.
Think of gaming like sugar.
There’s a difference between your loved one wanting to game and their brain wanting to game, and modern games are designed to hook a gamer. This is an important distinction to make because understanding it will help your ability to empathize. Modern games are designed in a way where overexposure to them can cause structural changes to the brain. Think about gaming like you think of foods filled with sugar: If you have a lot of sugar, you will experience cravings and saying no to cravings is often very hard.
Be patient: Recovery takes time.
As I shared in #12, depending on the extent of their overexposure the gamer you love may experience structural changes to their brain. Research suggests it may take up to 90 days (or longer) of detox (meaning giving up games completely) for them to recover. Not only that, but as you can see, there are other factors at play (no pun intended), including social relationships, a sense of belonging and community, confidence and self-esteem. Be patient, as replacing these with new, healthier habits will take some time.
Bringing this advice together, you can approach your child or loved one with more clarity. It’s not easy but it is worth it. They will need supportive, encouraging people by their side to overcome an addiction to video gaming. You can be one of these crucial people for them. They may not thank you in the moment, but they will, eventually. I hope that this helps and if it does I’d love to hear from you.
To learn more about how to help someone you love with a gaming addiction, read Reclaim. It’s designed for “parents” but it will help you if you’re a loved one as well.
Myke is a good friend of mine who’s been on a similar mission to me to improve our social skills and become more attractive to women.
Charisma is all about how you can leave people better than you found them. Charisma is the way you make people feel about themselves. Charisma is a learned skill, it’s not something you were just born with.
Charisma isn’t about you, it’s about other people, and if you’re meeting someone for the first time you want to be mindful of a few things:
Be present.
It’s easy in an interaction to lose your focus and even though you might be looking at them, you’re hardly listening to what they are saying. Bill Clinton, known to many as having an incredible ability to connect with people has shared before that one of his tricks is to not look over the shoulder of the person he’s talking to, and instead, focus on them with everything he’s got.
Make eye contact.
There’s a big difference between genuine eye contact and being creepy, so the exercise Myke suggests for us is to hold eye contact just long enough to find their eye color.
Be genuinely curious.
Ask open ended questions. You don’t always have to talk the whole time and instead you can allow others to share about their passions, and by being genuine and being curious you will allow people to feel understood.
At the end of the day, people don’t remember what you did for them, they remember how you made them feel. If you can takeaway anything from this post to be more charismatic, focus on leaving people better than you found them.
I hope that helps and if you want to develop better social skills, take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
Growing up I’ve experienced a lot of depression, anxiety and feelings of not being good enough. I’ve experienced a lot of funks! So for me to truly live a remarkable life I’ve had to learn how to get out of a funk.
If you want to be prepared to get out of a funk you need to start learning how to master your emotions. So today I want to share with you a framework I learned last year at a Tony Robbins event that has really helped me master my emotions and understand more about what these funks are and how to get out of them.
When it comes to your emotions it’s easy to feel like they are an experience that happens to you, instead of an experience you have control over.
Your emotions are a state that you’re in and because of this you can shift this state to be anything you want, as long as you know the secret behind how to shift these states.
So whether you’re feeling like you’re in a rut or you’re feeling happy, these are both a state you’re in and there are factors that contribute to each one.
In fact, there are three different factors that make up your state:
Your Physiology
Your Focus
Your Language & Meaning
Your Physiology:
How you physically feel affects how you feel. #duh
Now even though this seems like common sense, it’s powerful because when you’re feeling depressed, you’re doing certain things with your body that contribute to that. You’re likely laying down, energy is low, you’re not breathing, etc and because of this, it contributes to your state.
Whereas if you’re feeling happy, there are certain things you’re doing with your body as well. You’re likely moving around, smiling, taking deeper breaths, etc.
So if you’re feeling in a funk and you want to get out of it, you can make a change to your physiology and that will contribute to shifting your state. It all starts with baby steps, move your fingers, go for a walk, do some jumping jacks. Anything that can help you change the energy in your body.
Your Focus:
If there’s anything I’d want you to take away from this post or really anything I ever share, it’s the power of your focus, because it has a major impact on your life.
When you’re feeling in a funk you’re probably focusing on the things you don’t have instead of on where you want to go. You’re probably focused on how bad you feel instead of on the action you can take right now to feel how you want to feel.
Your Language & Meaning:
Language is proven to influence our behavior and the meaning you give to the experience will impact the sense of purpose you have around it.
When you’re in a funk, it’s easy to fall into asking yourself: “Why is this happening to me?” which shifts responsibility away from yourself and encourages you to blame something outside of yourself.
Whereas if you ask yourself “How can this be for my benefit?” you are taking responsibility and using the funk, regardless of how bad it feels in the moment, as an opportunity to learn and make you stronger.
There’s a big difference in how you are going to feel if you ask yourself one of these questions.
After my last breakup I was in a major funk and this lasted for over four months. The turning point for me happened when I started to see it as a turning point for me, and even though I felt horrible at the time, I was going to use it as an opportunity to learn how to be happy.
And I knew I would look back on this time in my life and be thankful for it because it taught me a lot of valuable skills. Because of this, I started to read about positive psychology, I learned meditation, etc. I focused on what was scientifically proven to make me happier, and voila, it worked!
Even though it was hard at the time, it gave me an opportunity to learn and now I can write this post and help you because I went through it myself.
To recap:
Anytime you’re in a funk, think about these three areas and start making changes in them. Move your body, fix your posture, breathe. Next, start focusing on where you’re trying to go and what you can do, right now, to get your momentum started in that direction. Finally, be aware of the language you’re using and what this experience is ultimately going to mean to you.
Remember, this doesn’t have to be when you’re experiencing a big funk, but even when you have little ones. Anytime you’re feeling a bit off you can go to this exercise and start shifting your state.
I hope that helps and if you want to develop more of these kind of skills in your life, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
I received a comment on YouTube asking me about why you should quit gaming, and although this question is a bit silly, as you’ll see in the video I believe there are specific reasons why you would be asking it:
If you’re at the point where you’re honestly considering whether or not you should quit gaming, I believe it’s valuable for you to go through the 90 day detox, which is enough time for you to experience life without games and be able to make this decision with more clarity.
Now when you’re thinking about quitting games you want to understand that it’s a big decision in your life, and because of that there will be different emotions involved, especially ones that involve fear.
This doesn’t only happen when you go to quit gaming though, it happens anytime you’re about to make a big decision.
One example from my life is a story I shared in my second TEDx talk. The story takes place in September 2012 when I thought about moving to Boulder, Colorado.
At the time I was a bit confused about my life and thought getting a change of scenery in Colorado would be the right move. So I got in my car and went on a road trip to go check the city out.
When I got there I knew it was exactly where I wanted to be, but instead of being courageous to move, I got scared, especially about what would happen if I did long distance with my girlfriend.
So I decided to stay home and kept telling everyone I would move after Christmas, and then when Christmas came I would move in “six months.” But really I was just afraid and instead of being courageous I gave in to fear.
Long story short, when I came home from my trip my life blew up with my girlfriend breaking up with me, my business crumbling and coming to the realization that I was broke.
I felt depressed and decided to put everything in my life on hold until I could determine what I really wanted to do, and this included whether or not I wanted to move to Colorado.
Over the course of four months I thought about this move a lot, and tried to pay attention to how my energy felt when I thought about moving. Did I feel energized and inspired? Or did I feel apathetic? Something in between?
So what happened was progressively I found myself thinking more and more about moving to Colorado and feeling inspired whenever I did, except shortly after feeling inspired I would begin to feel afraid.
This was my fear coming up. It became apparent to me that my core desire was to move, and the doubt I would have was fear I was experiencing and not what I actually wanted – a key distinction to make. So I got in my car and moved to Colorado, and it’s been one of the best decisions of my life.
To make a big move in your life:
Identify your core desire. What do you really want to do?
Separate your desire from your fear.
To identify your core desire, pay attention to how you feel when you think about doing what you want to do. Do you feel more inspired? If yes, that’s a good sign it’s what you want.
If you then start to feel afraid, that’s your fear coming up, and now you just want to identify what your fears actually are and fight them with logic.
For instance, my main fear moving to Colorado was what would happen if it failed? Well, nothing would happen, I’d come back home and move on with my life. So I didn’t need to worry about that as much as I originally thought.
Remember, nobody can make these decisions for you, only you can make them for yourself, so you need to hold yourself accountable to doing so. Yes things can be scary but life is only short once.
Why you should quit gaming:
The reason I quit gaming was because it was having a negative impact on my life. Even though I had fun playing games, I was burned out, I wasn’t necessarily happy, and honestly I just came to a point in my life where I realized my happiness was too important for me to continue to procrastinate on.
I just had different priorities. I wanted to focus on other goals. Just because I could continue to play games didn’t mean I had to. And I knew if I was really going to start going after these other goals I had, I would have to remove my crutch – gaming – from my life.
Back to you:
So now I want you to think about this for yourself. If you’ve quit gaming, what are you doing now? Are you pursuing new goals or are you sitting on reddit all day? You know I love our reddit community but the point of quitting gaming isn’t to just browse the internet all day long.
If you haven’t quit gaming, why not? How is gaming impacting your life? Is it a positive or are you just justifying it? It’s common when we want to quit gaming to spend a few weeks, months or even years continuing to play before we finally have the courage to take that final step. Is this you? What’s holding you back? Comment below.
If you want to quit gaming, do it for yourself and do it because you actually want to and you have other goals and dreams you want to pursue. Do it because you are ready to step up for yourself and start living your life to the fullest. Do it because you want to earn your confidence by the actions you take, instead of sitting around wondering why you aren’t confident… when you aren’t doing anything to be confident about.
Do it because you want to learn how to make new friends and breakthrough your comfort zone. Use this as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. I’ve got your back and I believe in you.
So what’s the big decision you’re trying to make? Is it about gaming? Is it about something else? Leave your answer in the comments below.
I hope that helps and if you want to develop more courage in your life, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
After you quit gaming one of the struggles you can run into is how to start building momentum in your life. Removing games is like pressing the stop button., it feels like your entire world has frozen, and during this time it’s easy to feel paralyzed to take action.
So how do you start building momentum and start living your life again?
Since I’ve quit gaming one of the aspects of my life I’ve focused on the most has been improving my social circle. Specifically I’ve wanted to learn how to surround myself by people who inspire me and make me better.
So I’ve decided to launch a new video series where I’ll introduce you to some of my awesome friends and have them share insights into how they’ve taken their lives to the next level, and help you do the same.
In the first segment I introduce you to my buddy Josh Barad who’s the founder of In The Middle Seat. Josh and I met earlier this year at an event in California called Archangel Academy, and since then we’ve hung out in three countries! Bali, Thailand, and now here in Canada.
Josh has a cool story that began when he was working a typical corporate job when he realized it wasn’t really for him anymore, he wasn’t happy anymore, so he decided to quit and start playing poker professionally.
But then something else happened. He realized all he did was play poker and he felt isolated and not really fulfilled in his relationships. Although poker was better than the corporate job, it still wasn’t what he wanted for himself.
So he started to explore what the next stage in his life would look like, and during this introspection he committed to stop playing poker and instead focus on improving his social skills.
In our interview Josh shared how when he had a lot of free time it was easy to justify procrastination because he would have enough time to come back to it later, when really this was just an excuse to avoid doing what he knew he needed to do.
So he committed to start going out, to push his comfort zone and to start living life in the middle seat, he found this was where all his growth lies.
When it comes to leaning into your edges Josh believes it’s important to go slow and be diligent, while also being patient and playful. Growth is a process and you should have fun with it. You should make it a game.
Now even though you may want to grow, being able to actually start taking action to do so (which is how it happens) can be difficult when you don’t have momentum.
Here are a few insights Josh had into how you can start building momentum in your life:
First, Josh believes that momentum is something we fluctuate in and out of, it’s more of an ebb and flow than a linear equation.
Next, when we feel isolated or have a lack of momentum it’s easy for us to get too focused on ourselves, self-focused, which, when we feel anxious or different emotions it’s easy to make it mean something about ourselves, it’s easy to make it into a story of who we are, instead just the experience and things that are happening.
To counter this we want to become other-focused, to see how we can get involved in other people’s worlds, to get outside of ourselves to see a bigger perspective.
One way to do this is by asking people questions. Josh likes this because it takes the pressure off himself, and instead he can focus on his curiosity about someone else to inspire a conversation. Josh believes in having a list of back-pocket questions, questions that you like asking people to inspire these kind of conversations.
The example he used was asking me about my childhood, or asking someone what they are currently excited about, or asking what they are proud of, questions that elicit more of a positive response and allow you to go a bit deeper to really connect.
Lastly, to help you build more momentum Josh believes it’s important to be more playful and treat life like a game, don’t take it too seriously and find more ways to have fun.
In the moment if you don’t know what’s fun for you, Josh recommends that you take out a piece of paper and create a list of 25 different things you could do that would be fun, even if they seem a bit silly, keep it simple.
When you come from a fun and playful place this generates more energy and will help you build more momentum. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you will become social when __________, or you will have more fun when _________, or you will make more money when __________, and instead start finding ways to experience what you want to experience today.
So now that you have your list, what you want to do is choose one of them and challenge yourself to do it in the next seven days and then share what you’ve chosen in the comments below.
I hope that helps and if you’re serious about taking your life to the next level, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
Before I share with you how my life has changed since I’ve quit playing video games, first I want you to know that before I quit, my life was a complete mess:
I spent years battling depression, had low self-esteem, and struggled with feeling good enough. I was bullied at school and on my hockey teams so I didn’t have every many friends, the ones I did have held me back and I certainly didn’t know how to make new ones.
I lacked confidence, especially with women, was constantly in the “friend zone” and didn’t know how to become a “man.” I had dropped out of high school (twice) and never wanted to go to college. Don’t even get me started on my unstable job situation (which included pretending to have jobs to my parents…)
The one highlight in my life at the time was gaming, and although it wasn’t the problem, it was the bandaid. It’s what allowed me to numb myself and pretend my situation wasn’t as bad as it really was.
Eventually I came to a point where I realized I had an opportunity to try again, I had a chance to start a new life for myself, and with the help of a counselor I started doing just that.
It certainly hasn’t been easy but it’s been worth it, and the improvements in my life have come from little changes I’ve made.
Here are a few highlights of how my life has improved since I’ve quit playing video games:
I don’t share this to brag or to impress you, I share it to show you what’s possible. Life beyond video games can be remarkable if you commit to making it happen and follow the steps we outline at Game Quitters.
I started my own business.
I travel around the world (20+ countries to date.)
Most importantly, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I’m able to live life in the present moment, I’m proud of who I am and how I show up every day, and I wake up every day excited to be alive and to live my life to the fullest.
But all of this didn’t just magically happen. It happened because I made a commitment and then took action to learn what I needed to learn to live the type of life I wanted to live. And I refused to settle for anything less.
Quitting video games is the start of a new journey, it’s the beginning of a new chapter in your life where you get to decide exactly what you want it to be. Step one is taking responsibility for it yourself.
I hope that helps and if you’re serious about taking your life to the next level, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
Recently I was interviewed on The Art of Charm about my experience being addicted to video games. In the episode I dive into my story and how I’ve managed to overcome the various obstacles life presented me, and the best insights I’ve had over the years:
In this episode you will learn:
Is video game addiction real?
How video game addiction looks at its worse, practical tips for getting over your addiction and how to make up for the lost time.
How to surround yourself by people that matter.
The concept of reverse engineering, a framework for accomplishing your goals.
The key lesson I learned after working as a dishwasher at a restaurant.
How to deal with and overcome a deep and dark depression.
How to transition from a 9-5 job to running your own business.
A major insight into my experiences being bullied in school and what to do if you are being bullied.
The Art of Charm brings together the best coaches in the industry to teach you guys how to crush it in life, love and at work. Imagine having a mix of experienced mentors teaching you their expertise packing decades of research, testing and tough lessons into a concise curriculum.
I hope you enjoy the episode and if you do, make sure you let me know what you think!
I was interviewed recently about how to overcome bullying and video game addiction. In the episode I share details on my own story (how I overcame it) as well as the latest insights I’ve had over the past four years.
Here are six lessons you’ll learn in the episode:
The two types of people you need to be aware of in your life.
After you quit you start to realize all of your friends are gamers, and you don’t have much in common with them anymore, but how do you grow and expand your social circle outside of gamers? Find out:
In my last article I shared a key mindset you need to have in order to make new friends and improve your social skills. Today what I want to share how you can shape your environment with intention and how this will contribute to empowering you forward.
One of the biggest differences in my life since I’ve quit gaming is surrounding myself by people who inspire me and push me to be better. When I first quit this wasn’t something I knew how to do and I’ve spent the last seven years learning how to do exactly that.
Who you surround yourself with is super important if you’re serious about starting to live your life to the fullest.
When you were gaming you were doing this, you found other likeminded players to hang out with and learn from and you separated yourself from those that didn’t. So now that you’ve quit, you want to apply this same mindset your life. Find those who are likeminded and help you be better, and distance yourself from those that don’t.
Over the years I’ve done a bunch of different things to try and improve my environment and I’ll share those in a minute but the most important thing I’ve learned is that before you do anything else you need to decide who you want to be. You have to decide what your values are, and who you want to surround yourself with.
Write down three values you want in your environment. For me, that’s people who are into personal development, making themselves better, I want to be around people who are kind and compassionate to others, and I want to be around people who are taking ownership of creating the life they want, so that groups would be like entrepreneurs.
Now that I know this, I can start finding the kind of environments where these type of people hang out. Things like events, seminars, conferences, meetups, etc.
If you don’t know who you’re looking for you’ll never find them, so if you want to surround yourself by people who will help you be more successful, you need to identify who they are and where they hang out.
Some of the conferences I’ve been to are The Higher Purpose Project, Burning Man, StartingBloc, Tony Robbins Unleash The Power Within, MB Adventures and many more.
The best part is that when you’re in a room full of people that you share things in common with it’s super easy to start conversations because you already have things in common.
So what you want to do is find at least one event each week that you can go to, and then go each week because it will help people begin to recognize you as a regular and that makes it easier to meet people.
