The Power of Setting Attainable Goals — Proven by Video Games

Personally, I have a habit of setting extremely high goals for myself, that may or may not be realistic. Shoot for the stars, and all that.

But lately, I’ve come to see the value in setting things that are much more attainable. And I realized it because of video games.

Somewhat recently I started playing this game called “7 Days to Die”. Picture Minecraft, but a bit more elaborate, and with zombies for good measure.

Ostensibly, you and your friends are preparing supplies, shelter, and weapons so that you can survive a zombie horde every 7 nights. Sound intense? It can be!

So how do most people play this game?

In my experience, most people find some useful specialty, and generally contribute to what the group needs. One person might collect wood and then build an elaborate structure for us to defend ourselves; complete with a spiked moat and arrow slits.

Another might spend his time gathering supplies and equipment for building better weapons. From simple wooden bows to rocket launchers, this person makes sure you have the firepower to take those zombies out.

And what have I busied myself with?

I’m digging an extensive network of mines.

Specifically, I’ve spent most of the time improving my mining skills so I can do it faster. I’m working on building a mine, deep underground, that reaches all the way to a nearby town.

So what is the value of this town? Nothing. It’s already been raided. There are no supplies left there, and really no reason to even go there.

Mining is extremely monotonous. Picture swinging a pickax in front of you, over and over again, in a dark pit underground, for hours at a time in a straight line. The biggest variability is that sometimes you might run in to some iron ore instead of solid rock. But the concept is still the same.

And yet, I can’t wait to get back on and play every week! While I’m doing it, I’m excited.

So why is it that I’m excited to do something monotonous, that provides no real value to myself or others, and just generally seems like a waste of time?

Because I have a goal that’s attainable.

I want to dig a mine all the way to that town. It’s far away, and it takes a long time. But it’s 100% doable as long as I put the time in.

Over time I level up in mining, and my friends build better equipment for me to mine with, so there is also the feeling of accelerated progress. But either way, I’m positive that I will reach this town. There is nothing to stop me!

Somehow that feeling of an impending accomplishment, no matter how trivial (or in this case, pointless), fuels my resolve to complete it and makes me happy to go along with it.

But then that makes me wonder… Do I just like doing things that are easy? Is it just the guarantee of success, given enough time? Or is it just a welcome respite from the poorly delineated progress that’s made each day in the world of knowledge work, where most of the time, I don’t know if I’m really getting closer to my goal, or if I’ll ever reach it.

I don’t think it’s simply that I like easy things. Besides the evidence in my own life, there’s a mountain of evidence that achieving things that are difficult is much more rewarding than achieving things that are easy. So that can’t be it.

I think it might just be that it feels good to take a break for a change. To have a clearly defined goal where the path to getting there is completely known.

In most knowledge work, there are a thousand ways to go about trying to achieve a goal. And unfortunately, you have no way of knowing for sure which ways will work and which won’t until you’ve tried them.

As an analogy, let’s say that you’re at the bottom of a hill, and you want to get to the top and see the view. A simple goal, akin to my mine-digging goal, would be a situation where there is a staircase that goes straight and right up to the top of this hill.

You can see the whole staircase, it’s just as steep at the bottom as it is at the top, and there are no obstacles. You would know exactly what it takes to get to the top, and you can be confident that if you just keep going, you’ll get there.

But most of what I do for a living (and probably most people), is nothing like that. Instead, picture the same scenario, but it’s more like a maze. You are standing at the bottom, and there are 100 different entrances. Some of them lead to the top. Some don’t. Some have untold hardships you’ll endure, and some might not. The point is, you don’t know which is which!

In this scenario, you can still aim high, and try to get to the top. But there is so much uncertainty, that you really don’t know what it’s going to take to get there. You don’t know the right way, and you don’t know what you’re going to face along the way.

Now, in real situations, you can grow your experience and knowledge, and start minimizing the uncertainty. That would certainly help.

In a lot of cultures and even modern psychology, there is this concept of chaos and order, and balance between them is the key. If you get too comfortable and set easy goals for yourself, there is far too much order. You don’t learn and you don’t develop as a person.

But if your goals are too lofty, and the path there too vague, you’re dealing with complete chaos. You have no knowledge of the route you need to take to get there, and that can be debilitating.

So instead, what they argue, is that you need to find that balance, where you’re out of your comfort zone, you’re achieving something difficult, but you come equipped with enough competence to stand a fighting chance of getting through.

My research has led me to believe that what leads to lasting meaning and value in our lives is actually the balance of these two concepts, and not the end result.

In other words, you should choose goals that are difficult but achievable, but it’s not even the achievement of the goals that will ultimately fulfill you. It’s getting there.

 

As a random side-note here that isn’t totally necessary to the understanding of what I’m trying to get across: I think jigsaw puzzles are a good stand-in for my video game.

I never quite understood the appeal of them. The work is somewhat mindless, the process is pretty much the same every time, and it’s something where, if you spend enough time on it, you’re virtually guaranteed to finish it.

Sounds a lot like my goal to build a mine, huh?

I know some say the like the high of finding a place for everything (from chaos to order… sound familiar?), but I think there’s an element of what I’ve been discussing here as well. There’s a comfort in knowing that your goal is something you can accomplish. Maybe it’s just self-empowering, maybe it’s just a desperate need to get something done.

I don’t have all of the answers, I just thought it was somewhat relevant.