Gamifying Your Life Is A Cheat Code: How To Get Addicted To Leveling Up Your Real Life
Your brain is addicted to evidence of progress. games feed it constantly, real life hides it completely, and that single difference is why you'll grind a character to level 100 but quit your own life
the one thing our brains crave more than anything else in the world is this.
evidence that your actions are leading to progress.
that, above all else, is what sets everything into motion.
motivation, discipline, addiction, everything.
our brains are always craving this progress. it finds evidence of it, and it rewards us with this hit. encouraging us to do more. if it doesn’t find any evidence of progress, it will completely halt what we’re doing.
one of the better analogies i’ve seen for this is video games.
anyone who has spent 200+ hours grinding their way to level 100, doing the same dungeon over and over again just to farm some XP, and staying up until 4am trying to grind those levels will understand what i am talking about.
no one is telling you that you need to do those things. you don’t have to use discipline or motivation to play video games.
you could play them 24/7, never feel any guilt over anything. after all you’re free to choose.
so why does the same brain that is willing to do such stupid things for video games, reject spending just an hour every day improving themselves, and building their skills in life?
video games figured something out. they feed your brain constant, undeniable evidence of progress.
real life doesn't.
the game shows you the XP bar filling. the number climbing. the level-up animation. new gear every few minutes. every hit says you’re getting somewhere, keep going.
real life hides all of that.
you work on your body for a month, two hours a day, and the mirror looks the same. you grind your business for months and the bank barely moves.
let me show you what it looks like when you flip it.
every game has daily quests. little repeatable objectives that hand you XP for showing up. your life needs the same thing. you wake up and they’re already loaded.
cold shower. +5 discipline, +3 endurance.
morning workout. +10 strength, +5 endurance, +3 discipline.
read 15 minutes. +5 intelligence.
work on your income skill. +10 wealth.
meditate. +5 clarity, -10 stress.
do these every day and they stack. and it gets addictive.
and you don’t want to miss a day because consistency multiplies your gains.
the streak is worth more than any single day inside it. once you feel that multiplier climbing, you’ll do almost anything not to reset it to zero.
that’s one mechanic. there’s a whole system, and once it’s installed you become the kid who can’t stop grinding levels at 4am, except it’s your real life.
let me show you how to run the whole thing.
i just finished lifting and read a chapter of autobiography of a yogi while i cooled down.
in my head that’s +20 physical, +20 knowledge.
not joking, that’s how i see it. two stats went up before 9am.
and the wild part, the day’s not even over and i’m already excited to wake up tomorrow and do it again.
it’s fun as fuck. most addicted i’ve ever been to anything, and it’s building me instead of rotting me.
let me show you how to get here.
WHY GAMES OWN YOU
"Feedback is the breakfast of champions." — Ken Blanchard
let’s break down what a game is actually doing to you.
a game is a machine for manufacturing the idea of progress. that’s the whole point of them. if you strip away all the other stuff, this is the part that makes someone feel like they’re actually achieving something, beating the game, etc.
it gives you the goal. kill the boss, get to the end level, whatever it may be. you always know what you have to do to proceed.
it’ll give you an easy-to-track indicator of where you are in the process.
if it’s some level, you know you’re currently at level 1, 2, 3, 4, or you can see the bar that fills up as you play. every action that you do in the game will contribute to it filling it up or going up and you can track the progress visually.
it’ll reinforce this with immediate feedback. you killed the enemy, you get XP right there and see your level up.
everything is right there with no lag between the action and it’s result.