Finally there’s one last step you want to take, and it’s hosting your own events. This is a big lesson I’ve learned a few times, but the reason it works is because there are so many people that have a desire to hang out with other likeminded people but they don’t have the courage to organize it themselves.
So when you take responsibility to bring people together you’ll be blown away at how easy it is to meet other likeminded people, because not only can you invite people you’re meeting on a daily basis to come, but they will also bring friends and the event will grow over time.
Surrounding myself by people that inspire me and make me better has been something I’ve taken so seriously that I’ve even moved to a new country to live in a community full of likeminded people.
So remember, be intentional to choose who you want to be around, next find one event each week you can go to to meet these kind of people and make sure you go each week. Finally, start hosting your own events and bring people together.
I hope that helps and if you’re serious about working on these skills in your life, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
When you first quit most of your friends are gamers, so you need to put an effort into finding new ones that have other interests and hobbies. Not only that but feeling insecure about your social skills is likely one of the factors that led to you gaming in the first place.
I totally relate to this because when I was younger I experienced a lot of bullying which caused me to isolate myself away and avoid social interactions.
So when I quit playing games learning how to improve my social skills was one of my top motivations, and just to be honest, quitting video games was one of the best decisions I ever made to improve this area of my life.
Now in order to make new friends there are a few different factors to consider, and today I want to talk about you, and how you show up in every interaction you have, and how that leads to you making friends or not.
The key to making new friends is having a mindset shift that social skills is a skill, it’s something you, personally, can get better at, if you decide to put some focus and intention into it.
To do this you want to start approaching every interaction you have as an opportunity to practice connecting more meaningfully with others. Every single day we are talking to people, our friends, family, the cashier at the grocery store, the barista at Starbucks, and even just people we’re randomly standing next to.
Over time all of this practice compounds and you can start seeing some major improvements. Growth happens through focus and intention so focus on every interaction you have with the intention to have a more meaningful conversation.
The way I do this is by genuinely wanting to get to know them, even in a small way by actually wanting to know how their day is going, instead of just going through the typical autopilot conversation.
As your conversations improve you’ll become more confident in yourself and if you focused on meeting one new person every day, that’s over 365 people a year! And some you’ll just naturally connect with.
If you want to improve your social skills and make new friends is something you choose to do. It’s something you can do by just interacting with the people around you on a daily basis. It’s something I used to struggle with a lot and now I feel much more confident in, but it happened every single day by my decision to engage the people around me.
And I know the same can happen for you too.
If social skills is an area you’re serious about working on, I want you to take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
Games are designed to give you instant gratification, to give you feedback of your progress and that you are doing well. Over time your brain gets used to this so when you go to quit one of the issues you run into is that life doesn’t tend to give feedback so quickly.
In games you’re leveling up, you’re beating quests, you’re beating bosses and every time you do one of these things your brain gives you a dopamine release, which is the chemical in your brain designed to make you feel good.
And games are designed to make you experience as much dopamine as possible and what happens is when you go to quit you’re used to having these good emotions, instantly, especially because gaming is so accessible now. So anytime you wanted to feel good about yourself you could log on your game and get a dopamine hit.
But because this is happening through a game instead of through your life, it’s more of an artificial level of gratification, but, the dopamine you experience is real. So you feel good but that doesn’t necessarily mean it raises your self-esteem.
This has to do with the difference between instant gratification and delayed gratification. Gratification is the emotional response of pleasure to you fulfilling a goal or desire you have.
So when you go after gratification in a way that’s instant, you might feel good in an instant but it also disappears in the same timeframe. So anytime you want to feel this way you try and find a way to get a hit, and this behavior can lead to unhealthy addictions.
Whereas delayed gratification takes time, and because of that, the feel good emotions also last a long time too. The choice is always yours but there’s a lot of interesting research done in this area.
Over the last 40 years Stanford has been researching the affects of instant vs. delayed gratification and it all points to one direction: that one of the qualities in people that leads to success in every single area of your life comes down to your ability to delay gratification.
The research all started with Walter Mischel’s marshmallow experiment where he would put a kid in a room and give him one marshmallow, which he/she could eat right away, or if he waited (15 minutes) they would earn a second one.
Of course some kids had the marshmallow now and some waited, but what was most interesting about the study was that over the years they followed these kids and every single time they followed up, the kids who were willing to wait and delay gratification were significantly more successful than the ones who didn’t, including having:
Higher SAT scores.
Lower levels of substance abuse.
Lower likelihood of obesity.
Better response to stress.
Better social skills, etc.
So if you care about being successful in any (or every) area of your life, which you do because you’re reading this right now, being able to delay gratification is something you want to start to develop.
What you want to know is that this is a muscle. This is a skill you can develop like any other skill. Two skills that will contribute to your ability to delay gratification are your skills in discipline and patience.
Here are two keys to focus on:
Choose a new habit and make it so easy you can’t fail. And make sure you track it for consistency.
Celebrate the small wins. Most of the time when we do things we say we’re going to do, we don’t actually recognize ourselves for it. And this is really important for positive encouragement.
Delayed gratification is a muscle like anything else, it’s a skill like anything else. Regardless of how good you are at it right now, you need to start from where you are and focus on moving forward.
If you’re reading this you’ve likely invested thousands of hours into gaming and that can make it hard to give it up. What will that mean for all the time and effort you’ve put in? This is the sunk cost fallacy at play.
I first learned about this principle in a book called You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney (highly recommended.)
In the book David talks about the sunk cost fallacy, which states that we think we make rational decisions based on the future values of objects, investments and experiences, when the truth is our decisions are tainted by emotional investments we accumulate, and the more we invest in something the harder it is to move on from it.
This directly applies to each of us as gamers.
Not only have we invested a ton of time and energy playing different games, building characters and developing our skills, in many cases we’ve also bought many different games too, especially now when they are so cheap and come in bundles.
So when we go to quit we worry about what that’s going to mean about our characters, what’s that going to mean about our skills, what about all of these games I haven’t played yet?!
This also has to do with Loss Aversion, which is the tendency to avoid losses instead of acquiring gains – we’d rather continue to play games and avoid losing all of our characters and the skills we’ve developed instead of acquiring this really amazing life, which is what we really want.
It’s so valuable for us to understand things like the sunk cost fallacy and loss aversion is because we need to understand that the reason we do things is for specific reasons, and the way we justify playing isn’t always based on logic, and usually there’s some sort of emotional investment behind it.
As humans we’re designed to avoid feeling pain. To breakthrough, we need to take a step back and recognize that we’re in an emotional state and create the opportunity to look at it from a different perspective.
Simply by being aware of this is powerful. By understanding why you do the things you do you can leverage it to do the things you actually want to do.
One way to get into a more logical state is to write out a pros and cons list. I find writing things down really helps and when you have a pros and cons list you can see more clearly why you’re doing what you’re doing.
If the only reason you want to continue to play the games is to feel better about the money you spent on it, you need to reevaluate your goals and what you’re really trying to accomplish here.
Remember it’s not just about quitting games, it’s about closing a chapter in your life. And in closing that chapter it doesn’t take away from what games meant to you, games meant something to you and the quicker you recognize that the sooner you’ll stop justifying the reason you want to play – just because you have a bunch of games you haven’t finished yet.
Another way to breakthrough the sunk cost fallacy is to delete your games and characters. This is a great way to get rid of the things you’re holding onto, and this goes a really far way so if you haven’t done this already, do it now.
In doing so you’re recognizing that what you want now is different than what you wanted previously, and that’s ok, you’re allowed to make this decision for yourself. Take a step back, get into a logical headspace and acknowledge that continuing to play games isn’t going to make it mean something more, it’s just going to make you look back on this in a few months and wonder what the fuck you’re doing. 😉
When you have a gaming addiction it’s common to feel frustrated when you talk to normal people, your friends, family or just people you run into on a daily basis because it’s hard to communicate what’s really going on for you.
Understanding how to share our story is really important for our movement going forward. It’s important to remember that our community is at the beginning, and if we want to be taken seriously we need to take responsibility to share our message with the world in an effective way.
This gaming addiction problem is only going to continue and grow, it’s only going to continue to get bigger, so by us taking the time to share our message properly it will help many others find us who are currently going through all of this alone.
Every single day when people ask me what I do they start asking me questions about this issue, and it forces me to be effective in how I share our message to get their buy-in, otherwise the conversation around gaming addiction will just continue to be looked at as a silly thing – when we all know that’s not true at all.
The key principle you want to keep in mind is that it’s all about how you shape the conversation, and this ultimately dictates the results that you get.
How you shape the conversation is really important to keep people from becoming defensive and to bypass their defensives. For instance if you talk to a gamer but you come across as being against gaming, and now that he’s defensive he’s not going to be open to hearing your perspective.
Or if you’re talking to a parent, they’re going to have a bias that gaming is violent, so I try and avoid having that kind of conversation, because it doesn’t really apply to what we’re talking about, which is that there is a segment of gamers who want to quit and struggle to. That’s it.
So when you’re shaping the conversation you really want to focus on this segment of gamers who play that don’t want to. So it’s not that games are good or bad or that you should play or you shouldn’t. It’s simply that there are some people who want to quit and can’t.
