I asked my wife the other day what the purpose of life was. Her answer? To have fun.
I said, "You mean you don't think there's a greater purpose to life than to have fun? What about making a bigger impact on the world? What about a purpose greater than ourself?"
She went on to explain to me that she knows she makes a positive impact on the world because of the lives she enriches. In her own way, she is making an impact on the world bigger than her self - and having fun at the same time!
I on the other hand seem to be stuck in a constant state of striving.
The distinction hit me when she told me her dad was coming to visit. I asked why. She said 'for fun.'
When my dad visits, he's never just for fun. He only comes if there's a purpose. Usually it's a race or organized ride.
My dad has always been striving. It's deeply engrained in my upbringing. It's how I was raised.
Then it hit me...
What creates fun?
A game.
My dad and I enjoy the bike rides we do because they are a challenge. It's competing in the game that creates the fun for us. It's the same result.
It's just a different game.
The bigger the game, the bigger the reward.
When you play the game, here are some ways to gamify your life.
Every game includes metrics. For life, we are going to look at metrics that matter:
Every action has an effect on our meters. A +1, -0 or 0 net effect.
How do you increase your meters?
Intelligence: Read books, get a degree, learn a new skill. Meditate.
Grit: Take on new challenges, step out of your comfort zone.
Wealth: Make more than you spend (maintain a budget). Invest wisely. Increase your rate. Provide more value.
Impact (on others): Volunteer. Downsize (your commitments).
As you increase to higher levels, you need higher levels to withstand the more difficult challenges and opponents you've find at each level. When you take a 'hit' - you'll need the extra buffer to avoid dying and being sent back to restart the level.
When you lose a life, you don't start at the beginning, but rather back at the start of the level. We are taught lessons until they are learned.
As you age, you will face health challenges. It's vital you keep you strength meter high to survive the unknown battles ahead.
As your business grows, you will face more significant financial challenges and have to take bigger risks. It's vital that you have an ample amount of wealth in reserves for the unforeseen financial hits in the future.
Todoist and Habitica
These two webtools are examples of adding an element of gamificaiton to your everyday life.
I'm using this app called LifeCycle.
Now I'm looking at using it to gamify my own life.
In the next 4 hours at the office, how many tasks can I get done?
Back in 2009 I gave a talk in Fort Collins called Choose Your Own Adventure in Real Life. I didn't use the term gamification, which has since become a mainstream concept.
Wikipedia defines gamification as:
the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts. Gamification commonly employs game design elements which are used in non-game contexts to improve user engagement, organizational productivity, flow, learning, crowdsourcing, employee recruitment and evaluation, ease of use, usefulness of systems, physical exercise, traffic violations, voter apathy, and more. A collection of research on gamification shows that a majority of studies on gamification find it has positive effects on individuals. Gamification can also improve an individual's ability to comprehend digital content and understand a certain area of study.
As I think about the most exciting periods of my life, I see distinct elements of gamificaiton.
Unless you gamify it, there's no way to win.
It begins with a challenge (a prime objective). A call to action. A declaration. We begin the journey and engage in the act towards realization the goal. The goal of the game is to achieve the objective. Along they way we measure our progress, and it becomes part of our identity. Upon achievement of the goal (and because the pursuit of it is known by others), we gain recognition. The entire experience is met with positive emotion.
What makes the game worth playing is the prime objective or mission. It's why those who have clarity in a meaningful prime objective live full lives.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to ____ (mine is to positively impact the lives of 1 million people in a significant way).
We exist to play, and it's no wonder we feel more alive when we are playing.
The milestones in our life are tied to major accomplishments which begin with a call to action. Examples:
Any objective that challenges us can be seen through the lens of gamification. Anytime we overcome obstacles, become more capable of as a result, and exceed our prior ability to do do more than we are capable of... these are all times the concept of gamification was in play. At it's most fundamental roots, it involve 3 phases:
We set the goal, obtain milestones, and eventually reach our aspirations.
This is the source of motivation. Without a prime objective (the call to action), no matter what we are engaged in, it's hardly an exciting time in our life.
Excitement comes from challenge. Boredom from a lack of challenge. No challenge, no engagement. Depression sets in when we are no longer acknowledging progress or achievement towards a worthwhile goal.
For a time, I lived day-by-day, accepting all that would show up. But I found the result is mediocracy, complacency, and little variation day-to-day.
In fact, I have found that when a challenge doesn't exist, I'll create one. I know I'm not alone.
I suspect the struggle of transitioning to retirement is largely due to not having a clear objective. What's the intended outcome of retirement - death?
When the objective is to simply live.
Wake UP!
When I was younger, I used to compete in triathlons several times a year. It was all about hitting new PRs (Personal Records), which is beating my best time. My main competitor was myself. I was not a podium finisher and primary just wanted finish in the top 50%. The pinnacle of my racing era (the final 'boss' level) was to complete a full Ironman distance: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run. I had already completed plenty of half-ironman distance races, and was able to complete the challenge in under 15 hours. But in the process of training for that fateful race, I damaged my back, to the extent I am unable to run without back pain even today, more than 15 years later. After I completed the 2002, my interest in triathlons began to wane - in a large part due to my wife's unwillingness to put up with the hours of training required (amplified by the fact one of the athletes died in the Ironman I did). It may be realize that being an Ironman was a selfish endeavor.
I had the illusion that after that accomplishment, I'd be able to accomplish anything - including earning a million dollars.
This planted the seed that turned me in to a disgruntled employee. I didn't want anyone to be able to put limits on what I could earn. Besides, how many millionaires do you know who are employees? (quite a few, actually.). How many wanna be entrepreneurs jump ship only to find their friends who stuck around millionaires a few years later?
For 5 years following, I struggled to find a remedy for my chronic back pain. In 2007 I discovered Yoga. Within a year of doing a 1x/week yoga practice, I awoke one day to discover my back pain was finally gone. But was is just the Yoga, or was it because stress had finally let up?
7 years later, I would be self-employed.
After a few tough years getting a start, I managed to build a six figure business. In large part due to a one-sided partnership with Amazon.
This made years 2-5 of my business extremely good. In year five however, I was no longer getting referred leads from Amazon and within 6 months, my income had dropped by 50%. It first required my wife to go back to work, and now I'm facing the likely prospect as well.
Fast forward 10 years, and my chronic back pain is back. It seems to correlate directly with higher stress.
If this life were a game, I would be back to the level I started at. Do I have it in me to conquer the obstacles ahead?
Write or Die is a gamification of writing.
Yousician is a gamificaion of practicing an instrument.
Susan, who is in my critique group just gamified our writiki and she didn't even know it. She gave us 2 hours to write. A reward would go to either the most words written or the least words written. Our numbers are reported, then she flips a coin to determine with the highest or lowest word count wins.
At my yoga studio, once a year, Steph throws up a chart for the 30 day challenge. It's a competition to see who goes to the most classes in a single month. Prizes go to the winners.
Gamification is an effective way to increase utilization. A well structured contest brings the benefits of gamification to a business. The consultant can earn a company many times his fee by the results of a well architected game.
Fellow authors, How can you engage your readers through adding gamification to your book!
The simple definition of gamification:
The process of adding game elements to activities to make them more fun and appealing. As such, utilization and engagement with the 'players' goes up.
Why gamification?
Psychological motivation. I need it, others need it. As an educator and a coach, I seek ways to get people to take action (including myself).
The key is picking a 'goal' for each game (or program).
A key to achieving big goals is to break them into smaller ones. Gamification is the process of breaking the goal into multiple levels that you progress through. Each level you complete gains you more XP. Each time you level up, your character grows stronger, but the game gets harder.
Instead of punishment for failure, games reward trying. You are encouraged to try new ideas until you succeed.
Immediate feedback following a decision accelerates learning.
Providing players with rewards keeps them engaged.(Think about how Kiki put goodie bags under our pillow at the reatreati).
When dopamine levels are peaking, we are able to learn best. This is why we can learn far more from a teacher who engineers dopamine in his students than one who does not.
Playing with others.
Whether as opponents or partners, other people make the game unpredictable, and thus more fun! We get bored with predictability.
Gameplay has been shown to increase the gray matter of gamers. The more gray matter we have, the more information we can process. As such, the most brilliant minds are also gamers.
Gamification examples at Duolingo: experience bars and reward points. Also check out lumosity (vital fuel for the brain).
Check out: 'Quest to Learn' in NYC. They are using gamification in education. Even report cards reflect level ups. One of the biggest gamification applicatin is Virtual Battlespace 2 which the US Army uses to recruit.
It's very much a simulation of what may happen in real life that the FBI and police also use to teach players how to deal with dangers like hackers and prison riots. If you've experience it before, you'll be better prepared for when it happens in real life.
Games designed well include a narrative (the form of a story) and a plot (events that unfold). Many games adapt the heros journey. Check out The Legend of Zelda.
Also check out Minecraft: Story Mode.
Why story tell? It is an effective way to convey ideas to the reader (or in this case, the player).
Each level has a countdown. You have 1 hour to complete the level. If you complete the challenge, you move on to level 2. If you don't, you repeat the level until you do.
Dream job? Gamifaction Architect at Amazon or MindBody. I design gamificaton experiments to keep employees engaged, having fun, and help the company gain more value from each employee who plays the games I design!
When you offer rewards (in the form of prizes to be won), you will find yourself overcoming what otherwise would have seemed difficult.
Nothing is difficult, it's our thinking that makes it so.
When something seems difficult, it's likely because you haven't designed a reward for it yet.
# Rewards
Compelling rewards are: * Emotional * Individual * Collective
Wanting + Liking = Engagement
Ambition + Delight
Staying engaged
Opening boxes.
If you were to strategically place 5 rewards each day, how may boxes would you need to open?
Not too easy, not too difficult.
Every time a box is opened, there's a little reward to stay engaged.
Buy there's also the potential for something really big in one of the boxes. Say, a 10% chance.
Timing your rewards.
If you get paid before the work is complete, are you as motivated to do the work?
Engineering an effective reward requires proper timing.
Do the majority of employers pay workers in advance? No.
I ask for a deposit, but when hold back
When too much time passes for payment AFTER the work is complete, it can have a detrimental effect going forward.
The salesman is paid when the sale is made. The production worker is paid with the work is done. The sale precedes the work. This keeps the sales person focused on bringing in the next sale without penalizing them for waiting for the work to be done. This is why I ask for payment in advance!
Once you open [x number of boxes], you have a 75% chance of getting a pie.
Consider that where we are today is the result of well placed 'rewards.'
As your day progresses, minute by minute, imagine a little bar a the bottom of your viewer that reflects how much time is remaining. Tiny increments is key.
Calibrated sizes of tasks. Consider the task rabbit approach. I've got a set of tasks for the day. Each has a variety of different rewards. Which ones will I chose? If I don't see the reward (the payoff), I won't be motivated to do it! But if I do see the carrot, I'll be more likely to do the work.
You get a credit for trying, you essentially reward failure. You only penalize for not trying!
You must link consequences to action.
Rapid, frequent, feedback.
Imagine if you had a meter for the time remaining, but you also had an energy meter measuing your own 'peak levels.' Just like a computer slows down when it gets low on memory, we start our day with ample memory space, but the more we buffer throughout the day, the more our system slows down and we are ultimately incapable of running programs that require high amounts of memory. As such, we would be smart to pick tasks that demand high utilziation of memory and CPU early in the day. I would argue that this is cumlative for the week as well. If you procrastinate difficult tasks till the end of the week, you'll have less memory and computing power. This is why when Friday night rolls around, I'm often physically and mentally exhausted.
Meditation allows you to shut down your system. When you come out of meditation, you essentially reboot your system. Yes, there will be a period of time while a series of 'start-up' programs are loaded, but after that, you'll be refreshed and ready to run more complex programs. This is exactly why you ought to give yourself breaks throughout the day to clear some of your memory and free up space.
This is where technology can really drive results.
A known reward excites people, but the true kicker is to reward the right level of uncertainty. This is like putting money in a slot machine and hitting a jackpot. You can get addicted to productivity when you engineer surprise rewards.
The way you do this is to introduce control elements of randomness in all forms of testing and training.
It taps into the surprise result we don't quite understand, but want to go back and discover how we did it so we can do it again.
Maximizing time of dopamine for enhanced memory retention.
Dopamine is what drives 'reward seeking behavior.'
Gamificaiton (using structured rewards) will boost confidence and force us to take more risks. Without reward, there's little motivation for risk. Why take one? But we know that nobody succeeds in life with out taking risks. The greater the risk, the richer the reward. This is fundamentally how rewards work. A reward without a risk is gift.
How can you dial in the right risk/reward ratio to reach your true potential?
Collective engagement. Engaging with our peers, collaboration.
This is what draws people to the PopUp Forum. Knowledge is great, but once it's shared, knowledge can be addictive.