Could This Be Why You're Lost?

It’s very hard to “win” at life. Most of the people that look like winners are often the biggest losers.

I’ve come to believe that this is in part due to the differences in Singleplayer vs Multiplayer games. The ways you’re taught and encouraged to win in life are multiplayer games — fiscally and socially.

The incentives, feedback loops and reward mechanisms in these games are so strong that almost no one stops to consider if they’re even the right games to win.

Alex Hormozi says this about business: "What boat you are in is far more important than how hard you row."

We can apply the same concept here.

The game you play is far more important than how hard you try to win.

In multiplayer games tracking progress is easy, there are scoreboards.

Capitalism is the greatest multiplayer game on the planet. You get to track your net worth, down to the minute, against billions of other people. And, your success can be used to make your life better.

Social games are the same just with more obfuscated scoreboards. You’ll track this through clout or respect or the size of your social circle. It’s not as high-fidelity as your bank account total but it can still be tracked reliably.

Here’s the problem:

The most important game in life is a single player game and it’s very hard to track if you’re winning.

Assuming that “winning at life” looks something like climbing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the top of the pyramid is self-actualization. And, I’ve never heard of anyone self-actualizing as a group.

Checking your spot on the pyramid is harder without the feedback of a scoreboard.

Here’s a few ways to create single player scoreboards:

1. Journals, Habit Trackers, Mindfulness Trackers

2. Regularly scheduled goal setting and personal KPIs

3. Challenge frameworks: Break your goals into levels to track progress

4. Streaks: More gamification (We’ve talked about gamifying your life for success)

5. Physical reminders: There is something to be said for post it notes or those gold stars you earned in Grade 2.

6. Scroll through your camera roll. Your life probably looks much different — hopefully better — than it did 4 years ago.

7. Keep your old work. Especially in creative fields, it is easy to look back on the objective difference in your skills.

Words I Wish I Wrote:

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