And this happens for very specific reasons. Not only is this the truth but now we can talk about how to help these gamers and what kind of tools and resources would help. In my experience, when you get to this point people tend to be pretty interested.
This is the perfect time to personalize it, to share your story and how this has affected you and what has helped you quit. Which is that there are specific reasons why you were playing and by identifying them and finding solutions to those you’ve been able to start living your life.
To help them understand some of these reasons you can share the two main struggles gamers have when they go to quit:
Finding new activities.
Now whenever I talk about this issue I always share the story my parents (and I bet your parents) always said which is that when they were younger they got kicked out of the house and had to go outside and play.
Now there’s an element of this story that we forget sometimes and it’s that when they had to be outside they had to find ways to entertain themselves, they had to be spontaneous, to be creative and to be social. And in doing so they developed skills in all of these.
But nowadays, because of the way kids are raised, we don’t have to go outside to play we don’t develop these skills in the same way, so it’s not that we aren’t capable, it’s not that we don’t want to, it’s simply that we just have never developed the skill, and we’ve always had gaming.
Making new friends.
To quit gaming it’s a bit more complex than simply uninstalling your games and finding new activities to fill your time, because one of the main reasons we play is because it’s the way we interact with all of our friends, it’s where our community is.
So to move on from games means to move on from all of our friends, and it’s not that we can’t do that, it’s just that it’s hard and we need support.
By being intentional about how you shape the conversation you allow others to come on our side and become advocates for our community. It allows them spread the word and help others who are struggling with this issue to find out they are not alone.
Remember it’s really important for every single one of us that we each contribute to shaping this message in a positive way. That means you reading this.
Right now there are just over 4000 people on the StopGaming subreddit, when research would show 1/11 kids playing games in the U.S. are addicted under classic criteria. That’s over 5 million kids!!
Our community right now is at the beginning and because of that it’s up to each of us to shape the conversation in a productive way and to help spread the word. Communicating our message is crucial to get all the support we can get.
If you’ve read this far, I want you to leave a comment below, share this article and share the TEDx talk.
Using gaming as a way to deal with stress is definitely something I relate to, especially during all of the bullying I experienced growing up. Anytime I needed a break, gaming was there for me.
Now there are two really important things to understand about stress:
There’s a difference between feeling stress and feeling different emotions.
After we quit gaming we tend to become a lot more aware of our emotions, and this is a good thing. When we’re gaming we’re numb to the emotions we’re experiencing, but when it comes to dealing with our emotions it’s important to identify what the specific emotion is, which will allow us to deal with it in a specific way.
Stress is a perspective.
Most of us are a lot more stressed out than we really need to be, and that’s just because we have a narrow mindset. Stress tends to come when we have a perceived lack of control and when we don’t know what to do about whatever situation we’re in.
One of the reasons why I love to travel so much is because there’s no way to avoid situations where you have no control. Now this can be frustrating sometimes but the benefit is that it forces you to learn to take the things you need to take seriously, seriously, and to let go of the things you can’t control.
With the things we can’t control it’s easy to get stressed out about them… but we have no control so what’s the point of being stressed out or frustrated? It’s not like having those emotions is going to change the situation, so being stressed is really just going to drain your energy and hurt your ability to focus. Many times when we feel stressed there are easy solutions to start dealing with the situation.
Stress can happen and it is what it is, and you can’t always control things but you can control how you respond.
One of the reasons why people feel stressed is because it makes you feel alive, and this comes from your human need of significance – to feel powerful, in control and to feel like we matter. In our life we will fulfill this need in healthy or unhealthy ways, in conscious or unconscious ways, and stress is an easy way to fulfill it… even though this doesn’t really serve us.
So instead of just living life on autopilot like this, we want to conscious choose how we want to feel. I want to feel amazing every day because feeling good feels good. So now that I’ve made this decision, it’s up to me to take responsibility to create an experience in the world to feel this way.
So when things do happen, these are the three steps you want to take:
Take a breath.
Shift back into gratitude.
Create an action plan.
Next, you want to complete the following two exercises:
Set a timer for five minutes and journal on how would you feel in an ideal day.
Take out two pieces of paper. One one piece, write down everything you’ve done in the last two weeks. On the next piece, separate it into two columns, Positive and Negative. Now take the things you’ve done and filter them based on what’s contributed (+) to you feeling the way you want to feel and what hasn’t (-). Now in the negative column, start eliminating them or shifting them into the positive.
Life is too short to not feel amazing all the time. It’s up to each of us to design our life in a way that serves us feeling that way and to cut out the shit in our life that doesn’t.
To make your summer break awesome you need to have the right mindsets, and that involves seeing your summer as a time period to invest in becoming the type of person you want to be instead of just wasting it playing games.
Now mindsets are important but you also need practical steps to take advantage of this time you have, because your summer is a good amount of time, and if you invest it wisely in yourself you can really make incredible progress.
Here are the three practical steps you want to take to make your summer break awesome:
Schedule your day.
I’ll be honest, I used to hate scheduling my day, but over the years I’ve found there’s a lot of value in adding a bit of structure to your life that can help you focus and take advantage of the time you have.
It also helps you save mental energy by not having to make so many decisions and instead allow you to get into the flow of your day and take massive action. By scheduling you bypass the feelings of boredom that can trigger a relapse, and help you maintain more consistency.
Have a morning routine.
This is just a way to start your day every day, and is a great time to do your keystone habits that are your foundation of success. These are habits like meditation, your gratitude journal, exercise and reading. By having a morning routine you start your day strong and this builds a lot of momentum.
Plan epic experiences.
Quickly I want you to write down three epic experiences you’d love to have this summer. These are adventures that you will look back on as the highlights of your summer. A few examples of mine: I’ve gone bungee jumping a few times, cliff jumping with friends, skydiving, road trips or other travel experiences.
Make sure you try those things out, and of course these don’t only apply to your summer but all other parts of the year too.
Now if you’re looking to have the best year yet, take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
With summer here it’s common for us to spend all of our time gaming. But now that we’ve quit we realize we don’t want to continue to live this way, but what do we do during the summer instead of gaming?
Press play and find out:
I totally relate to this because this is exactly what I used to do. During the school year I would go to school and then come home to game at night and on the weekends. But during the summers I would be so excited because now I had all day to game for months.
And I felt totally justified to do this because I had just finished school for the year, so all year I had been told that I had to go to school to fulfill my obligations, so now that I had done that I had full control over my summer. It was my time.
And I think this is a really important insight because this really speaks to why we justify gaming during the summer but gaming in general. And it has to do with specific mindsets we have as they relate to how we see our obligations and how we see our free time.
We all have obligations we have to take care of and these obligations we may not enjoy all that much, we never choose to go to school or choose to have to work a 9-5 job to pay our bills. These are just things we have to do.
So what happens is when we see our life from a lens of our obligations and our free time, we start to feel trapped within our obligations, so we do them from a place of resentment and that causes us to feel that much more freedom and power to do whatever the fuck we want during the free time we have.
And because of this perspective you have, you can easily justify spending your entire summer gaming.
So if you don’t want this to happen you need to have a mindset shift. And the mindset shift you need to have is the value of your time. Your time and energy are your two non-renewable resources, they are things you never get back.
You need to start seeing your life from a lens of how can you invest your time, instead of how you can kill your time.
One of the ways we justify gaming is because it’s a good way to kill our time, but this is a flawed mindset because your time is not something to be killed, it’s something to be lived.
Now when you start thinking about investing your time it’s natural to start thinking about doing something more productive. And that’s totally right, but I bet when I said “do something more productive” it may have triggered you because you associate it with negative experiences.
When I was younger and someone told me to do things that were more productive I found them to be super annoying, and there are two mains reasons why this happened:
Shaming
When your parents or friends tell you to do things that are more productive, it’s coming from a place of shame and guilt. They think you’re wasting your time playing games and this just makes you feel bad about yourself. Ironically you use gaming as an escape from these kind of emotions so it only makes you want to play more.
You don’t even know what you would do.
You don’t have other hobbies or passions, so even if you wanted to do something more productive, you have no idea what you would do. So you do what you know, you game, especially because it’s something you’re really good at.
So here’s the truth:
Up until now, you’ve been living a life designed for you, not something you’ve designed for yourself or had much of a choice in. So you’ve just been going through the motions, going to school, going to work and fulfilling your obligations, and then doing whatever you want during your free time: gaming.
So even though you’ve been living your life based on something someone else has designed for you, it’s only up to you to change that, and start designing your own life.
Games give you a mission and a sense of purpose, so now that you are on your summer break you need to apply the same concept, and a great way to do this is to launch a project, and design it in a way to become the type of person you want to be.
Here are a few good examples:
Say in the future you want to become your own boss, you could use your summer to start developing a skill in making money online or entrepreneurship. An example is from 30 Days to X where he learned how to sell t-shirts online.
Another example is if you wanted to learn a new instrument. You could commit to performing at an open mic night in the next 30 days. Or if you are into programming, what is something you are going to ship in the next 30 days.
The most important thing is to design this project around becoming the type of person you want to be, because it’s not just about launching a project, but about becoming the type of person capable of living the type of life you want to live.
If you want to spend your summer becoming the type of person you want to be, take the Game Quitters Challenge. This is a 30 day challenge I’ve designed intentionally with the latest scientific research to help you become the type of person you want to be, by developing skills in Courage, Discipline, Social Intelligence, Contribution and Tenacity.
