Improvement Pill here you know I've talked about playing video games a
couple of times on the channel before and I usually frame it as a sort of bad
thing something that you should try to do less of but to be honest I actually
still spend a fair chunk of my time playing games and today I'm gonna share
with you exactly why I still do this so the thing is when I was growing up I
loved gaming I remember when I got my first handheld device the
black-and-white Gameboy when I was like eight or nine years old and I would
spend hours and hours every single day playing my mom would tell me to go to
sleep at night and I would secretly turn off the lights hide under the covers but
continued to play late into the night with a flashlight in my mouth I would
stay up way past my bedtime till like 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. barely get any sleep
and wake up feeling like a zombie because I still had to go to school the
next day when I got to high school I became even more obsessed I got a laptop
and I was introduced to the world of mmo's massive multiplayer online games
where I would spend hours every single day after school just grinding and doing
quests leveling up my character in game but never working on myself in real life
later in high school I got into a game called
League of Legends I would rush home the moment class was over and play for hours
and hours until it was bedtime I wouldn't start doing homework until it
was already like 11:00 p.m. and in the span of just two years I managed to play
over 2,000 games of League which accounts to about 2000 hours that's
equivalent to 80 days of non-stop plain the thing about gaming is that unlike
spending your time on social media or using alcohol and drugs Gaming is not
inherently unhealthy playing games doesn't make you feel worse about
yourself like social media does and it doesn't physically take a toll on your
body like drugs and alcohol do the main problem of gaming is that it can easily
take up a lot of your time that's about it
health-wise in my opinion it's harmless and that's a good thing when you have
something that you enjoy doing that is relatively harmless it can be used as an
extremely good reward and this is a very important thing that
you have to keep in mind because if you want to transform your life if you want
to accomplish many things and reach your goals it all really boils down to
building habits Avenue catchphrase that I've been saying to a lot of my students
in the habit builder challenge which by the way has been extremely effective in
getting people to build new habits and overcome their bad ones and is going to
happen again next month so make sure you sign up for
my mailing list using the link down below if you want to receive news and
updates about the challenge anyways the catchphrase that I've been using is that
the life you want is only a couple of habits away right the ideal life that
you want can be achieved if you build the right habits for example if your
main concern recently has been to adjust your weight and look good you only
really have to build a sort of fitness and diet habit and you're good to go the
reason I still game is because having a good reward is extremely important when
it comes to building and sticking to these life changing habits it's actually
impossible to build a habit without a decent reward because the reward plays a
crucial role it's what tells your brain hey this action is worth remembering if
we do a B and C we get this great reward in return so we should remember doing it
if you don't have a good reward your brain will not strengthen the wiring for
the habit and sticking to the habit will never become easier so when I started my
self-improvement journey and I started building a bunch of habits I actually
did not quit gaming I still played video games but I did so more strategically
for example after drafting the script for this video that you are currently
listening to I will get to play an hour of the game that I'm currently obsessing
over I've been thinking about it all day it's a really good game but I've been
able to train myself to play the game only after I finish a big task such as
drafting an entire script and this actually makes me want to get my work
done even more the better the reward the easier it is for you to stick to your
habit people are often surprised when they find out how much time I spend on
gaming or watching Netflix and anime or even going out to party because those
things are often associated with people who sort of just bum out and get nothing
done but what they don't realize is that the reason I'm able to work on so many
and the reason why I see success in business is because I have good rewards
if you follow the conventional self-improvement feel-good advice where
they teach you to just grind and grind and grind you will most likely get burnt
out if there aren't enough rewards in your life things that you allow yourself
to enjoy doing your mind will eventually reach a point where it says May and why
in the world are we even working so hard what's the point when we get nothing in
return and the moment you start thinking like
that you will start to burn out and lose your motivation if you love gaming you
don't have to give it up to improve your life you can still play but train
yourself to play after you get your next big task done train yourself to work
hard and play hard your life will be much more enjoyable and you actually get
a lot more done this episode was brought to you with the help the guys at audible
one of the most important things you should be focusing on doing this new
year is to build good habits and get them to stick and audible is perfect for
this I use audible all of the time because it allows me to listen to books
whenever and wherever I want it's way more convenient than pulling out a
physical book to help motivate you this new year audible is issuing a special
challenge if you can finish three audiobooks by March 3rd of 2020 you will
get $20 worth of Amazon credit go to www.carmensognonvi.com/newsletter tation
check it out if you're interested in that and besides that guys stay tuned