Discipline, through taking cold showers

Never thought I'd say this, but I haven't touched a video game in 2 weeks.

This is going to sound odd for most of the people who (I'm assuming) read my blog. I used to be a very avid gamer. Even joined multiple tournaments throughout the peak of my gaming career.

I used to play Counterstrike 1.6 on a Cal-I level, Rainbow Six Siege at Plat II, Starcraft at a top 100 US West, and even lead a top 5 guild in World of Warcraft in WoTLK expansion days.

Currently, I've been dipping my toes back into League of Legends and playing Apex Legends while I await World of Warcraft Classic to come out in a couple days. You can see I'm a pretty avid gamer. Previously devoting 4-5 hours a day into video games.

However, I haven't really been playing in the past 3 weeks. Why?

Discipline with my goals.

Ever heard "I have so many goals and things I want to do, I'm not sure which one to pick?" You have? That was me 4 weeks ago. Those people, myself included, usually end up doing none of their goals and just keep planning and thinking. Also, these people sometimes only dip their toes in each goal and never really get anywhere with it. You know what I'm talking about. I know you do.

Enter, the cold shower.

COLD SHOWERS? NOOOOOOO

Ya, cold showers. I watched a video of a guy, taking a cold shower...

Now before any misunderstandings, let me clear up that this video popped up on my feed because I watch a lot of self improvement and motivational videos from Tony Robbins, Gary Vee and the like.

The video was a recommendation on doing one disciplined thing in your life. Something you don't like doing, and just doing it anyways. That will "level up" your discipline capacity to do other things.

What have I got to lose? It's just 1 shower.

90 showers later and I'm still taking cold showers. That's in the span of 45 days. I take about 2 showers a day because I do a workout at my work gym and then run again after I get home. So roughly 2 showers a day.

This has helped me focus in on my goals and be disciplined about just doing it.

Since I started taking cold showers, I narrowed my focus. I wrote out all the things I wanted to do and picked 3. One for health, one for fitness, and one for finance. Luckily, some of these overlapped so win-win.

I've been focusing intensely on these 3 goals only and have been seeing major advances in all 3 in my life.

It all started with taking cold showers, and just doing 1 thing I really dislike. Even if I really didn't want to do it.

Gaming isn't in one of those top 3 goals either. Took a couple weeks but I haven't really even had the urge to play. I played recently for about an hour with my friends and I had a blast. But during the game all I was thinking was "I could be learning how to calculate property deals right now," or "I could be creating a map of my area of where I would like to invest in properties," or "Maybe I could update my plan for 10 years out for Real Estate Investing to meet my financial freedom goals," or "I could be connecting with people on Bigger Pockets to build my REI team."

If a task isn't advancing one of my top 3 goals, it almost feels like a waste of time... weird right? Guess this is how it feels to have a goal oriented mindset and focus.

Who would have thought I'd not find much fun in gaming after considering myself a gamer for the past 21 years? And all because I took a cold shower.

See y'all next time.