It’s definitely my best work yet and I know you’ll get a ton of value from it. Take the challenge here.
It’s very common when you quit playing video games to experience a relapse at some point. It even happened to me. 11 months after I quit cold turkey I relapsed and played games 16 hours a day for five months straight.
Relapse doesn’t have to be a bad thing. That doesn’t mean it’s good or that you should just relapse on purpose (#duh), but it doesn’t mean you need to shame yourself for it either.
There’s a lot we can learn from our relapse experience to help us be more successful in the future.
For instance when I relapsed there were a few different factors that led to it. One of them was that at the time I was feeling a bit depressed, and I thought the solution was to move to a new city to get a change of scenery – which really I was just running away from my problems.
So I packed everything up and moved to Victoria, B.C. Within the first week of being in the new city I was overwhelmed not knowing anyone and I decided to start playing video games again.
But looking back I’m actually grateful for it because I learned a lot from it that I used to write my article on How to Quit Playing Video Games FOREVER and that I’m teaching you now.
There are four main reasons why we relapse:
We’re bored.
When you quit playing games it’s really important that you choose new activities, and for the first few days you tend to be good at doing that. But over time maybe you lack the consistency, so if you’re not being intentional with how you spend your time, you’ll end up relapsing.
We’re stressed.
This can also mean you are anxious. Now this can happen for a variety of reasons, but gaming has always been your escape so you end up relapsing.
We’re feeling good.
So you’ve quit gaming and you’re actually doing great! Now of course this is happening because you’re not playing games, but it’s easy to forget that. So you justify playing because obviously gaming didn’t have that big of a pull on you, it’s something you enjoy and you’re passionate about, so you end up playing.
We use it as a reward.
Traditionally we’ve used gaming as a way to reward ourselves for the various things we’ve done, and because we haven’t chosen a new way to reward ourselves, we end up going back to what we know, which is gaming.
So what do you do if you do happen to relapse?
When you find yourself in this situation there’s a framework I like to use and it’s actually about turning it into a game. It’s about beating your high score. And this comes in two ways:
# of days without games.
You want to create this score to be as big as possible, and you want to do it by tracking your days. To do this you can join us on StopGaming or use an app like Coach.me.
Seeing this number grow is incredible motivating. Make this score as big as possible.
# of relapse days.
You want to create this score to be as low as possible. So if you do happen to relapse, how quickly do you get yourself back on track. For me when I relapsed, it took five months before I quit again, so if I relapsed again in the future I’d want to make this score as low as possible.
Relapse happens and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean you should take relapse any less seriously. It just means you want to learn what you can from it and get back on track and focused on moving your life forward once again.
If you find yourself relapsing or you haven’t quit yet, make sure you grab a copy of Respawn and start today.
“Reading Respawn was the best decision I have made in my life, honestly.” – David
I remember when I quit gaming I had this same experience, having dreams or nightmares about me playing video games, and I would feel really silly and wonder if I was going crazy.
So yes, this is totally normal and I haven’t only had this experience with games but also during breakups where I would have dreams or nightmares about my ex-girlfriend and things like that.
What I want to share with you today is an exercise I’ve learned over the years that helps me shift how I physically feel, especially if I’m feeling anxious, to feel better both before I go to bed (which can have an impact on the type of experience you have) and just in general throughout my day.
And that exercise is a gratitude journal.
Now I get it, that sounds like some weird hippy shit and I relate to that, but just hear me out. But what I want you to know is there is a ton of scientific research now that shows practicing gratitude to have incredible benefits. Here are some of them:
To feel happier
To have a better immune system
To feel less stressed
To feel less lonely
So if those are any of the types of things you’re interested in than doing a gratitude journal is something worth doing. The best part is that it takes about one minute to do, so it’s not even something that will take up a lot of your time or energy.
The reason it works so well is because it shifts what you’re focusing on, which is the cause of our stress and anxiety in the first place.
For instance, if we have a negative expectation of a future result, no wonder we feel anxious! Our perspective has an affect on how we feel.
How It Works:
It’s really simply: write down 10 things you’re grateful for.
I tend to do this first thing in the morning when I wake up. Don’t overthink it too much, just write down the first 10 things that come to your mind. If you need ideas, just look around you and recognize the amazing things in your life that you do have.
I recommend doing this first thing in the morning, especially if you’ve had a dream or nightmare about gaming. By doing this first thing in the morning you can set the tone for your day – appreciating the things in your life that you do have instead of focusing on the things you don’t.
You can also do this exercise right before bed or at any point in your day you want to shift how you feel for the better.
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with my good friend Locke Vincent to have a conversation around quitting video games and what does healthy gaming look like?
Locke is a friend who has managed to successfully play in moderation and I know you’ll enjoy the conversation:
One of the big takeaways for me from the conversation was about the importance of self-accountability. Only you know what your situation is and whether or not you can honestly play in moderation.
So it’s only up to you to make these decisions for yourself. I believe I could technically play in moderation now that my life has been sorted out but I still choose to continue not playing games because I have different priorities in my life.
Whereas Locke continues to play and has managed to balance it as a family man, but it comes down to his own accountability to do so.
So you’ve quit gaming and chosen new activities but compared to gaming you find them to be completely boring. What do you do? Are you just someone who doesn’t enjoy other things like some other people? Are you just meant to be a gamer? Find out:
I love this question because it’s easily one of the biggest struggles you go through when you quit gaming, and it’s common to create a story around it that you are just passionate about gaming and not other things, when this isn’t completely true.
In fact, there are real reasons why you find other activities to be boring that have nothing to do you you at all and have everything to do with the way your brain interacts with gaming.
So there are two main reasons why this is happening and it has to do with your environment and your physiology.
Your Environment
I started playing games when I was 11 years old so other than going to school and playing hockey, gaming was really the only other activity I ever put any focus or energy into. So it’s not that gaming was the only activity I was passionate about, it was simply the only activity I knew.
And passion takes time to develop, it’s not automatic, so with your new activities you need to give the more of a chance and make sure you challenge yourself with them. Apply the seven principles I shared in What If Gaming Is The Only Thing That You’re Good At? and that will help too.
There are three main changes that happen to your brain from gaming:
Numbed Pleasure Response: Every day pleasures no longer satisfy you.
Hyper-reactivity to gaming: Gaming is awesome, everything else is boring.
Willpower erosion: Due to changes to your prefrontal cortex.
When you take the first two it’s easy to see how this would affect how much you enjoy other activities, and potentially find them to be boring.
So what you need to do is commit to the 90 day game quitters challenge, which is simply not playing games for the next 90 days.
Next, you want to take the new activities you’ve chosen and start being more mindful about what you do enjoy about them. This is about bringing more awareness to what you value in things. What you focus on, expands.
So when I first started DJing I would ask myself what is it about DJing that I enjoy? Or when I go hiking, what is it about hiking that I enjoy?
Next, now that you’ve chosen new activities and started paying attention to what you enjoy about them, what you want to do is create more of a sense of purpose around each of them, and the easiest way I’ve found to do this is by creating a project around it.
When I started DJing I launched a podcast and this gave me a reason to be developing this skill, I had a reason to put effort into it each month, and this gave me much more motivation.
Finally, you can’t give up. You might find activities to be boring but commit to your 90 day detox and remember that passion is developed over time, so keep going.
After you quit playing video games you start to realize that most of your friends are gamers, and that’s actually kind of scary. What will happen if you quit? Will you lose all of your friends?
What I want you to know is that you don’t necessarily have to lose all of your friends, so check out the video:
Now what I want you to know is that there are two different strategies you want to implement in order to deal with this situation.
The first is how to stay friends with your gamer friends, and to do this what you want to do is find a new way to interact with them that is outside of games.
So you want to create more distance and that doesn’t mean disappearing it just means interacting with them on Facebook or Skype or something other than on Steam or in voice chat, where you can still maintain the friendships but they don’t trigger you.
You also want to have a conversation with them and let them know that you’re taking a break from games and to not invite you to play.
Now when you tell them this some of them will be triggered and get really defensive. This happens because gaming is something that means so much to them (and meant so much to you), that for you to quit that can cause them to feel threatened about why they play themselves.
Of course this isn’t fair, nor does your decision to quit have anything to do with them playing, but I just want you to be prepared for this because it’s very common. Unfortunately.
With the friends that get defensive and more or less aren’t very supportive of your decision to quit, you want to create a boundary. You can reiterate that you have decided to quit and you are asking them not to invite you to play.
Now not all of your friends will honor this, and I had this too, so just make sure you have a default answer anytime someone asks you to play. I would just say: “No, thank you and please don’t ask me to play.”
Again, some won’t honor this and for those you need to recognize that if they really were your friends they would be more supportive – who are they to tell you what to do? – so you want to create a stronger boundary and I would cut off contact with these friends.
Remember, you are deciding to quit because you are deciding to quit, and regardless of why you want to quit you are allowed to make that decision for yourself. Don’t ever let anybody else take that away from you.
Throughout life, your friends are going to come and go. That’s ok, it’s called the impermanence of life.
The second is starting to learn how to make new friends who aren’t gamers. If you just stay friends with your gamer friends eventually you’ll be tempted more and more to play because that is how you can connect with them.
To do this, you want to recognize that with gaming you found a sense of community, and you did this by exploring new games, getting involved in the areas people hung out (forums, streams, etc) and then you started to connect more with people.
So now that you’ve quit gaming you want to follow a similar path. Find some new activities and go hang out in areas where people who do those activities hang out. Watch this video for more on that.
By implementing both of these strategies, finding new ways to interact with your current gamer friends and being intentional to make new friends that aren’t gamers, you’ll be able to rebuild and grow your social circle and you won’t even notice the friends you have lost that weren’t supportive of you anyways.
When you go to quit it’s scary because you realize that you’re going to lose out on the one thing in your life that you’re really good at: gaming. And from gaming you get a lot of your confidence and self-esteem, so this presents an interesting challenge.
So what do you do? Press play:
One of these advantages is that you’ve gotten good at gaming. I mean, let’s be honest, the chance of you being a really good gamer if you’re reading this is pretty high.
Even if it’s simply because as someone who’s recognized that you’re spending more time gaming than you’d like… that gives you a better chance of being good at each game — you’re putting a lot of time into it.
So what I want to share with you is that gaming is a skill — and because it’s something you’ve gotten good at, there’s a lot you can learn from in how you achieved that and in doing so, then apply the same methods to become good at any other skill. Here’s the best part: Most everything in life is a skill. In fact Life is even a skill. It’s something you can get better at if you learn how the game works.
I’ll go more into this later but first I want to share with you the seven ways I got better at games, and I imagine you’ve used some if not all of these to do the same:
Quantity of time — you played a lot.
Quality of time — you played with a focus on how you could improve.
Mentors — you sought out other people who were good to learn from.
Community — you found likeminded peers to play with.
Education — you joined forums, watched streams and tutorials.
Review — you went over your replays.
Perseverance — you didn’t give up, you kept learning to improve.
Do any of those seem familiar? I bet they do, because they are just the different ways you can engage in gaming to improve your skill, and in doing so you do better at the game you’re playing. So now it’s a simple formula, follow the same steps we used to get good at gaming to get good at anything else we choose.
So now what are your new goals? What’s the new thing you want to get good at? Remember that passion is developed over time and it’s developed through challenge. Apply the same principles that you used to get good at gaming to get good at anything else you want.
Everything is going well, you’ve quit gaming and you’re starting to feel better about yourself.. but now you’re new favorite game is coming out. What do you do? Do you play?
The fear of missing out is definitely something I personally related to. Growing up one of the games I played the most was Starcraft, and after a decade of waiting for Starcraft 2 it was finally coming out!
… two months after I decided to quit playing for good.
So that kind of sucked but I never ended up playing Starcraft 2 and the reason is because I had committed to quitting because I wanted to quit and to play SC2 would be to miss the entire point of why I was moving on in the first place.
The reason I was quitting games was because I wanted to close a chapter in my life and start a new one. I had new goals and dreams, so continuing to game, even if it was my new favorite game wasn’t really serving that mission.
Your new favorite game coming out is one of the triggers that can cause you to go back and game, so you need to be aware of how you will respond if this happens.
Remember, just because you’re quitting games doesn’t take away what they meant to you. They meant something to you and that’s ok. But you’re also allowed to move forward in your life to something new too.
So in my experience I quit playing games cold turkey and was successful for over 11 months before I relapsed, and ended up playing 16 hours a day for five months straight before I quit cold turkey once again for good.
The reason cold turkey worked so well for me was because I knew I wanted to move on from games, so continuing to play or reduce my time was merely a way for me to procrastinate what I really wanted to do.
If this is the case for you, sometimes you just need to step up and rip the bandaid off. Games for me were a crutch so it wasn’t going to benefit me at all to continue playing them when I already knew what I really wanted to do.
Since I knew I wanted to quit and move on, it made the most sense for me to give myself the best shot possible to be successful, and I took this notion of setting myself up for success seriously.
I chose new activities, I scheduled your day and I stayed out of the house as much as possible.
Now I know that’s not the case for everybody, so here’s what I recommend:
1. If you are someone who wants to quit, then you need to recognize that what you’re really debating isn’t whether you should quit cold turkey or not, and instead you’re debating whether you’re ready to commit to moving forward in your life.
In my experience, the moment you’re ready is the moment you just say fuck it and go for it. There’s no real way around it.
2. If you are someone who doesn’t want to quit but wants to reduce your time, I think it’s valuable to go through the 90 day game quitters detox, where you take 90 days off games and then re-evaluate whether you want to play again or not.
The reason for this is because games cause structural changes to your brain, and by giving yourself the 90 day detox you allow your brain the time it needs to re-calibrate and for your “gaming fog” to lessen.
Now that your gaming fog has lessened you will have more clarity to make the decision you genuinely want to make.
The other benefit of doing the 90 day detox is that it gives you a chance to experience what life looks like without games, which is something you may or may not have experienced in a long time (if ever.)
During this time you will learn a lot more about yourself and your relationship to gaming. Plus, if you can’t go 90 days without games you probably shouldn’t be playing anyways.
So those are some things to think about, hope that helps!
Quitting games isn’t just about quitting games, it’s about starting to live your life to the fullest. Press play and find out more:
So it’s not just about finding ways to fill the void but stepping back to really think about what your new goals and dreams are.
When you quit games it’s about closing a chapter in your life – one where you played games – to start a new chapter – one where you don’t. So it’s not that games are good or bad or that you should play or you should not, and it’s more about just recognizing that you’re moving on to a new chapter in your life.
So yes, at first you’ll need to find new activities to fill your time, but the perspective you want to have is to choose new goals. Use these goals to fuel your motivation and give direction to how you spend your time.
I don’t just want you to survive not playing games, I want you to thrive.
After you quit it’s easy to just sit around resisting your temptation to play games, but I believe this is a flawed approach. It’s not that you won’t go through a period of time where this is the case, but just remember what your intention is.
So what are your new goals? What are you moving towards now that you’ve quit? Share in the comments below.
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!
When you quit gaming you want to set yourself up for success, and one of the essential ways to do that is to be aware of any triggers that could cause you to relapse.
When I quit gaming I knew I had to take my triggers seriously, because they would be the main reason I would end up relapsing and going back to play.
To be successful to quit playing video games it’s really about setting yourself up for success.
I got rid of all of my games.
I didn’t watch any commercials. I didn’t watch any gaming streams. I didn’t check to see when my new favorite game is coming out. I didn’t do any of this.
Why would I? If I did any of that I would just want to play! And the whole point of moving on from games is to not play.
That doesn’t mean you won’t get cravings and as we’ve talked about before you want to have specific ways to deal with that, but triggers can also cause your cravings to get worse.
Here are two steps you want to take to avoid triggers:
Identify what your triggers are. What are the potential things coming up that could cause you to be vulnerable to give in and play?
Understand what your default actions are when you are feeling triggered. When I saw a commercial after I quit I immediately changed the channel.
And of course as we’ve talked about before, make sure you’re taking care of the basics: finding new activities, scheduling your day and not being on the computer all day.
Sometimes triggers happen, sometimes cravings happen, but by preparing for them beforehand you can set yourself up for success and continue to move on with your life.
What’s up from Vancouver! Today’s question is about how to deal with cravings and this is a question I’ve been get a lot lately, so press play and check out my answer:
When it comes to how to deal with cravings it’s important to understand that cravings are a matter of momentum. And when we use this mindset of momentum with cravings it allows us to become empowered about them instead of feeling like they have all the power over us themselves.
When we quit playing video games it’s easy for cravings to become difficult, they can come out of nowhere, and catch us by surprise. Cravings come in many different ways, we can feel nostalgic about games, we miss our gamer friends, we can feel bored with our new activities and many others.
When we feel cravings first we need to understand that they can come out of nowhere and understand what they are. When we are focused on the steps we need to take to move forward – filling our days with new activities and being organized with our time – our cravings will be less.
But still they can come out of nowhere so it’s important to prepare beforehand with different tools and practices to respond well when they do come in. One of these practices is one I love and it’s a 3-step process to change any emotion.
Step 1: Acknowledge It
What you resist, persists, so when you experience a craving you need to acknowledge it as something that is happening due to a chemical imbalance in your body and by taking the time to recognize it you give it less power. You don’t need to hide from it.
Step 2: Accept It
Say “Oh well.” By accepting it that doesn’t mean you’re blindly accepting it and being a victim, you’re just acknowledging that it’s happening and you’re recognizing that that is ok. A craving doesn’t have to be a big deal if you don’t make it a big deal. Just like it came in randomly it will go away randomly too.
Step 3: Take Action
Now that you’ve acknowledged it as a craving, accepted that it’s there and that’s ok, now you want to take a positive action step towards creating the new emotion you want. What’s a step you can take to start building your momentum in the direction you want. One small action starts your momentum again. Go for a walk, get out of the house, move your body, meditate, write in a journal, call a friend.
Lastly, cravings are very similar to a breakup, and when I’ve been through breakups I just thought about my ex all the time, but over time it went away and got easier. It took some time but it gets better. Cravings are similar. They will be more intense at the beginning but over time they get easier. They’ll still come in randomly here and there so just don’t make it a big deal.
