by Robert Duff
Leveling up and progressing as a character is pretty motivating on its own, but no game would be complete without some rewards, right? Every hero deserves some awesome loot. When you defeat the boss battle, the best part is walking past their limp body to go open up the chest that is radiating golden light in every direction. When you find an amazing item in that chest, it makes you want to just jump back into questing to find more stuff. In real life, rewards are not always built into the process. That doesn’t mean that you should not have your epic loot to go along with your rising character level and list of completed quests. You just have to make your own rewards. There is this concept in the field of psychology (and animal training for that matter) called operant conditioning. Basically, it just means that if you reward a behavior, the subject will be more likely to do it more often, and if you do not reward it, their rate of the behavior will decrease. There is nothing wrong with rewarding yourself for a job well done. It’s science! Use your indulgences and treats to keep you motivated and happy along the way.
The trick is finding rewards that are consistent with the difficulty level of the quest. A small side quest, such as writing down an outline of your activities for the next day, probably lends itself to a minor reward like a scoop ice cream or 15 minutes of your favorite mobile game. On the other hand, finishing your final project at school or finally asking someone out on a date might be more worthy of a moderate sized reward like dinner at your favorite restaurant or that sweater you have been eyeballing in the window at the mall. Your final bosses and epic quests should have epic sized rewards. Taking part in a modeling competition when you were previously too embarrassed to even show your bare arms is a huge deal and should be rewarded thusly. Maybe it’s time to cash in some vacation days or finally buy yourself the new game console that you’ve been wanting.
Of course, these do not have to be money dependent. If you are low in the funds department, get creative with your rewards. Time is the most valuable currency you have, and sometimes taking an entire day off to spend however you would like is just as awesome as buying something. We can’t pretend that money is not a factor, though. In some ways it makes the effect even stronger if money isn’t exactly coming out of your ears. If you wanted to assign an epic sized reward to one of your main quests, you will probably have some time to save toward it. Put money away each month for your prize. Make a physical or virtual piggy bank, and start building up to your gadget, vacation, experience, etc. That way, you not only have the satisfaction of demolishing your quest to look forward to, but also the epic loot that has been waiting for you throughout your entire journey. Trust me, it will feel SO damn good to open up that chest. I can’t freaking wait to buy myself a new Playstation or Xbox when I finally release this book. Even when the intrinsic motivation of helping people and bolstering my income is falling short, the promise of some sweet, sweet gaming time pulls me through!
Now it’s time to put all of these pieces together. Remember that this is just one of many different ways you can gamify the process of self-improvement. My version of gamification is particularly nerdy and is mainly influenced by role playing games such as Diablo, Fallout, D&D, and Elder Scrolls, so I’m going to keep running with that here. However, that does not have to be the case for you. I encourage you to take everything that I am saying as inspiration and as a jumping off point. You can convert this into some form that really makes sense to you, given your unique interests. Anyway, the way that I like to wrap this all together neatly is to make a character sheet. These really have their origins back in old school Dungeons and Dragons, where you would have a sheet of paper that you would write down all of your character’s information, attributes, and skills. Just do a Google search of “D&D character sheet” if you want to see what I mean. I will include a small version of a character sheet here that you can also print off by visiting duffthepsych.com/bookresources.
This is where you get to go through and insert all of the things that we went through in this chapter. Write down your character name and the name of your rival, and draw a picture! You can make it realistic or a projection of the badass that you want to be. No one else has to see this, so it doesn’t matter if you are a good artist or not. You could even insert a picture of a popular character that you would like to draw inspiration from. Have fun with it. Then you will want to determine your final quests. These are the big picture ones that we talked about. You can choose as many or as few as you would like, and it’s okay to change these as you go along. Treat this like a snapshot that you can always come back to and adjust. Underneath each final quest, you will then break it up into smaller side quests that should be completed on your way to those larger goals. In a separate area, I want you to consider those skills and attributes that we talked about. Looking at your main and side quests, which five main skills and attributes are going to be most important?
There you have it. You can assign different rewards to your quests and update your levels as you progress. Maybe you will be the type to grind levels intensively for the next few weeks here while you practice your skills nonstop, or maybe you will take things slower and level gradually as you chip away at your quest log. Whatever works for you is exactly what you should be doing. Get pumped about this. Instead of looking at your life as something that has fallen too far into the shitty abyss of depression, think of it as an epic adventure game. Everyone has to start from level one. In no time, you will begin to see progress, and you will feel the excitement build as you get stronger and stronger. Next thing you know, you will be ready for the final battle with your arch nemesis. You can do this thing. Go forth and be the amazing adventurer that you are.
Thank you!
Hey you did it! Hell yeah! You made it through the book. I’m super proud of you. Don’t underestimate how big of a deal this is. Even if this book wasn’t everything that you were looking for and more… you still did it. You, the person seeking out resources to help them with depression, decided to make some moves and read an entire book about depression. You’re already doing it, my friend. Nice work.
I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this book. The world is full of a gajillion different resources meant to help you tackle depression. For some reason, you decided to pick up a book that says “fuck” in the title. That makes you awesome. Thank you for taking the chance on this book. I really hope that it made a difference for you in some way.
If I could ask a favor… please consider leaving me a review for this book on Amazon. Not only does it help more people see this book, but it helps people to understand why they should get the book. It takes just a couple minutes and it makes a world of difference. Head over to Amazon and tell the world why you did or did not love the book. Whether it is a 5-star or a 1-star review, I greatly appreciate your time and willingness to help me out.
If you are interested in taking your experience with Hardcore Self Help beyond the page, you can follow me on Twitter @duffthepsych, you can like the Duff The Psych Facebook page or you can join our private subreddit at reddit.com/r/hardcoreselfhelp. All you need to do for the subreddit is to go to that url, sign in, and “message the moderators” to request access. That is a place where you can talk to other people on the same journey. You can share your triumphs and ask for support.
Finally, if you want to share feedback with me directly, you are more than welcome to email me. Just shoot a letter over to [email protected] with the subject line: feedback. I read them all and I try to respond to as many as I can. I’m always open to constructive feedback and I am always stoked to hear about how the book may have helped you personally.
That’s it, folks. Gimme a high five, or fist bump, or whatever you kids do these days!
riends
