The First Quest in the Game
In any game the rewards system has to incentivize the players to accomplish their goal.
Risk: Attacking is the only way to get cards. If you don't attack, other players will get cards. Cards are used for bonus armies. Bonus armies are game changers.
Ticket to Ride: Connect your ticket cities. The longer you wait the harder it will be!
Pandemic: Work together as a team to keep diseases treated until you collect the disease cards for a Cure. Play your role's strengths, even if you have to ignore some problems.
In designing my game, I wanted to reward myself for 1. Doing deeds that help me become a better person and 2. Avoiding things that will, metaphorically and literally, kill me. See, I love being alive, and want to make the most out of life- a large part of that is simply time. I need a lot of it. More of it than I have unless I make some serious changes and maintain the good luck that has brought me this far.
Here is how I get points, and how they translate into the larger goals.
First Major Quest: Improve my Physical Health.
Daily Deeds to Advance the Quest
- Exercise 20 minutes or more each day
- stretch to keep skeletal-muscular systems flexible
- meditate and use deep breathing exercises to maintain heart health
No person can just "get into shape". It is a ridiculous goal; vague and unmeasurable. Worse, the metrics people use to do it are terrible. Their chief tool is a scale. Looking at a scale every day is a terrible habit. It doesn't tell you much, doesn't show progress and what it does tell you is so easy to obsess over. Getting on a scale every day is about as useful as checking stock prices every day. Daily shifts can go up or down due to a variety of factors. If you are obsessing over a metric like this, you aren't managing your health very well. (Or your portfolio) I know how much I weigh. And I will check again...in two weeks. All I need to do is lose about one pound every week, or three pounds per month. The important part isn't losing weight- it is
*DOING WHAT IT TAKES TO LIVE A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE*.
Imagine two scenarios...
Scenario #1-An obese person quietly substitutes carrots for chips in their lunch. They switch from soda to Iced tea, or sparkling water. They tell them self, "I am a person who only eats chips and drinks soda at special social occasions, such as parties."They cut about 300 calories every day from their daily diet.
Assuming you need to burn 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat off your body, then...
After 1 day- 0 pounds lost
After 10 days- less than 1 pound lost
After 100 days- About 9 pounds lost
After 300 days- 26 pounds lost.
Scenario #2- An obese person eats only raw vegetables, even though they hate it. They tell everyone they know how good they are doing and advertise their plans. After three days of kale smoothies they are so excited that they decide to give themselves a small reward, They sneak around and "cheat" because they deserve it. 6 days in, their diet is trash. Now they gird themselves up for the next opportunity, maybe next Monday? Or, New Year's Day?
Time: Put it on Your Side
The small change makes no real difference on the scale until months have passed. And yet, there are obese people who live for years thinking they need some major crash diet, or unsustainable routine to lose weight fast. They often go years, if not decades without making any appreciable change, even when a small one will have enormous consequences over time.
Why does Scenario #1 work so well?
The person reinforces the story they tell about their life. In game talk, they establish their character, or at least the character they want to be. They use self-talk to reshape how they see them-self, instead of using other people to tell their dreams to. Their actions speak louder than words. In fact, telling people your dreams often lead you to stop pursuing them, because in your head, after talking about it so much, it feels as if they are actually already accomplished, so why bother continuing? (Psychologists Say Success is a Secret)
The best motivator you are going to have is the first time someone tells you you look good, or asks if you are losing weight. Your response? "Thanks.", or "Yes, thanks for noticing." (Then you can high five yourself later- keep going!)
Crash diets and the lottery
Losing weight fast is the health equivalent of winning the lottery. If you need to win a bunch of money quickly, then you obviously have money problems greater than more money can solve. In fact, people with terrible financial habits often find, to their chagrin, that more money actually makes their problems worse, not better. (Winning Makes you Miserable)
You don't need to make much of a change, you have to sustain it.
Checklisting
I have 3 things to check off every day to improve my physical health, and no need to use wasteful metrics doing them. Since I cannot go from obese to fit, I will stay focused on the tangible, accomplishable tasks I feel comfortable with.
Stretching takes 5 minutes and perhaps I can learn deep breathing exercises that go in conjunction with them to catalyze the effect.
Exercise is fun because I don't really have to do much alone. I have two great friends at work that are constantly planning to swim, run, bike. I have a wife who now is okay going to a gym 5 minutes from home.
It has been joked that being an Adult is the following...
Family
Friends
Fitness
Finance
Sleep
Choose any 3.
It is a dark joke about the economics of growing up. But, if you can get fit with friends, it helps you get a two-for-one.
Quote to ponder about making progress: "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." Freidrich Nietzsche
Tomorrow: The Second Quest
9 XP so far...
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