Hello! maybe you want to get rid of a behavior that won’t go away. Like smoking. Or emotional eating. Or some vice you’re just too ashamed to tell anybody.
In this email I will share with you the three-step process, including harmless self-hypnosis, that I used to get rid of video games for good – And the same three-step process can be applied to ANY behavior that you want to get rid of, in total privacy.
So let’s begin! but first, a bit about my video game addiction story.
One of the most vivid experiences that are still imprinted in my brain was when I opened my first Zelda game. It was the original, and I got it maybe around 1988 or 1989. What made such a huge impression is that the NES cartridge was golden.
As in, pure BLING. It was amazing to watch. I’ve always loved golden things (who doesn’t?), so I was just impressed by that unique design choice.
The golden thing is important. But regarding my video game obsession, it spanned four decades and I hit rock bottom around 12 years ago, with the game Need for Speed: Carbon, for the Nintendo Wii.
That’s when I knew I had video game addiction. And how did I know it? well, because I was putting on hold ALL my grown up responsibilities to get all the trophies in a racing game.
That was bad enough, until the day I realized I just couldn’t put the game down. Couldn’t not play it two or three hours a day when nobody was looking.
It caused me heavy trouble and distress. So at some point I grabbed the game’s disc and destroyed it.
Cut it in half.
Problem solved, right?
Nah! of course not. I was an addict. Just two hours later I was at the mall buying another copy to keep playing. THAT bad it was.
Back then, the way I got over the video game addiction was a process that was too painful and personal to describe here. I don’t think I will reveal it anytime soon, but regardless, it was a mess. It was too much pain and I hurt too many people through it.
So, even if it was not the most efficient, at least I learned how to ‘control’ the urge and get over it.
…or so I thought.
Fast forward to a couple years ago. I finally got to play what became one of my favorite games ever: Doom Eternal. There are a couple things I learned from that game that will share with you at a later time, but right now what’s relevant about this is that one of the best trophies of the game was a full, golden armor for the titular character, Doomguy.
A golden armor! just like that Zelda cartridge from my childhood!
This time there was no ‘urge’, because I had overcome video game addiction, remember? I was not an addict anymore. And I proved it to myself more than a couple times, not playing for one or two months whenever I wanted.
That’s right: I could stop out cold whenever I wanted, no withdrawal symptoms, and no further issues.
So that must be OK, I guess?
Well, not that OK. Because I realized that it was becoming second nature to pour one, or even two, hours every night on the game. For what, you might ask?
Well, to get the full golden armor, of course!
So no big deal, since I was also doing it to ‘relax’ after a long day of work and responsibilities.
(If you have played any DOOM game, you’ll know that the LEAST you feel after playing is… relaxation).
For some reason I had terrible nightmares every night! I wonder what could have caused those… 😉
But anyway, some day I was poking around some forums of the game, and noticed that people were commenting about the hours they had poured into it.
So that piqued my curiosity. How many hours had I been putting into Doom Eternal to that point? I followed simple instructions to check the stats of the game and…
650.
Hours.
Ok, so… I knew the number was going to be three digits, but… never imagined that it was going to be so high.
I paused for a moment.
I didn’t really react at that instant, but had an odd feeling.
Anyway, now I knew how many hours I had poured in, so that golden armor should be in my hands in no time!
But that odd feeling? it sat at the back of my skull and didn’t go anywhere.
Seeing a concrete number, over 600, was putting things into perspective.
At that point, making a Youtube video took me around 3-4 hours, so those 600+ hours would have meant anywhere between 150 and 200 new videos for any of my channels.
Let’s say 100 very polished videos.
600 hours is also what the average person needs to learn French or German. I have a knack for languages so I might need a bit less, say 400. But anyway, with the hours grinding for the darn golden armor I could be flawlessly speaking a third language by now.
Not to mention that those daily hours in the evening could have been for evening walks. One hour of evening walk equals around 300 calories burnt, and 600 evenings, or roughly two years, would have made me fitter and sleep much better.
Not to mention that the average audiobook is 8 hours long (6 hours if listened faster), so I could have listened to a whopping 100 new books in that time.
And let’s not mention the most important life hack of all: Sleep. I could have used that extra hour an evening to go to sleep earlier (and no monster killing affecting my sleep).
You get the idea.
That ‘odd feeling’ was looking at that concrete number, ‘600’, and realizing all the things that could replace it.
Now, I did not stop playing outright. And you know that the number I saw was 650, not 600. But it was more than 600 and I’m sure that by the time I finally realized what was going on, the whole stuff was over 700 hours. Easily 750.
But it was that ‘more than 600’ hours moment that struck me. BADLY.
There were a ton of things that I could be doing to improve my life, my mission and my wonderful community besides grinding for a silly digital golden armor that nobody besides myself would care about.
I realized how empty I would feel when I finally got that ‘achievement’.
So I held onto that number.
600+
And the HUGE embarrassment I felt about myself.
