How I turned my life into an addictive video game

I used to be your stereotypical gamer.
Buying a lot of video games.
Playing them for maybe 3 hours before getting bored again.
Then searching for another game to fill this void.
I wanted to play the perfect one, one that I could always come back to. A game with a never-ending open world, a captivating story, unique skill trees, and infinite replayability. Today, I believe I’ve found it. It’s called real life.

Gaming has always been an escape from reality for me. One where I could finally feel comfortable.
But there was this silent whisper in the back of my mind, telling me that this was just a quick fix.
I knew I had to face my demons.
“If only my creative work would feel like what playing a game feels like to me” Is what I used to say.
Success would then be effortless, right?
There’s actually a term for the feeling, it’s called flow. A state of mind where you are fully immersed in the task at hand. It’s the optimal experience. But how do we get more of this feeling? Well, by changing our perspective and turning life into a game.

What is a game?

Boiled down to its essence a game is a fancy self-imposed problem the player is the solution for.
This game has a set of rules to narrow your mind so you can have a clear sense of direction for the end goal.
It’s taking care that you’re neither overwhelmed nor bored; flow is exactly in the middle of those two extremes.
The game helps you to learn the mechanics through trial and error, in a fun and rewarding way while telling you a narrative to build an emotional connection to your character.

Now translate all of this into your real life.
A business is a problem, and your product is your solution.
Society too, has goals and a set progression for you in mind.
Game Mechanics are the skills you learn throughout your life so you become valuable to the market.
The Story is a set of beliefs and biases you have adopted from the people around you.
Your Questlog is your To-Do List, Bosses are Goals, Items are your possessions, Guilds are Communities or Sport Clubs, and so on.

The best thing about it is that you don’t have to keep playing the same game your parents or grandparents played.
You can create your own version of the game – a game you can win.
There are no limits but your beliefs.

How to turn your life into a game

Well, cool story bro but how do I turn my life into a game now?

That’s pretty simple tbh:
You start it up by setting self-generated, independent goals.
Up until now, you’ve probably adapted goals that family, friends, or even influencers expect you to reach.
Finishing school, getting a job, and building a family for example – they’re not bad in and of themselves but probably not your own.
You have to define your version of success before you go on.
Goals give you the big-picture understanding you need. They reframe your mind to spot opportunities. Without a goal, you can’t see the quest you need to solve.

To increase your level of clarity even further, you have to come up with a minimum viable vision and an anti-vision.
What I mean by a minimum viable vision is that you just get it done, it doesn’t have to be a grand plan, and it doesn’t have to be perfect because it probably never will.
Just write down what you want your future to look like without judging.
I would also recommend creating an anti-vision since it’s easier to define. Your mind is wired to find problems and negative emotions are powerful fuel.
Just list the bane of your existence – things you don’t want out of life.
A long-term vision and mid to short-term goals will remind you of the path you’re walking daily.
Revisit them in the morning and forget them immediately.

After that, you build the character who can achieve those goals by gaining experience from questing.
Just do the obvious here.
Want to be a painter? Paint a picture.
Write a to-do list so you don’t get lost during the day. Work on multiple projects so you don’t get lost after finishing something.

In a game you have to level up every aspect of your character equally before you can hop on more challenging quests, dungeons, or raids – this is the same in real life.
Don’t set a goal to build a business if you can’t keep your room clean, I don’t mean to offend you but that’s how it works, you have to slowly raise the baseline of pressure you can take on. Sure, seeing players with the rarest mounts and maxed-out gear makes you jealous but they didn’t start with that gear. It took them years to achieve this level.

Building a business, and making a ton of money automatically takes place once you reach a certain level of your problem-solving skill.
Once you’ve solved your basic needs for survival, safety, and security your mind will search for new problems or challenges it can take on.
The only thing that won’t help you is standing still and finding reasons why it’s not the right time today.
You have to experiment and solve the problems right in front of you, the ones that have been screaming at you for months – that’s it.

How to keep the game fun

Yasar, I don’t want to play a game that’s not fun – how do I change that?

You don’t play that game.
As I said, don’t copy the goals of influencers or YouTubers telling you the best and latest business models you can try.
Don’t take advice from people you don’t want to be like.
If you have no sense of passion for anything right now and life is a mess, stick to simply solving problems for now until you’ve ordered the chaos a little bit.

If you already sense what you could enjoy – just experiment. EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT EXPERIMENT. It doesn’t matter what it is, don’t decide what to do based on what brings the most money. Money gets printed – it’s infinite. I mean just look around and see all these people making millions of dollars without providing any value to the world. Don’t you think you can do the same with a genuine idea from your heart?

As long as you’re not dependent on this endeavor to make your money do whatever you want.
Express yourself creatively, and chase your dream even if it seems impossible. I’d rather fail for eternity than not try in the first place. Remember that you’re not your thoughts or the limits others impose on you.

But you probably can’t avoid that everything will suck at first, the fun you have with a game increases proportionally with your understanding of it.
If it’s your first skill and you’re still struggling with the basic habits, you will get distracted a lot, you won’t know where to start, and you will keep judging yourself because of that – but the work itself should be enjoyable, especially when it’s innately creative.

Video games skip this part or remove the friction for you, this won’t happen in real life – it’s the fate of everyone trying to change their life. Learn to take small steps anyway, focus on the next step only, and not on the entire road.
As you start to understand the repeating basic patterns of the game, you will have fun because you got good at the game.
That’s what it takes.

So here are the action steps for now:

Outline a meaningful project which helps you to achieve your vision/goals
Encounter a problem
Learn to solve the problem by searching on YouTube or other learning platforms, maybe even take an online course
Teach the solution to others or yourself
Repeat.
It’s about failing as fast as humanly possible, you need the struggle, you need the problems, so you’re able to learn from them. Without friction and the desire to improve our situation, humanity would be extinct already. You are a problem-solving machine, I bet you can list 10 problems on top of your head right now. Use this to your advantage.

What you should keep in mind

Before you go and start solving, let me give you some quick hit bottlenecks to be aware of so you don’t make the game miserable for yourself.

If you’re procrastinating always ask yourself this question:
What would I do if I didn’t have to do it perfectly?
The answer probably is a great deal more. Then go on and do it imperfectly, trust your inner artist, he will take care of the quality, and you only have to worry about the quantity.

Realize that you’re the one giving meaning to everything in your life.
The quality of your perspective and therefore the quality of your life is a matter of leveling up your problem-solving skills.
Meditation is a scary word, but use guided ones on YouTube to gain a big-picture understanding and to detach from all your thoughts and feelings. I will put some good ones in the description below.

Don’t take the game too seriously as well. Your career and everything connected to it is still just a game, not your identity, nor your life’s purpose. You’re the one giving your career the space to exist, you’re only the observer behind what’s happening. Keep reminding yourself that your first priority should always be to be absolutely present right now. Through presence, everything else will fall into place.

And lastly, finishing a game feels great but I almost always want to experience it again or buy a DLC. But no matter how good it is, the essence of a game is to enjoy your time while playing it.
It’s the same with life, if you beat the end boss and reach your goal, you need another game to fill the void within you.

Ideally, you should have the next goal in mind before you even reach the current one, so you don’t feel lost. Understand that work is infinite play.

See you next Sunday,

Yasar