Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Improving Yourself Like in a Video Game @NerdFitness @artofmanliness @Dark_KnightUK

So all us guys/girls that work in IT are for the most part big fans of gaming! Be it console gaming or PC gaming and we pretty much all have fond memories of the Sega Gensis/Megadrive/NES/SNES etc.

This blog post came about after listening to The Art of Manliness Podcast @artofmanliness (which I have to say I have been a big fan of for over a year) and their podcast with the guy that runs Nerd Fitness @NerdFitness. I have been a big fan of Nerd Fitness for ages, esp the Nerd Fitness blog posts.

They covered many topics that I have mentioned previously, but from a gamers point of view, and I thought this is a way soooooooooo many of us could relate to.

For example in a game, you will start off with very little skill, and you have to do various mundane tasks that you may think don’t have any real benefit,  you level up so you can beat the end of level boss, after which you go on and do some more to fight the next boss. If you decided to jump right in and go for the end of game boss (your ultimate goal) you would fail, simply because you hadn’t earnt all the stuff you needed and obtained the skills you needed to get there!

Also if you get to a boss and you fail, you will restart and try a different approach. But it is amazing how in real life, so many of us don’t do this, we fail at the boss fight and then give up, but in the game we try again, even if it means loading a save from a bit further back so we can try something different. Why is it we are happy to do that in a game but not in real life?!


We will spend hours upon hours, playing the game building XP and moving forward, but we usually are reluctant to do the same in real life
The podcast is brilliant and I have also pre-ordered the new Nerd Fitness book which is out in March.

So if you want to start running, you can start by walking. If you want to eat healthy, start by eating some fruit, small changes lead to big things if you keep going and build them up.

I have gone from not being able to run at all and hating it, to doing 5k and now I have managed to run 10k, it has taken time and I have had to level up....my original boss/goal was to start running, next level was to get a decent 5k time and the level after was to get to 10k...and so on. 

I rewarded myself along the way, when I reached 10k I bought myself some nice running gear, something that I can reward myself with, but will help me reach my next goal/boss fight, which is getting a decent 10k time!

The podcast can be found here: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/01/20/podcast-170-level-up-your-life/

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