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about 18 months ago I was going through
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this really weird phase of my life where
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every time I sat down to try and do
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something productive no more than about
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4 minutes could pass before I'd find
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myself opening a tab on Instagram
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looking for a cheap hit of dopamine and
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something to distract me with I quickly
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realized that I had a very big problem
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it wasn't just that I had a short
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attention span I didn't even have one
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anymore and it was only when I was
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praying to the algorithm Gods to stop my
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Doom scrolling addiction that I realized
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something that completely changed my
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life what have I been going about trying
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to solve my Doom scrolling addiction the
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wrong way maybe the solution to a
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digital problem wasn't actually
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something digital and instead it was
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something that my parents generation
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would recognize so in today's video I'm
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going to share with you all what these
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four analog Solutions were that I used
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to completely reset my attention span in
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a process I'm calling a dopamine detox
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that took me from somebody that couldn't
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even get out of bed in the morning
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because I was Doom scrolling through
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social media on my phone to somebody now
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living a life on my own terms so as
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always the time stamps are on screen and
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they Down Below in the description but
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that's hanging around let's get right
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into the video so we're going to start
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off with level one because this was the
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first thing that I did when I felt
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completely addicted to my phone so if
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you have no idea where to start look no
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further than this and this is when I'm
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realized that I had a huge problem with
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my Doom scrolling addiction and I'm sure
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that this must resonate for some of you
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guys too because do you ever get super
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excited about that weekend that you have
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free or maybe a day in the middle of the
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week where you don't have to be at
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school or you don't have to be at work
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because you can finally work on the
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thing that you're truly passionate about
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so I look forward to these days with so
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much anticipation I finished uni really
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excited and make sure to have a good
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night's sleep but when that alarm clock
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went off in the morning I couldn't do
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anything and the absolute worst thing is
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I was just feeling so guilty because
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even though I was sort of tricking my
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brain into thinking I was being
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productive you know I was watching semi
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reasonably productive things on reals I
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still wasn't actually doing anything for
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myself and I just felt like a complete
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loser but one day I'll be honest I think
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I got a little bit lucky because one of
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those videos I was watching was an Ali
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abdal video and he touched upon
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something that completely changed my
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life for the better and stopped me Doom
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scrolling through my phone because I
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realized very quickly that the reason
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why I was squandering all of this free
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time was that even though I could get
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really excited about having all of this
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space and energy to focus on myself I
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didn't actually know what that was for
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me and I didn't know what would give me
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happiness so what is it what I did was
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take out a pen and paper yes a physical
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pen and paper guys that is absolutely
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crucial if you want to succeed and just
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write down three things that you
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actually want to do with your life but
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this is important those three things
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need to be for you not for anybody else
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not for your work not for school not
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expectations from your friends or
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families what do you actually want to do
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with your life now you can get fancy and
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call this your sort of mission or your
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purpose but the reason why this was the
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first thing that I did and the first
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thing anybody has to do if they want to
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get their attention spam back is because
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there about 98% of the population
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they're just sort of running on
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autopilot and you're told what to do and
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then when you all of a sudden have that
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free time where you have to figure out
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for yourself what you're going to do you
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have no idea where to start and if you
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look at it this way it's really not your
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fault that you're Doom scrolling and
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wasting all of your time your energy and
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getting sucked into all of these cheap
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fixes and cheap hits of dopamine even
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though this first level was pretty
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life-changing for me I very quickly
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realized that there was a huge problem
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with this gold setting and when I first
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sat down to get started working through
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my YouTube channel I discovered it
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pretty quickly and I'm sure that you
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will experience this too unless you
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implement what I'm about to tell you
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because let's be honest guys not
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everybody that watches this channel is
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going to have the goal of wanting to
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start a YouTube channel for you maybe
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you want to lose 20s maybe you want to
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start saving for retirement you want to
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start saving for a family holiday it
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could be anything but there is a common
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factor that unites all of these big
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goals what do you think it is I think
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that the problem with these big
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aspirational goals is that through
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around 97% of people you forget that
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actually it's what you do in your days
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that dictates your future success but
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often times when you have a big goal it
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can be difficult to break down what you
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actually need to do daytoday and that's
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where I implemented level two the thing
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is if you haven't set goals before
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you're going to very quickly realize
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once you start doing this that you're
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actually a lot more creative than you
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ever gave yourself credit for and
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essentially this means that you're going
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to get loads of ideas dayto day about
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things that you could be doing towards
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this goal towards this Hobby and
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invariably even though I was no longer
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Doom scrolling in the mornings that
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still would mean that if I took my phone
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out in the middle of the day to drop
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down an idea potentially for a script or
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a video or something to do with you
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YouTube I just find myself on Instagram
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again so the solution to this and what
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you need to do for level two is start
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carrying around one of these pocket
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notebooks because obviously they don't
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have an algorithm they don't have a feed
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you can drop down all of your ideas and
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then just see how they sort of link from
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day to day but the next part of this
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system to completely get your life back
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together and reset your attention span
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is something I realized I needed when I
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sort of bypassed and went past this
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beginner stage of the dopamine detox and
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this isn't something that many people
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talk about but I think it's a really big
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problem so hear me out the thing is when
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people say that they're Doom scrolling
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or they're addicted to their phones or
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social media often times they're just
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referring to either Tik Tok or Instagram
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or even for the heathens out there
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Facebook you know who you are but have
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you noticed how nobody ever really talks
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about being addicted to YouTube and
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let's be honest maybe that's why you're
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here and you are staring at my face and
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the thing is often times many people
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myself included think that being on
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YouTube is actually kind of productive
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and this brings us to a huge problem
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because often times when we're
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progressing in our life and we're trying
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to make progress on one way or another
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we need access to new information and
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one of the best ways to do that is by
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consuming content and the problem was
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that my sort of YouTube addiction went
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on for a good few months because I sort
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of convinced myself that since some of
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the time I was being somewhat productive
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on YouTube it wasn't actually a problem
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but everything all of a sudden Came
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Crashing Down and this is because I very
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quickly realized that the solution to my
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YouTube addiction has actually been sort
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of staring me in the face all a long and
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it's something that wherever you are in
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the world I can practically guarantee
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you'll have access to it so what I did
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and level three of this system to reset
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your dopamine is to replace your YouTube
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addiction even in the name of learning
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with books and it sounds ridiculously
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simple but hear me out you can still get
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about 90% of the information that you
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would otherwise on YouTube but because
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you don't have an algorithm you're
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restricted to that content and that
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topic you're not bombarded with stuff
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you didn't ask for I mean it's like
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having YouTube without the sidebar the
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suggestions or the homepage It's the
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Best of Both Worlds I was listening to
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an Andrew huberman podcast recently and
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he made an excellent point he suggested
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that in this sort of day and age we are
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so Bound by these feelings of comfort
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that we'll do anything we can to avoid
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any level of discomfort in our lives
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think about this if you go into a new
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place maybe it's a restaurant you're
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attending a seminar for your work you're
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doing a new University class anything
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you don't know anybody well what's the
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first thing that about 99% of people do
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in this situation well I can tell you
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from firsthand experience of meeting
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people in loads of different context in
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loads of different parts of the world
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that to 99% of people they don't make
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eye contact they don't try and strike up
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conversation with strangers they'll just
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reach for their phone out of their
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pocket and pretend to be busy on their
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phone whether that's scrolling social
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media whatever and what the heck does
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this have anything to do with resetting
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your attention span you might ask well
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that's an excellent question because the
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last level to this system was something
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that I only realized pretty recently as
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of a few months ago because even though
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I sort of got my my life back on track
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I'd started to grow this YouTube channel
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I'd started to feel a lot more
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comfortable going out and meeting new
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people I'd still resort to those times
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where I'd scroll through my phone and I
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wouldn't know why CU I thought I'd solve
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the problem and I realized that in all
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of these cases when I was resorting to
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my phone I was just trying to avoid
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doing the hard thing doing something a
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little bit uncomfortable so level four
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of resetting my attention span and
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stopping wasting all of my time Doom
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scrolling through social media was
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asking myself this what difficult thing
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am I putting off just because it makes
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me feel uncomfortable maybe it was
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making a phone call doing the essay
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responding to an email I really started
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to look introspectively at what was
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causing me that sort of psychological
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discomfort and if you constantly use
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your phone to avoid these negative
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feelings well you'll never get anything
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hard done but Ollie what can I do
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instead well we've talked about this
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loads on the channel so if you know
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anything about me you'll know that I've
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been journaling for the past 7 years and
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there is one journaling technique that
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if Done Right will actually allow you to
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sort of force yourself into doing hard
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things even if you don't want to and the
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thing about that is that you're never
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going to resort to Doom scrolling on
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your phone again so to find out what
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this journaling technique is and how to
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easily get started you got to want to
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watch this video here so I'll see you
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all there