That “This ain’t it” feeling.
There’s one thing, though: If you like video games, I won’t judge you. Some of them are absolute masterpieces and I would play those again, from beginning to end.
But notice that word:
END.
It’s those that entice you to keep grinding, or leveling up, or do silly side quests that, at least for me, became dangerous.
So I want to share with you the three step process, and the preceding story already has a glimpse of the first step:
1) YOU NEED TO REALIZE YOU HAVE A PROBLEM AND PUT BOTH A NAME AND FEELING TO IT.
I realized that playing video games, in itself, was not that bad. What was wrong was the sheer amount of time I had invested on ‘getting better’
Getting better at what? nothing. That’s the thing. We humans are MASTERS at fooling ourselves. Our mental gymnastics to justify abject or unproductive or plain destructive behaviors is unparalleled.
In my case I was just ‘winding down’ at the end of the day.
But… 600 hours. 600 HOURS.
That was the ‘name’ I put into it. “600”. And the feeling was: “Embarrassment”.
From that point, Every time I saw a gaming icon on my phone, or looked at my Xbox, or saw any new game trailer popping up on my feed, I had a simple word popping up on my mind:
“600”
…and the embarrassing feeling came back in an instant, all over again, reminding me that any sort of time put into video games could be done into literally anything else.
Working out, walking, fixing things around the house, making videos, writing emails like this one! chopping vegetables, meditating, sleeping.
ANYTHING.
So that was step number one. Accepting you have a problem, putting a name to it (it will become your ‘trigger word’), and attach a STRONG emotion against it.
Negative emotions work wonders for that. Embarrassment, disgust, any of those will work.
STEP 2: YOU HAVE TO GET RID OF THE OLD YOU
Now, remember that you (as everyone else) EXCEL at mental gymnastics. In my case, even if I didn’t have urges to play again, I had all these thoughts: Video games aren’t that bad, you need to relax, you deserve to relax, playing once a week won’t hurt you (It’s never once a week, you know?), et cetera.
The problem is that this was the ‘old me’, who was afraid.
Not afraid: TERRIFIED.
You see, since I had been playing video games since forever, and I’m DARN GOOD at them, I had attached them to my sense of self.
I had made video games part of my ‘identity’. “Oh, there goes the middle aged guy who’s an absolute beast at PUBG!”
(I also had issues with PUBG, but that’s another story…)
But as I was telling you, being not good but GREAT at any video game I picked, made me think that video gaming was part of ‘my thing’, and worse yet:
Part of my IDENTITY.
Like, if you take video games away from me, that would be like taking away a chunk of myself.
And that happens A LOT with bad behaviors that you’ve been doing for a long time. “I have been doing this for such a long time, THIS IS WHO I AM”. You might not be screaming this same sentence at the top of your lungs, but please consider for a moment if that behavior (that you know is bad), you feel it ‘part of your identity’.
If that’s so, you have identified part of why it’s so hard to get rid of it.
So, in essence, you have to ‘get rid of the old you’, and welcome something else altogether to ‘fit’ in the behavior that you want to get rid of.
Fueled, of course, by your key word, and the emotion attached to it.
Like “600” -> Embarrassment
STEP 3: FALSE SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT
Now, this guide could be just the past two steps (In fact, could be just the first step, which is 80% of the work), but I need to add a couple things to my own issue.
Video games were giving me a FALSE SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT.
Because life is hard, of course. Real life is beautiful but can be a headache sometimes.
But video games? no! they’re controlled environments that you can turn on and off at will so it’s easy to just get lost inside them, push buttons, kill monsters, feel good and maybe, get a golden armor at the end.
They give you a false sense of achievement. An emotional travesty.
The other bad behavior (that I’ve also had for YEARS and I’m still dealing with) is emotional eating.
“Eating out your emotions”, as I heard Dan Go say. Don’t know if he was the first one to say those, but they are ON POINT.
You get a false sense of pleasure. Of wellness. Of being ‘safe’, or whatever other feeling you have after you’ve assaulted the fridge in the middle of the night.
I know, because I’ve been there.
The process to get rid of it is pretty much the same: Realize you have a problem, find your magic word that triggers the emotion (could be embarrassment again, it works like a charm!), and realize that you have to get rid of the ‘old you’ who believes that eating out your emotions is something that’s ‘part of your identity’ or ‘you deserve’, or any other nonsense.
If you’re struggling with all this, the best life hacks that I can suggest are: Sleep and habits.
But those are topics for another email.
I will be sharing a video on this topic with my supporters on Locals, so if you want to join, go here: https://jesusenriquerosas.locals.com/
And if you want to share with me any anecdote regarding your struggles, you’re free to reply to this email – I don’t always have time to answer every email, but I read every single one of them.
Also, any questions or suggested topics are welcome!
I hope you succeed getting rid of whatever bad behavior you still have.
Much Love and Bliss,
Jesús.
The Body Language Guy.
