I'm currently dealing with an addiction with YouTube.
Let me talk about it.
So over a couple months ago, before last summer,
so it was probably maybe six months ago,
I really started to reduce my screen.
And honestly, it was probably even earlier than that,
probably a year ago even,
but I really started to reduce my screen time.
And over time, I would make different changes.
And it got to the point where over summer,
I was just not on my phone or my computer at all
for a couple weeks straight and maybe even months.
And then once I started getting into posting on YouTube
and posting on a podcast,
for some reason I just kind of got back into YouTube.
I kind of allowed myself to rationalize
that it was a good thing that I was actually learning from it,
which is kind of weird because I know that it's not good.
And I actually heard that Alex Formosi talk about,
it's funny because I heard him talk about this on YouTube,
but I heard him say that,
I heard him say that we tend to forget
the negative side of things, but we remember the reward.
So the example he gave was,
let's say you were in an abusive relationship.
After a couple years of being out of it,
you people remember the reward,
but they forget the punishment.
So they kind of crave that relationship again.
And then once they get back into the relationship,
then they realize and they remember all the punishment
that came with it.
And they don't want to deal with that anymore.
And so I feel like that was the same thing with YouTube,
where I forgot about it.
Like us as humans tend to remember the reward,
but forget the punishment.
So I forgot about the punishment,
but I remember the reward.
I remember that I learned a lot of information,
whether it was actually practical or not,
it didn't really matter at the time of my rationale.
And so I learned a lot of information.
And what I ended up doing was I slowly,
but surely started kind of peeking at YouTube.
I like loaded up the webpage just to see what was on my
for you or the home page, the recommended page.
And then I would check to see if there was a good video
or not, and then I would watch it.
And so surely I started watching more and more and more,
and then I started scrolling more and more.
And then I realized I was a conscious
that I was like still watching YouTube
and it was not good for me,
but I was still choosing to watch it.
And then I saw this video that really stuck to me.
And it was just called,
Why You Go Searched YouTube for Answers to Your Problems,
or something like that.
And then in that video, he was just talking about
how people tend to get information.
They tend to go get their information on YouTube
for answers to their problems.
And they tend to go to the,
or they tend to watch like maybe 10, 20 videos
on that same topic.
And so me watching that video at the end,
he just said the solution is to just cut out YouTube
and go on a content fast.
And I realized I knew at that time,
I knew that that's what I had to do.
So I bookmarked that video,
just because I wanted to be reminded
of the decision that I made.
And then I also had like another video lined up
because the way I watch YouTube is I click a few,
I click a few thumbnails,
or I click a few videos and open them in new tabs.
So I have maybe like five or six videos lined up
and I just watch them in order.
And I had one or two videos lined up
after the video I just watched,
but I decided not to watch them
because I made a new decision.
And the decision is I don't watch YouTube.
I am someone who does not watch YouTube.
And I realized that I needed one to change my identity,
which I did right away.
I was, I just immediately welcomed my new identity,
which was actually a returning identity,
because like I said over summer,
I was not really watching any YouTube.
And that's because I had the identity,
people would ask like, oh, did you see this video?
No, I would always say, no, I don't watch YouTube.
That's part of my identity.
Now it's becoming part of my identity again.
So I immediately fixed my identity
and then I kind of had a contingency plan.
So let me explain.
Right away, I remembered when I was tracking my bolt score,
which your bolt score is basically
how effective you are at breathing.
And it's a score that you track daily.
And I was tracking that for probably two or three months
straight.
And it was really satisfying for me
because I had that piece of paper
and I sat it next to my bed.
And right away every single morning,
I would just write down the date
and then I would write down what my bolt score was.
And so the piece of paper got really long
and it got pretty long.
And I was tight.
I like wrote down a lot of information on it
and it was pretty filled up by the end,
by the time I decided to stop tracking my bolt score.
And that was very satisfying.
And so I wanted to use that strategy again,
but instead for YouTube.
So I immediately grabbed a blank sheet of paper
and wrote down the date.
And I believe the date was like December 3rd.
And I wrote down the date and I wrote down
the title of the piece of paper.
And it was like, write down the date
and every single time that I watch YouTube.
And so my goal was to keep that piece of paper
as clean as possible.
I had already wrote down one date on it.
But now my goal is to keep it as clean as possible
and not have any kind of, any like words
or numbers on that piece of paper.
Not have any penworks on that piece of paper.
Just keep it blank.
And it actually worked because the next day
after I got home from school
and I was getting ready to sit,
I was like sitting down to start like working
on editing a video.
I was really tempted to get on YouTube.
And I was like, I did get on YouTube
because I was just, I just went on to YouTube
because I was gonna, I was doing something on my channel.
So I had to get on YouTube.
But when I clicked on YouTube,
I had the option of either go to my profile right away.
And by the way, on my computer,
I have extensions on my YouTube, like on Google Chrome
to where whenever I go on YouTube,
it's just a blank screen.
Like I don't have any videos that show up.
So that means that I have to search for videos
for them to show up.
And when I do search for videos,
they show up with just the title.
There's no thumbnail or nothing.
And then when I watch a video,
there's no title or comments or like recommended videos.
It's just the video.
So it's all, it's like distraction free extensions.
And I found out about those extensions
on a Hamza video that I watched probably a couple of months ago.
And so when I was clicking on YouTube,
I had the option, like my intention was to work on my channel.
Like I was gonna create,
I was gonna organize my channel and create a new playlist.
And so that was my intention.
So I was gonna click on YouTube
and then go straight to my channel.
But then once I clicked on YouTube,
I had the desire to watch a random YouTube video.
I had the desire to turn off the extensions,
which is what I usually would do
when I was slowly getting back into watching YouTube videos.
I would always,
because I've had these extensions on for a long time,
but I would always turn them off
and then like refresh my page and look at the home screen.
And then I would turn them back on afterwards.
And so I had the desire to turn off the extensions
but then right when I was about to like make my decision,
whether I was gonna do it or not,
I immediately thought about that sheet of paper
that I started tracking my YouTube,
like watching YouTube on that sheet of paper.
And so because of that, I immediately remembered that.
And so at that time, the decision was easy
because I wanted to keep that sheet of paper clean.
My goal, I was reminded of my goal.
So now the decision was easy
and I decided not to watch a video.
And so I decided to actually get into work
and I was able to get into Flow State very easily.
And that is the power of figuring out different tools
to figure your addictions.
And that's, and I wasn't told,
like no one told me about that trick.
I just kind of came up with that trick
with my own imagination.
And imagination is actually one of the laws of success
in Napoleon Hill's book called
The Law of Success in 16 Lessons.
So I used my imagination to hear my internet
or to cure my YouTube addiction.
And it's definitely working.
So that's the end of the video.
And have a good day.
Well, actually, these are my practice videos.
So only hardcore fans of this channel
are actually watching these videos.
So if you're watching them, have a good day.