Focus one hour at a time all day long and definitely start meditating which will help you a lot.
So this is a great question and this is definitely one of the cornerstone issues of this gaming problem, which has to do with the way we use gaming to escape from our problems.
It’s important to remember that gaming is just an activity and when it becomes a problem it’s because we have underlying issues going on, so we want to start learning more about why we are trying to escape from whatever we’re trying to escape from.
This is a problem I personally relate to and after I quit gaming I needed to learn how to deal with these emotions and still have to work on every day. Part of it is learning about how to focus better.
An example is from today, I spent the entire day doing my taxes, and that sucks, that is an activity that is incredibly boring, it’s not inspiring, so it’s easy to procrastinate. So what I did was focus on smaller blocks, 10-15 minutes at a time, take a quick break (without technology) and then sit back down and do another 10-15 minutes, rinse and repeat.
These short breaks help me release the anxious energy that can build up where you get a bit antsy and you want to move around but by taking a quick break over time (in my case today, 7 hours), I was able to release that energy during my break instead of going on Reddit or Facebook and then running into a ton of other distractions.
Another thing you want to do is learn how to focus for longer periods of time, and this is a skill like anything else. I’m a big advocate of learning meditation, because the science behind meditation is so clear that it’s a great way to improve your focus.
Lastly, when it comes to motivation, you need to remember why you are doing the things you want to do. So when you find you’re getting distracted, make sure you take a minute to remind yourself why pursuing what you’re trying to pursue is important to you.
Needing a temporary escape is natural, so it’s just about learning how to fulfill this need in a way that you don’t need gaming. Meditation, taking a short break (without technology), going for a walk, etc are all good ways to do that.
Hope that helps and if it does, make sure you share it with someone it can help!
This is a question I get all the time and I think it comes from a place of anxiety you’re experiencing when you think about what your life will really look like without games. It’s natural to feel this anxiety in your life because quitting games is a big moment in your life.
You can also feel anxiety when it comes to the uncertainty of whether or not you’ll ever be able to play again. Even though right now you know you want to quit, games mean something to you and the idea of giving them up forever is scary.
So in my opinion, there are a few dynamics to understand when you think about this question.
First I want to talk to those who recently quit and you’re feeling anxious about whether or not you’ll be able to play again.
For you, I think it’s important that before we make any decisions about whether or not you’re going to play again (in moderation), that you complete the 90 day game quitters detox. This is what research shows you need for your brain to recalibrate back to normal dopamine sensitivity levels.
In doing the 90 day detox you give yourself an opportunity to learn about what life is like without games, you get to learn more about yourself and the role gaming plays in your life, and you get to come back to this question with more clarity.
Plus, if you can’t go 90 days without playing games you probably shouldn’t be playing games in the first place. If you want to learn more about the structural changes that can happen to your brain from excessive gaming, watch this video.
Second, whether or not you can play in moderation is something only you will ultimately know, and after you complete the 90 day detox you can consider whether or not you want to try, but I personally don’t play in moderation (other than playing Chess a little bit here and there.)
Lastly, you want to remember that we play games for specific reasons (they fulfill certain needs we have), so this isn’t really about games but why we play them. The anxiety you’re experiencing when we think about whether or not we’ll be able to play again has more to do with finding new ways to fulfill the needs we have.
By finding those in other activities (if you need ideas, click here), I found I don’t really miss gaming and other than it feeling nostalgic here and there which is normal. But by having new activities and new goals, I find I’m not really drawn to games in the same way I used to be, and instead I’m excited about the new life I’ve created for myself.
So I hope that helps and if it does, share it with someone you know who’s also struggling with this stuff.
Today’s question is from Ella from /r/StopGaming and it’s about how to develop better relationships, which I definitely agree is a main focus we need to have after we quit gaming.
Press play and watch my answer from Long Beach, California:
One of the reasons why we play games is because they are where our community hangs out, it fulfills our social relationships. I believe gaming is really more of just the activity we are doing and it’s the needs it fulfills that causes us to continue to play, even if we don’t want to.
Feeling anxious about trying to improve our ability to have better relationships after we quit is normal. I relate to this because growing up I was bullied a lot, which caused me to isolate and stay in my room all day playing games.
But the thing is, I was still lonely, and it’s this loneliness you need to pay attention to. If you’re feeling lonely even though you’re playing games, you need to take a break and start working on feeling less lonely in your life.
And this is exactly what happened to me. So when I quit I decided to start learning how to make new friends and improve my social skills. I knew I couldn’t continue to live my life the way I was and even though I didn’t know how to improve my social skills, I was going to figure it out.
So how do you train yourself to develop better relationships?
At first I started going out every night, sober, to clubs. I did this for a couple years but then I realized I didn’t really like clubs or the types of people I was meeting, so I switched it up.
And I followed these two strategies:
1. Who do you want to meet?
For me, that was entrepreneurs, who like to travel, who are more conscious, who want to leave a positive difference in the world, who would be a good friend, people who are ambitious, people going after their dreams who inspire me, and people who can teach me.
Now you: Write down three qualities you want in your friends.
2. Where do these types of people hang out?
For me, that was going to different events like StartingBloc.
Now you: Clubs at school or events in your area. Find one you can go to this week and make it happen.
The biggest difference in my life now between when I played video games and where I am today is due to the people I’ve surrounded myself with, and I’ve done it very intentionally and from the ground up. I was bullied in school, I didn’t have any friends, people told me I’d be a 36 year old bum, and I’ve proved them wrong.
But I’ve done it by surrounding myself by people who believe in me, but first by believing in myself first. Thanks for the question.
When you quit gaming one of the biggest issues you run into is feeling bored. You want to quit because you want to start living your life, but can life really be fun without video games?
I personally struggled with this a lot, so I don’t know… you tell me… does it look fun? Press play:
When you quit gaming it can be scary. Gaming is how you have fun and it’s easy to find other activities to be boring, and even though this happens for specific reasons, it’s common to wonder if life without video games is really even fun.
But the truth is, life is as much fun as you decide to make it. Although we all come from different circumstances and each our our situation is unique, we get to choose how we respond to these challenges.
And one of them is learning how to have fun after we quit gaming. It’s not that life without video games isn’t fun, it’s that gaming has always been our go-to activity to have fun. So naturally when we remove it, we will need to learn new ways to have fun again, and that might take some time.
I know it did for me and that’s ok, it’s a process, but, most importantly, life can be fun without video games, you can have fun without them.
I thought I’d answer a question I got recently while I was in Malibu. The question is from Tobias and it’s about what other activities are good to do on the weekends, and whether or not he can play Hearthstone and Chess even though they are kind of video games. Press play:
So the thing is, when we quit playing video games, we need to think about what we’re going to do with all of this new time we have. This is a common obstacle to go through, because gaming is what we know. So when we quit, we tend to still gravitate towards them, when that’s kind of missing the point.
The point of quitting video games isn’t to continue playing games, it’s about putting ourselves in a position where we have no choice but to learn how to interact (and entertain) ourselves without using gaming as our crutch.
What helped me the most was focusing on setting new goals, and using these new goals as a compass to figure out how we should be spending our time. Remember, we play games for specific reasons, so you want to find activities and goals that fulfill those same needs.
For me, that was learning how to make new friends, so I started going out a lot. And then I wanted to learn how to DJ so I started doing that. And now, travel is a big goal of mine so I’m finding ways to do that too.
Gaming is where your comfort zone is, so now that you’ve quit, focus on setting new goals and using your new activities to move in that direction.
Driving down the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles today and stopped by a beach to share a few thoughts on quitting video games. Press play:
The thing is, a big mistake people make is that they focus too much on video games and forget that this is really about much more than that.
This isn’t even really about games. It’s about getting your life to a point where you don’t need to be stimulated all the time. Gaming gives us a lot of stimulation but it creates this false sense of expectation that you need to be that stimulated all the time, when this is something that happens because of games… instead of because life is really that way.
Games are an outlet for us whenever we feel bored. But to us we have a choice, we can use games to help us escape that boredom… or we can choose to be present in the moment and not need to escape from it.
So it’s not about whether gaming is good or bad, or whether you should play or not. It’s about getting your life back to a point where you could go to a beach and enjoy it, or have dinner with your family and enjoy it. You could do anything and enjoy it because you have the type of mindset and perspective that allows you to do so… instead of just expecting it to be that way – which can happen when you are gaming.
In this piece I want to share with you how, by understanding the genres of games your child plays, you can learn about their interests and help them find new activities they will enjoy.
You may not know it yet, but the type of game children play gives many clues as to what their interests are and how they are inspired to engage in the world. Each game genre brings with it a different experience and will provide insight into what they are interested in and motivated by.
There are a variety of game genres, so today I am going to focus on four: Mobile, First Person Shooter (FPS), Role-Playing Games (RPG), and Real-Time Strategy (RTS).
Mobile Games are played on smartphones, iPads and other tablets. Popular games include “Clash of Clans,” “Farmville,” “ Candy Crush ” and “Subway Surfers.” If children play mobile games they’re likely playing them during downtime and/or in between activities. The chance is high it has become their go-to activity whenever they feel bored and they simply don’t know what else they can do during this time. Great alternatives to mobile games are reading books, listening to podcasts or learning how to draw.
