LP Journey - More Happiness

[Artiekee]

Hey all!

In this topic I would like to share my life purpose journey.

Ive been lurking around on the forum for quite a while now, and Im very grateful for all the knowledge, wisdom, insights and inspiration it brought me :).

 

Since Im new here, just a little background story for those interested;

Im a 28 year old guy from Amsterdam. Ive been playing poker professionally since I was 20. About 4 years ago I started getting interested in meditation and about 2 years ago I started doing more self-help. 

This led me to Actualized.org. After watching a couple hundred hours of material, I dared to watch one of Leo’s videos about spirituality, and this was a true eye-opener for me. I started watching videos, reading books, listening to talks (mostly Eckhart Tolle and Rupert Spira), and deepening my meditations. The seed was officially planted. 

This eventually led to a point, about 6 months ago, where I came to the conclusion that I wanted to quit poker. Even though the love for the game was still there, it started to feel empty, meaningless, selfish, non-contributing, just a zero-sum game for own gain.

 

• So now what?

In early december I quit as a poker player, without any idea yet what I want to do next. 

—

# Why quit now if you still love the game and dont know yet what to do next?

# Cant you just quit poker after you know what you want to do?

‘ When playing poker, my mind is non-stop occupied with the game and Im surrounded in an environment that creates a lot of mental noise. This makes it really hard to put energy into the orientation process. So removing myself from this environment gives me much more clarity and energy to focus on the orientation. 

—

When I was 20 I decided to quit my study (economy) to fully focus on poker, so I don’t have any valuable degree or work experience. 

About 6 months ago I bought Leo’s Life Purpose Course, at this point it’s about 80% finished. 

The current idea is to spend this year on personal development, spirituality and the orientation process of my life purpose. After this year I hope to have a pretty good idea what the next step will be, but if the search takes more time I also have peace with that.

—

In this topic I would like to share my journey, hoping to get honest feedback from here, inspiration, wisdom, and so on. In return I hope to be able to give the same :). Ill probably update about once a week, maybe less, maybe more.

Please feel free to ask anything at anytime, no need to hold back. 

 

❤️❤️

Edited March 5, 2020 by Artiekee
Grammar

[Artiekee]

This week I've spend quite some hours on the Life Purpose Course. It starts to become clearer and clearer to me what I want to pursue in life. 

I will spend most of my time this year on the top 5 goals I've set;

• Learning how to start a business
• Mindful lifestyle
• Enlightenment
• Clear business idea
• Improving social skills

All these goals were already wandering around in my head, but by acutally writing it out on paper I feel much more motivated.

I'm not 100% sure what I'm allowed to share in this topic about the Life Purpose Course. Can I post conclusions about my own life purpose? Can I post my own "ME Sheet"? I'd appreciate if anyone knows.

[Artiekee]

About the top 5 goals for this year:

• Learning how to start a business

My ideal medium is business, so it makes sense to spend a good chunk of time on learning how to start a business. Actions to take: online courses, live courses, workshops, seminairs, books, talking with business owners, research. If anyone has good suggestions for courses, books, or other actions, please let me know.

 

• Mindful lifestyle
  • Meditation routine (morning & evening, 30 minute+ each, small meditations during the day)
  • (hot) yoga (atleast 5x/week, 60-75 minute, preferably every single day)
  • floating (2x/week, 60-90 minute)
  • Healthy food (mostly vega, no over-eating, limiting sugar rich food)
  • being present during the day (keep reminding myself to be present in every action)

 

• Enlightenment
  • contemplating
  • satsangs
  • retreats
  • breathwork
  • books
  • long meditations
  • psychedelics

 

• Clear business idea

Writing out current ideas, focussing on as much details as possible. doing lots of research. writing a business plan. 

 

• Improving social skills
  • Communication on professional level
  • Managing employees
  • Overcoming some social anxieties (coaching, visualization, exposure)
  • clear articulation of my thoughts and actions

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by Artiekee
grammar

[Artiekee]

Just finished my Vision Board!

[Artiekee]

My chosen domain of mastery is mindfulness, and more specific, merging mindfulness with daily life.

A little gameplan for now:

• Get a much better understanding of mindfulness
• Develop the skill to articulate mindfulness in a confident way

To do so, I came up with the idea to start a website about mindfulness, explaining what it is and exploring many ways to bring more mindfulness in your daily life, such as meditation and yoga, but also breathwork, psychedelics, retreats, floating, workshops etc. 

Creating this website will push me to study many scientific researches about mindfulness and get more knowledgeable on the topic. At the same time it helps me to develop the skill to write about mindfulness, which is much harder than I thought. 

 

 

 

[Artiekee]

Bit of a slow week. didnt feel good for a couple of days so took it slow.

The end of the life purpose course is getting closer, and I feel some procrastination behaviour crawling up. I think this is mainly because of fear. Fear of the next chapter, having to take action, discovering new possibilities.

This week I will spend some more time on reading books to help me get motivated. Currently Im reading The Big Leap.

Im also spending a couple of hours a day on making the website. When Im working on it time seems to go pretty fast. It feels like there is a certain magnetic pull on working on the website, and I even have to slow down myself a little (or maybe not?) 

[Artiekee]

This week I have spend most time wrecking my head around The Big Leap Process in order to find my Zone of Genius. I already did the exercise a couple of times before, and spend quite some time on it, but the answers I came up with didnt fully resonate with me.

I decided to ask some friends to give their insights on this topic, hoping that a different perspective will help me further.

I also send @Rowan a message, he created a topic a year ago when he was also struggling with finding his Zone of Genius. He gave me a very long and detailed reply with some helpful tips, so very grateful for that.

 

I'm still excited about creating a website about mindfulness. I'm using Wix for it and took a subscription, but after using it for a couple of weeks I stumbled up some seemingly inevitable limitations. So Im exploring some other options, currently trying out Webflow, the learning curve is a bit steeper, but it seems to have much more possibilities. It's a bit of a waste of the Wix subscription, but I consider that sunken costs.

  

[Artiekee]

Still in the process of finding my Zone of Genius. I've done two strength assessments (Gallup and Kolbe), they are a bit more difficult to understand than the original strength assessment I did, so it requires some more time to get value out of them.

Other things I'm currently working on;

• -In order to get a better understanding of my strengths, weaknessess, values and interests, I've started to write down everything I can remember from the last 10 years (18-28). I'm especially trying to focus on my emotions and motivations of that time to get a better understanding of what fears I had and what negative values motivated me.

 

• Diving deeper in the indentified negative values, and trying to release them with a visualization meditation. (about once a week)

 

• Learning Chinese - Started about two months ago. The classes moved to online about a month ago due to COVID-19. I spend about an hour a day on homework and there is a 2-hour class each week.

 

• Learning how to learn - I always felt like I have a terrible memory and I'm learning kinda slow. I've never learned how to learn, so I decided to take a course on learning how to learn to improve my learning and memory. (about an hour a day)

 

I have a buch of books at home about Life Purpose, Personal Development and Spirituality. I really like reading them and get a lot of motivation, inspiration and useful information out of them. But for some reason there is some blockage to start with reading, especially after just finishing a book. Preferably I read about 2 hours a day, but I've probably only spend about 5 hours on reading in the last two weeks.

To solve this procrastination I'll set a goal for myself

• Goal - Before May 1st: read atleast 12 hours. (1.5h/day)

Current books; about to finish The Nature of Consciousness by Rupert Spira and just started with So Good They Can't Ignore you from Cal Newport

 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by Artiekee

[Artiekee]

Since I was a child I liked games, playing with marbles all the time, pokemon cards, gameboy. When I was in elementary school I joined a chess club for a year. I played the card game Magic The Gathering for years, even going to the gameshop every sunday to play and trade with others. Many thousands of hours playing videogames like Wc3, Dota, and WoW. 

Only after discovering poker I eventually stopped playing videogames, and most of my time the last 8 year was centered around poker. So basically my whole live up till this point was about games.

And the last 5 year or so I started to develop a growing interest in mindfulness, and for some reason this idea didnt come earlier to me, but it only makes sense to combine those 2 interests somehow:

Games + Mindfulness

I don't know yet how and what I exactly want to do with it. There are many possibilities to explore. But the main idea is to raise awareness of the benefits of mindfulness among gamers (videogames, poker, chess, etc.) and help them integrate this into their lives.

 

 

[Artiekee]

Last week I spend a lot of time thinking and researching about the idea of Games + Mindfulness.

I told a friend about this idea of combining mindfulness with gaming. Later that week he had a chat with another friend (poker player) and the topic of mental coaching came up. He semi-jokingly suggested to hire me as mental-coach.

When I heard this, it got me excited right away. In the last 10 years I've experienced the whole spectrum of emotions that poker brings; frustration, fear, euphoria, uncertainty, excitement, anger, disbelief, shame, pride. Knowing how to deal with those emotions is essential for success as poker player.

