Gaming is fun, obviously, but as you’ve probably been told at some point in your life by your mom, girlfriend, or another acquaintance – spending all of your time playing video games doesn’t necessarily translate to progress and success across all the other dimensions of your life.
The thing is, as any veteran gamer can tell you, gaming teaches you things here and there – and dedicating yourself to accomplishing things in a digital world takes some real work and tenacity.
All the same, it would be a good thing to be able to utilise the mechanisms that keep you driven and focused in a game, to help you to level up in other areas of your life as well.
So, here are a few tips for managing that.
Utilise gamified systems and tools wherever you can
Since video games – especially RPG’s – are so good at motivating us, and getting us invested in whatever it is we’re trying to achieve in the game — many people, in many different industries, have become really fascinated with the idea of “gamifying” other systems.
Specifically, there’s a lot of interest in leveraging the core motivational components of games, and applying them to all kinds of other things.
So, one good thing to do when you are trying to progress in other areas of your life, is to look for gamified systems and tools that you can use to move yourself forward.
Habitica – formerly Habit RPG — is a good example of just such a system, as it essentially turns habit setting and management into a mini game.
Set yourself specific life goals, chunk them down, and treat your goal journal as a quest list
There’s no denying that the “quest journal,” or “mission log” found in many games is a major source of motivation, and is also a really good way of structuring your activities within a game, and giving you a sense of what to do next.
In life, you may want to achieve some great things, such as obtaining an online aacsb mba. Obviously, to achieve a big goal like that, you’ve got to be really well organised, and you need to be able to structure your approach wisely.
How about setting yourself specific life goals, chunking them down into subgoals, and sub-subgoals, and then recording them in your own custom “quest journal?”
You can be sure that the satisfaction of crossing items off a list like that will be way greater than doing it in game.
Reward yourself for your achievements, big and small
If there were no rewards in games, there would be very little if any incentive to actually keep playing them.
What actually happens when we progress through games is that we get “micro-wins” and rewards in order to encourage us to keep moving forward.
In life, too, you should make a point of rewarding yourself for your achievements, big and small. Even if you just tidy up the house a bit – give yourself some kind of reward. But make it proportional and appropriate. Buying a new sports car probably isn’t a reasonable exchange.