First Person Shooter (FPS) games are action-packed and emphasize missions, a quick reaction time and a desire for competition. In FPS games your child is the character. The insight to gather here is that they enjoy the game from the character’s perspective. Alternative activities to FPS games are achievement- and goal-based activities, including sports, martial arts or learning an instrument.
Role-Playing Games (RPG) give your child the opportunity to be a specific character and have a strong storyline component. If your child plays RPGs they enjoy contributing to a story. Alternative activities include drama or theatre, filmmaking or anything that allows them to be creative.
Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games involve participants who position and maneuver units and structures to secure areas of a map or to destroy their opponents’ assets. Popular RTS games include “Starcraft” and “Age of Empires.” RTS games have a strong strategic component to them. Puzzles and other board games, including chess, are examples of alternative activities. Similar to gamers who play FPS games, gamers who play RTS games have a desire for competition and finding this motivation in new activities is important.
In the next week or two, I’d like you to identify the main genres of games your son or daughter plays. These may vary, and it’s common for gamers to play different games depending on their mood. Be curious and pay attention to when they play the different type of game, and make sure you ask them what they enjoy about each game. You can then pinpoint real-life substitute activities that will get your child up and moving.
To learn more about how to help someone you love with a gaming addiction, read Respawn.
In my last article I shared four reasons why your child plays video games and promised that in this post I would share how, by learning about the types of games your child plays, you will better understand what the best alternative activities would be for him or her.
A few of the other key terms you’ll want to know are:
Grinding: Games in which you “level up” require you to gain a certain amount of XP (experience) by completing different tasks or missions. As your character’s level increases, the amount of XP you need to reach the next level increases. Grinding is plugging away at a certain element of the game to do so.
Clan: This is your team or the group you associate with. There is always a clan name and a leader or leadership structure, and it’s common for there to be a private chat for clan members only. Clan matches pit one clan against the other.
Twitch: The world’s leading video platform and community for gamers. More than 45 million gamers stream Twitch games every month. It’s the place to go online to watch other gamers play.
MMORPG: This refers to a “Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game,” and includes games such as World of Warcraft. These games have millions of players and large communities outside of the game in forums and online channels on YouTube or Twitch.
FPS: This refers to a “First-Person Shooter” type of game like Fortnite, Call-of-Duty and Counter-Strike.
RPG: This refers to a “Role-Playing Game” type of game like Skyrim, Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, and The Witcher.
PvP: These are games or elements of games that are Player vs. Player.
n00b: This is short for newbie, which refers to a new player who is doing poorly at the game. A n00b can also refer to any other player who is playing with cluelessness.
The Personality of a Gamer
Gamers have certain personality traits and these personalities are influenced by gaming culture. A common mistake parents make when they approach their child to discuss their gameplay is that they don’t take these personality traits into consideration. In doing so, their son or daughter can become triggered and less likely to be open to the conversation.
I’ll go into more depth about personality traits in future blog posts, but for now what I want you to know is that gamers are naturally defensive about their games. They’re defensive because they feel misunderstood and have felt this way for a long time since society typically approaches gamers with judgment and shame, creating stigma and separation.
This separation is at the root of why you find it difficult to connect with your son or daughter when it comes to their gaming habits or to have more influence in changing their gaming behavior. It’s also one of the reasons why, as we discussed in my last article, your child is drawn to games in the first place: They are able to find a community of like-minded peers who understand them and share a similar struggle in the world.
If you want to break through to your son or daughter when it comes to their gaming behavior then the importance of building greater rapport, especially around gaming, cannot be understated. By understanding and being able to speak in the same gaming lingo as your child, he or she will feel less judgment and separation, creating an opportunity to get connected and influence a shift in their behavior.
Here’s a task to try this week: I want you to learn about the games your son or daughter is playing. Ask them what they like about the game, what different activities they get to experience through the game and how it makes them feel. In doing so, you’ll increase your knowledge about their gaming experience and be able to leverage this into helping them find similar experiences through other activities.
In my next article I’ll share specific alternative activity ideas for your child based on the genre of games they play. If you have any questions or comments you can reach out to me here.
To learn more about how to help someone you love with a gaming addiction, read Respawn.
You’re driving home, excited to see your kids after spending the day working hard to provide for them. You get home and other than a quick hello you find it difficult to get your child away from the computer screen.
You just don’t get it. What is it with these video games? You feel frustrated and don’t understand why they play these silly games. You feel overwhelmed because, although you try, it seems like no matter what you do, your child simply wants to keep playing more and more. What has happened to your son or daughter? Why are they so drawn to these video games?
I remember this situation well because I was this child. I even went so far as dropping out of high school twice and pretending to have jobs so I could continue to play more. My own breakthrough happened after living in Victoria, British Columbia for five months, where I had resumed playing video games — for up to 16 hours a day.
Prior to living in Victoria, I’d quit playing for 11 months; I thought I had a handle on my gaming problem. When I arrived back home in Calgary after my five-month stay in Victoria I was determined to figure out why I played video games and how to truly overcome this.
What I learned was there are four reasons why we play video games. These fulfill unmet needs we have for growth, contribution and community. By understanding why you or your kids play, you can have more power to move on. Here are the four reasons why a child or teenager plays video games:
Games are a Temporary Escape
We all need an escape sometimes and video games provide a great way to do just that. After a tough break-up at the age of 18 I was able to escape into games and avoid having to deal with the situation.
Games are Social
The games themselves are only the activity your child is participating in. The sense of community that games provide is one of the strongest reasons why your child plays as much as he or she does. If your child experiences any type of bullying or rejection at school — as I have — they are much more likely to find comfort in friends online.
Games are Challenging
Games give you a sense of purpose, a mission, a goal to work toward. This adds a level of meaning to your child’s life they may not be getting elsewhere. Games provide an achievement paradigm.
Games Provide Constant, Measurable Growth
When a child plays games he or she can see constant, measurable growth. This is a feedback loop: You get to see rewards for the effort you put in, both in the game and socially in the community. You get to see progress. In life it can be harder to see the progress you’re making, but in games you “level up.”
It’s so important to understand why your child plays games because this allows you to help them find these same benefits in other activities. It also allows you to come from a place of support and encouragement instead of judgment and frustration. Gamers are naturally defensive of their games and in order to have influence you need to have a trusting relationship with your child.
The next step is to start a conversation with your child about why they play games. I know you may have done this in the past, but this time I want you to come more from a place of curiosity, not judgment. Use the reasons I’ve detailed above as a compass and see how you can implement these motivations into their everyday life in other ways.
The question every parent is asking themselves these days: Are my kids really addicted to video games? It’s an important question to ask and one you’re concerned about as you’ve noticed your child glued to the computer screen, no longer interested in other activities and increasingly difficult to interact with.
It’s a concern parents ask me about often, since few are able to escape it: Nearly 100% of boys and 94% of girls under the age of 18 regularly play video games, according to author and game designer Jane McGonigal.
So, what’s the answer? Is video game addiction real?
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t simple and the scientific community has yet to confirm the legitimacy of video game addiction. Most recently, in the DSM-5(the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition), Internet Gaming Disorder is identified “as a condition warranting more clinical research,” so many, including myself, view this as a positive development in the direction of an official diagnosis.
What we do know is that research conducted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has shown there are similarities between the way both drug addicts’ and gamers’ brains are triggered by a particular substance or behavior and that “gaming prompts a neurological response that influences feelings of pleasure and reward, and the result, in the extreme, is manifested as addictive behavior,” according to the APA.
So you may be right, and your child may in fact be addicted to video games, but what I think is more important is for you to understand why your child is so drawn to games in the first place, and what you can do about it.
Gamers play for very specific reasons — to fulfill certain needs. Gaming is an outlet. It’s an expression of unmet needs, so by understanding what these needs are, parents can have more influence on how games fulfill them, and also encourage their child to turn to other, healthier outlets to meet his or her needs.
This is an important distinction to make, because when it comes to games, it’s all too common to view your child as just being lazy and wanting to avoid their homework or house chores, when in reality it’s a more complex circumstance.
As a hardcore gamer for over 10 years I remember this all too well. Throughout middle and high school I experienced intense rejection and bullying that caused me to want an escape, so I isolated myself away, playing video games up to 16 hours a day. Eventually this led me to drop out of high school — twice. I was 18 with no real sense of direction.
Fortunately, my story doesn’t end there and I was able to overcome this period in my life. In the spring of 2011 I began to identify why I played games and, through this new understanding, I was able to consider how I could meet these needs in different activities, specifically ones that would have a more positive influence in my life. And over the past three-and-a-half years I’ve seen the same process work for many others as well.
But for now I want you to start a conversation with your child. Ask them what they like about the games? When do they enjoy playing them? What kind of games are they playing? Are they playing alone, or with friends? Each of these questions will allow you to gain key insights into how your child engages in games and, ultimately,their answers will help you help them shift their gaming behavior.
Until then, feel free to reach out to me with any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them in future articles.
To learn more about how to help someone you love with a gaming addiction, read Respawn.
As the mother of two adult sons I have become aware that my parenting continues into their adult lives, but it takes a different approach.