In the Life Purpose there is a concept called "Making Small Bets" (very fitting with poker ), which suggests to start working on little projects, so you can explore how much you like it before you go all-in () on this idea. 

And since this idea of mental coaching got me excited right away, it seems like a good idea to take this on as a project. If my friend eventually wants to have mental coaching from me or not doesn't really matter. It's a topic I want to dive in deeper anyway, with interesting topics such as mindfulness, personal development and psychology. 

Some goals for this week:

Daily:

• 1.5h reading books
• 1h learning chinese
• 10m affirmations / 10m visualisation
• 30m meditation
• 15m morning yoga
• 30m afternoon yoga
• 3h learning about mental coaching
• 1.5h online poker
• cold shower

weekly:

• 1x  30m negative value release visualisation
• 2x 60m floating 
• 2x 60m writing about my past
• 2x 20m deep breathing
• wake up time from 08:00 to 07:00 at end of the week

 

 

 

[Artiekee]

Settings goals at the beginning of the week helps me to keep track of the stuff I want to do.

But I notice that it's also important for me to make daily schedules. Without a proper framework on how my day is gonna look like, there is a lot of wandering on what to do next. And my wandering mind tends to prioritise short-term fulfillment over longterm fulfillment.

But I feel some resistance in making daily schedules. On the one hand i really like to have a very clear hour by hour schedule on what to do, so I dont have to think about it and just do it. On the other it makes me feel a little constricted, giving up some of my freedom. 

So I'm looking for a way to combine having a schedule and clarity, while still having some freedom. So perhaps not scheduling hour by hour, but in 4 blocks of 4 hour a day, in which i do certain tasks. For example: block 1 is between 07:00 - 11:00, tasks: affirmations, yoga, breakfast, shower, 1h learning mental coaching, 20m deep breathing. And I can decide the order of those tasks myself.

If someone has some suggestion here please let me know!

 

To learn more about mental coaching, I wrote down all the possible concepts and ideas I can study on this topic. I divided those items in 8 categories and made a framework out of it. So far I've come up with 47 items to study, this may change when new items pop-up or some items are so related that they can be merged. 

This framework gives me a general idea on what to do. My next step is to rate the importance of each item, so I know what items I want to study first. 

Schedule for the week remains identical as last week:

Daily:

• 1.5h reading books
• 1h learning chinese
• 10m affirmations / 10m visualisation
• 30m meditation
• 15m morning yoga
• 30m afternoon yoga
• 3h learning about mental coaching
• 1.5h online poker
• cold shower

weekly:

• 1x  30m negative value release visualisation
• 2x 60m floating 
• 2x 60m writing about my past
• 2x 20m deep breathing
• wake up time from 08:00 to 07:00 at end of the week (didn't manage to do this last week)

   

[Monkey_in_suit]

Hey buddy,professional poker player here too.

I want to get out of the poker from same reasons as yours + mental game was never my strong side and I'm tired that my mood depends on how I run at the poker table.

I don't have a clue what to do with life if I let poker,currently going through Leo's lp course but I am still far away from figuring out anything.

I'm settle financially for good period of time but still scared that if I let poker I will never be able to earn anything close to money I'm earning in poker and I don't want to just like that let go of something I worked for years to aquire skills. Whats your opinion about that?

Btw,in last few posts I see you are back in poker,is that temporarily or?

[Artiekee]

hey ??,

2 hours ago, Monkey_in_suit said:

I want to get out of the poker from same reasons as yours + mental game was never my strong side and I'm tired that my mood depends on how I run at the poker table.

Yeah this is a issue for many players, the results determines their happiness too much.

 

2 hours ago, Monkey_in_suit said:

I don't have a clue what to do with life if I let poker,currently going through Leo's lp course but I am still far away from figuring out anything.

I'm settle financially for good period of time but still scared that if I let poker I will never be able to earn anything close to money I'm earning in poker and I don't want to just like that let go of something I worked for years to aquire skills. Whats your opinion about that?

Yeah it can be hard to find something you’d like to do. The LP is a great tool to help you get on the right track. And 
 

I wouldn’t worry too much about letting go of skills you aquired over the years. A lot of those skills are still valuable in other area’s of your life, and poker brought you to this point in your life.

And about the fear of not earning as much with something else as you do with poker; this is a nice topic to contemplate on.

Why do you want money? For food and shelter sure, but what else? It eventually all boils down to trying to become happier right? Currently you’re not 100% satisfied with your life, thats why you invest time in alternative options. Maybe you are much happier if you do something truly meaningful while only earning 1/3rd of what you currently earn.

most poker players have a very strong attachment to money, but maybe its not the source of happiness.

also, there is a big chance you’ll earn much more then you currently do. Probably not at first, or even the first 5/10 years, but if you keep investing in yourself and your ideas it will eventually pay out handsomely. 
 

3 hours ago, Monkey_in_suit said:

Btw,in last few posts I see you are back in poker,is that temporarily or?

When I decided to quit, the idea was to play about 1.5 hour every day online, with the idea of keeping my financial situation stable while I transit to other ideas. This way there is less pressure (although, maybe a bit of pressure is  good). And this 1.5hour a day won’t really affect my mood or energy since the game I play online (shortstack plo) is relatively easy to play.

My advice would be to slowly start spending more time on your own personal development and life purpose, and less time on poker. You don’t have to abondon poker all in once, you can just slowly transit.

[Monkey_in_suit]

Tnx for advices!

I think I will stay in poker for year or two and slowly reduce time in it and I should figure out something by then.

I am eager to improve my mental game side. I mean, I'm not tilt maniac or something like that,not even close. My mental game is lets say average compared to other regs. It used to be much worse back in the days but I worked a lot on it to come at this point I am in now. Still I think i have a lot of room to improve, especially regard to my mood irl, that it's not affected by run at the table.

It would be nice that I become mental game best before I finish my career. Of all skills from poker that would be the most useful one that I can use in post-poker career. 

[Artiekee]

@Monkey_in_suit Oke goodluck with your journey!

I didn't really had the plan to stop playing poker a year ago. But somewhere last year there suddenly was a very strong urge to pursue something else. Maybe it was not really suddenly since I was watching Leo for 3/4/5 hours a day, meditating 1h+ a day and watching and reading spritiual talks and books from Rupert Spira and Eckhart Tolle. And that translated into the realisation that it's time to start a new adventure. So if you dive deeper in certain material there will possibly be a moment where you are very certain it's time for the next step.

 

If you'd like some help / coaching on the mental game part, just give me a PM. I'm very interested in this area.

 

[Artiekee]

Recently the biggest challenge for me is clarity. I've finished the LP course a couple of weeks ago (still need to read a bunch of books though), and I find it hard to create a solid structure in my daily life.

Most of my life there has been some form of structure in my activities. You got to school, get homework and projects and you know what to do. With poker I scheduled where I wanted to travel and when I wanted to play and study. This gave me some structure, some clarity.

With this new path though, there is much less clarity. I dont have a very concrete plan yet, and this makes it hard to decide what to do during the day. And this results in a lack of motivation, procrastination and just not being super productive. 

Also I became a bit lazy with some habits like yoga and meditation. So I've created a list of 30-day goals, and if I dont complete those goals, I need to give €1000 to my friend. This way I'm sure I'll complete all my goals. 

The goals are: (30 days / 3x skip maximum allowed)

• Wim Hof Technique (Breathing + Cold Shower)
• 30 Minute Meditation (Rupert Spira)
• 15 Minute Sleep Meditation
• 20 minute Visualisation (5M Affirmation / 5M contemplation / 10M visualisation)(0x skip allowed)
• 10/15 minute morning meditation

1 more goal:

• Yoga 30 minutes+ (minimum 18x in 30 days)

__

@Rowanrecommended me to get the book Unique Ability 2.0 to help with identifying the Zone of Genius. It should arrive somehwere in the upcoming week.

I like the idea in @Average Investor's topic to add a couple of items you are a grateful for, so I'll add that here aswell

Focus Points:

• Creating more structure in daily and weekly activities
• Finishing framework for mental coaching
• Going over all the notes from the LP course

I'm grateful for:

• Making the 30-day goals
• Starting to feel more energized again
• Good weather!
• Starting with a new book (7 habits of highly effective people)

 

I'll probably start posting more frequently from now on. I feel like it helps to actually write down some stuff and post it.

 

[Average Investor]

@Artiekee It will really start to compound the more you put awareness towards all that you have. There is so much to be thankful for, but it takes time to appreciate it. 

From what I read so far it seems like you're making really good progress. I think it would be a worthwhile investment to update your journal when you can because it really helps you reflect and monitor behavior changes. I know with myself it is something gradual, but it really starts to compound at some point. 

[Artiekee]

@Average Investor Thanks!

 

I decided to make a new topic, so I won't be posting in this one anymore. You can find the new one here: