Role Play Games, Make Things Fun, and the (Relative) Non-Importance of Slipped Habits

 

Purpose

(This is an excerpt from my new book, Unstuck, to be released in early 2025. Let me know if you like the comparison.)

Some of you may know I have a little Dungeons & Dragons game running alongside my normal life. For the last few years, me and some friends have been battling to save the world of Exandria from the Calamities who threaten to destroy the entire land.

What does this have to do with purpose? Well, in most RPGs (role-playing games like DnD) there is the main quest and there are side quests.

Most of these games encourage you to focus on the main quest which is often related to killing a dragon or dethroning an evil monarch. You don’t fight the biggest boss immediately as you would be no match for them in your early days. Instead, you have to continually prove your worth by beating tougher and tougher opponents until all that is left standing between you and completing the game is the big boss.

In addition to the main quest, the games also offer side quests. These little mini-quests are nowhere near as exciting as the main storyline, but if you complete enough of them, you can slowly level up and earn the skills that will help you progress in the story. You also get to earn gold that can help you improve your gear and make you more formidable as the hero.

If you think of it, life is pretty much an RPG game.

The problem is, we often get lost in the side quests rather than following through with the main mission.

That isn’t to say the side quests aren’t important. They often help us level up, gain new experience, and earn some gold coins that help us buy cool new gadgets and gizmos. But it is important to recognise that side quests weren’t what we were put here for.

Instead, it is time to turn more of our attention to the main quest, and earn points for all the days, weeks and months we spend on our main missions rather than on side quests.

The point of the game is not to complete the most side quests, or earn the most gold, but to play the game in a balanced way that allows you to spend the majority of your time slaying dragons and defeating the bad guys, or whatever the challenge is you have to overcome in each stage of your purpose.

Now, think about your life and ask yourself if you are still trying to defeat the dragon? Or have you become distracted by the side-quests?

Energy

If you think about energy, there are probably things you can do for hours without getting tired, and there are also those things for which even the slightest effort seems to take every ounce of energy you have in reserve.

When things are enjoyable and fun, it doesn’t take willpower to get ourselves to take action. There is no ego moderation, our id can simply run free and get lost in the pleasure. It is when our ego has to convince the id to submit to the higher cause that the superego is suggesting. (For more on Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory, click here).

So, if you want more energy, one way is to trick the ego into thinking something that normally takes away energy is going to be fun.

Introduce a silly “word of the day” into your sales calls. Set a speed record for folding your laundry. Add fast music to something that you would normally do slowly. (Maybe even drink a beer while you write your newsletter!)

The more fun you can make an activity, the less it will feel like work, the less effort it will take the ego to convince you to get started, and the more fun you will have doing it (making you more likely to follow through next time too!). So get playful, get creative, and figure out how to make those tiresome activities a little more fun.

Productivity

As we enter into the holiday season, it would be easy to get upset at yourself for missing a few of your habit benchmarks.

Chances are you will eat too much, have social commitments that take up your time, and spend a bit more time shopping that you would normally spend on your personal projects.

A word of advice – be easy on yourself. Avoid the urge to quit everything and throw in the towel just because you had a couple of off days.

If you miss a few days at the end of the year, remember you still hit on 360+ days which still puts you well ahead. Consistency will aways beat intensity, so just enjoy this time where your priorities are elsewhere, try to meet your habit objectives even if you know you won’t make it 100%, and remain positive and focused for when your routine returns to normal.

As Cal Newport says in his book Slow Productivity, if we evaluate our productivity over years rather than hours, a few days where we are not 100% are not that significant, so allow yourself some flexibility over the holidays without it derailing your progress entirely.

I hope these ideas have given you something to think about and reminded you of what is most important to focus on for the rest of the week.

Until next time…