The year is 2021. The pandemic has been a disaster for most of the western world, the shutdowns caused all sorts of mental health issues and slowdowns for the economy, leading to a recession. However not all people and industries are affected. The gaming industry and esports are experiencing all time high demands, and profits are skyrocketing as people are forced to entertain themselves at home instead of going out and socializing in real life.
In this environment I was also part of the gaming boom. I was coaching people to play my favourite video game, counter-strike. I have sunk more than 12,000 hours in 4 years into it at that point, and my goal was to become a full-time professional player.
While the world was suffering I’ve reached my happiest as a stay-at home nerd. I made decent money casting matches and coaching other players/teams.
I even started kickboxing during the pandemic, in a ruinous tyre-shop, fight club style. It was awesome!
However something was off. As the months passed I was not seeing the improvement I needed to become a full-time professional. By the time I reached the top 100 in my country I already finished university.
My whole life I felt like something was slightly holding me back, like driving with a handbrake on, making everything a lot harder than it should be. I was feeling beaten, and incapable of making my ambitious goals a reality.
As I became more desperate, I started to look for any advantage I could find.
One of my coaching clients required a lot of help with his mindset. I was researching the topic of mindset coaching, when I somehow discovered a forum called “NoFap”.
I found it hilarious. How could not watching porn make you perform better? I laughed at the topic, but I gave it a try, just to see what happens.
I’ve done this many times before and since, and most times I see either no benefit or a negative difference, and stop doing the thing within 1-2 weeks.
I have instantly noticed that if I don’t watch porn for 1-2 days before the kickboxing training (2x/week), I fatigue slower.
So I called it a win, and implemented a strict 2x/week routine to my porn habit to maximize my training performance.
Little did I know my whole life was about to flip on its head
I slowly realized that watching porn also affects my performance during official matches against other teams (tournaments, cups etc..). I decided to see what happens if I quit for a month. I also realized that this is a lot harder to do than to quit for 4 days at a time.
I’ve struggled to stay away from porn, and did a very bad job at not peeking occasionally.
After the experiment as I didn’t see much of a change, I kept the 2x/week schedule.
But something was not right. I abstained for days before house parties and big events (like important matches), so I can be on 100%.
One Cctober evening there was a house party at ome of my friends’. This time I decided to go porn free 10 days before it happened.
On the final day I watched porn. The next day I felt like shit during the party, and were not at all happy with myselfon the inside.
On this day, I made the most impactful decision of my life. I’m going to quit porn.
I deleted everything, and went all in on nofap. Thanks to my previous conditioning it was easier to achieve my 90 day streak that it would be for a person quitting for the 1st try.
I’ve had multiple close calls, but one of them 10 months later dragged me back to watching porn “slipping up” for a few days. During/right before that time I was already helping others on discord servers, who were struggling with quitting.
I found a 12 step group and not being immediately accepted triggered my fear of rejection, causing me to eventually give into porn. This is an important lesson, because had I not been convinced I needed to join a group full of porn addicts, I would have had no problem continuing my journey. Surrounding myself with people who were relapsing over and over again had a negative effect on my own thoughts causing me to have big urges again in the first place.
That was the turning point for me. Nothing was the same after.
I quit counter strike shortly after.
I started going to therapy
I started reading and learning about self-improvement
I started socializing and became more open.
And most importantly
I stopped lying to myself and others
All of this was fueled by the extra energy, focus and discipline, not watching porn unlocked in my being.
Three years later I am in a very different place, had multiple short relationships, made my first money as an entrepreneur and started levelling up. and became fit. I re-enrolled into university to use the system that kept me distracted to my advantage. I secured generous funding to study abroad, and separated completely from my old environment, cut out people from my environment, and started my life away from my parents.
I trained my brain to chase after what I feel are much healthier sources of dopamine.
I started to finally feel like I’m a force to be reckoned with in the world, and I have freedom of choice in what I do. All thanks to one decision to stop watching porn for good.
Call to action
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Since 2024, I’ve been working with guys, unraveling deep beliefs and explaining how to control, conquer and cut urges and cravings out of their life, and the results were life changing. If you’d like to be the next person to become more confident, regain mental clarity, and put distance between you and the porn habit, check out the one-on-one coaching: