Gamification Of Self-Development: How To Achieve Your Serious Goals Playfully

Gamification, editing, business games are not newfangled concepts, but different names for game learning and development, which has long proven their effectiveness. A person remembers 10% of what he heard, 50% of what he saw, and 90% of what he did himself.

Alas, most adults believe that play development is a child’s prerogative. Have you ever seen the gloomy and bewildered faces of office workers, whose management offers teambuilding or training in a playful way? The chief accountant Marya Ivanovna rolls her eyes to the ceiling, so much so that they threaten never to roll back again, and the financial director Pyotr Alekseevich sniffs angrily, they say, “What are we thinking, we are serious people, we need to work and not play games “.

It is because of this approach that business games, which Maria Birshtein developed back in 1932, languished under the ban for a long time (until the Americans reached the same in the sixties). So, you cannot call the newfangled phenomenon of editing. But the modern capabilities of technology allow us to gamify any process of life: from cleaning to the global development of the individual.

What are the advantages of self-development gamification?

1. You get additional incentives and a boost of motivation. The game form easily involves the process of achieving goals, there is an excitement to complete as much as possible and get prize points.
2. It is an unobtrusive form of planning that does not restrict your freedom and helps to train yourself to discipline without violence and without too much willpower.
3. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel: the creators of game forms for achieving goals offer a ready-made turn-based strategy.
4. You release the pressure of “seriousness. “ When you play, mistakes are perceived much easier: “Wrong? OK, let’s try it differently! ”, The game form eases the burden of guilt, you clearly understand that any failure is not the end of the world, but just a new experience. Reducing the severity level also helps to avoid procrastination: it is scary to take on an important task that solves your future, and why not play it.

As we said in the introduction, in a playful way, you absorb information much better and make the memorization process easier for yourself.

Let’s be honest, this is just fun.

Gamification pitfalls.

As with any phenomenon, the playful form of self-development has its own characteristics, which can be called minuses. There are no ideal methods, so it is best to determine in advance how critical the pitfalls of gamification may be for you and how vulnerable you are to them.

The form of play can be so addictive that you start playing for the sake of the game, and not for the sake of your own development. Gambling people are especially susceptible to this problem.

Out of habit, the game can lower the priority of tasks and not guarantee the deadlines, because “it’s just a game.” Consciousness will take time to rebuild.

The game form requires additional preparation and, as a result, is time-consuming. The main thing to remember here is that this time investment pays off with your increased productivity.

If you are too old an adult, you may have forgotten how to play. We’ll have to learn again.

When is gamification most beneficial?

To determine if this development method is right for you, it is worth looking at the situations in which gamification is most beneficial and seeing how they relate to your lifestyle and stage of development.

So, the game method shows the maximum efficiency in the following cases:

1. When you lack motivation and have exhausted methods of stimulating yourself to take action.
2. When you need to accustom yourself to discipline or adherence to a certain routine, but the traditional methods cause internal resistance in you. The same goes for working on good habits.
3. When the burden of responsibility weighs on you, and you feel that time after time you postpone useful actions and find yourself in a circle of procrastination.
4. If your level of excitement is not at the minimum and not at the maximum level. With the minimum level, the game will seem unattractive and will not provide additional motivation, but with the maximum — see point 1 from the section on pitfalls.
5. When your schedule gets too busy and filled with “serious adult” tasks.