1: “Who wouldn’t want to lead a life truer to their dreams and free of regret?” Jane McGonigal writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.
Yesterday, we explored how people can become stronger and happier after trauma, a process scientists call “post-traumatic growth.”
And yet, Jane notes, “I’m pretty sure no one would ever choose to suffer a terrible loss, an injury, an illness, or any other kind of trauma just to get these benefits.”
The good news?
“You can experience the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma,” she explains, “if you are willing to undertake an extreme challenge in your life–such as running a business, becoming a parent, quitting smoking, or making a spiritual journey.”
You don’t need to wait for life to throw you a terrible trauma. The benefits are the same when you choose a significant challenge, a meaningful project, or a mission. As long as it creates significant stress and challenge for you.
“This stressful adventure you’ve chosen for yourself,” Jane notes, “creates the necessary conditions for you to struggle and grow as much as someone who is battling a trauma.”
What’s required is a certain mindset that enables us to flourish in the face of extreme stress rather than buckle under.
The presence or lack of this mindset explains why some are weakened by adversity and others are strengthened by it.
Jane identifies seven ways of thinking that contribute to this mindset.
The big surprise? “They are all ways that we commonly think and act when we play games,” she observes.
Way of Thinking #1. Adopt a challenge mindset. “You need to be willing to engage with obstacles and look at stressful life events as a challenge, not a threat,” Jane shares. “In games, we call this simply ‘accepting the challenge to play.'”
Way of Thinking #2. Seek out whatever makes you stronger and happier. To successfully battle difficult challenges, you need to cultivate positive emotions and take care of your health and well-being. “In games,” she notes, “we practice this rule by seeking out ‘power-ups,’ items that make us stronger, faster, and more powerful.”
Way of Thinking #3. Strive for psychological flexibility. “Be open to negative experiences, such as pain or failure, if they help you learn or get closer to your larger goal. Be driven by courage, curiosity, and the desire to improve,” Jane suggests. “In games, we follow this rule whenever we battle a tough opponent or ‘bad guys,’ knowing we may fail many times before we become clever or skillful enough to defeat them.”
Way of Thinking #4. Take committed action. Small, incremental, constant, daily progress is key. “Taking committed action means trying to take a step forward, even if it is difficult for you. It means always keeping your eyes on the larger goal,” she explains. “In games, we have a structure to do this. It’s called a ‘quest,’ and it helps us stay focused on making progress toward the goal that matters most to us.”
Way of Thinking #5. Cultivate connectedness. Seek out friends or colleagues whom you can talk to honestly about your stress and difficulties. “In multiplayer games, we practice the art of making ‘allies,’” Jane notes, “people who understand the obstacles we’re facing and who have our back.”
Way of Thinking #6. Find the heroic story. Reflect on times in the past where you used your strengths to overcome various struggles that ultimately brought purpose, meaning, and joy to your life. When embarking on a difficult journey, you can also take on the “secret identity” of other heroic characters and rely on their stories to inspire and motivate you to persevere and show up at your best.
Way of Thinking #7: Learn the skill of benefit finding. “Be aware of good outcomes that can come even from stress or challenge,” Jane writes. “In games, we have the notion of ‘epic wins,’ or extremely positive outcomes that can arise when you least expect them, from most unlikely or daunting circumstances.”
Jane writes: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a lifelong game player or you’ve never played a video game. It doesn’t matter if you prefer sports, card games, or board games to digital games. Whatever your history with games, you have the capacity to tap into your natural strengths by playing games—and you can learn to bring these gameful strengths to your real life challenges and goals.”
2: Looking at these mindsets, she observes, “no wonder SuperBetter works so well for so many people!” She adds, “Once you understand the science, it makes perfect sense.”
Jane has distilled these mindsets into “Seven Rules to Live By,” which are the core principles guiding the SuperBetter game. These rules are designed to help you turn life’s challenges into opportunities for growth.
1: Challenge yourself.
2: Collect power-ups
3: Find and battle the bad guys
4: Seek out and complete quests.
5: Recruit your allies.
6: Adopt a secret identity
7: Go for an epic win.
Her confidence that these rules can transform your life stems from the fact that more than 400,000 people have played an online version of the game since she created it.
“We’ve recorded every power-up they’ve activated, every bad guy they’ve battled, and every quest they’ve completed—so we know what works and what doesn’t.”
Jane then partnered with data scientists to analyze all the data collected on the 400,000 players. “I wanted answers to some of the same questions you might have,” she notes.
Question: Who can the SuperBetter method work for?
Answer: “Virtually anyone—young or old, male or female, avid game player or someone who has never played a video game in their life,” Janes explains.
Question: How long do you have to play by the seven rules before you start to feel stronger, happier, and braver?
Answer: Our studies show measurable improvements within two weeks and even bigger improvements at four weeks and six weeks.
Question: And most importantly, do these benefits last?
Answer: “As far as we know, yes,” Jane writes. “This method has existed for only a few years, but we’ve followed up with successful players at six months, a year, and when possible, two years later. We found gameful ways of thinking and acting are a skill set that, once learned, you are likely to keep practicing and benefiting from.”
Here are your key options for applying these insights:
“If you’re already facing a tough challenge—an illness, an injury, a loss, a personal struggle—following these rules will not only help you be more successful in dealing with the challenge,” Jane writes. “You’ll also be more likely to experience the benefits of post-traumatic growth.
“And,” she suggests, “if you’re not facing an extremely stressful challenge at the moment, but you still want to become stronger, happier, braver, and more resilient, just pick a meaningful and challenging goal for yourself—and then follow these rules as you try to achieve it.”
More tomorrow (and I’ve included some SuperBetter testimonials below).
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Reflection: Am I waiting for something hard to happen to grow, or am I intentionally choosing challenges that will strengthen me?
Action: Choose one meaningful challenge I’ve been avoiding and commit to taking the first small “quest” toward it today.
SuperBetter Testimonials
Norman J. Cannon, Air Force Commander:
“I was taking command of a 2,000-person squadron in the air force and wanted to talk to them about resilience. Meanwhile, my wife had just fallen down the stairs in September 2012 and had a severe concussion. She had all the same thoughts and experiences you mentioned. I showed my wife your SuperBetter video. She cried while watching, realizing that somebody understands. I then showed the video to all 2,000 of my military and civilian employees in a commander’s call that I had. It hit home with a lot of people.”
Michelle T., a mom in West Virginia:
“My thirteen-year-old son has juvenile diabetes, and this is EXACTLY what I’ve been praying for. Our family has formed our own superhero team, and the emotional change I see in my son is glorious! I’m getting my son back! Thank you!”
Jessica MacDonald, then a thirty-year-old administrative assistant from Denver who played SuperBetter while she battled multiple surgeries and hospitalization for a severe staph infection:
“When you’re ill or injured, the world becomes one of can’ts. I can’t lift that because of the antibiotics IV in my arm; I can’t attend that event because I’m too tired; I can’t go to work because I’m on enough medications to kill a horse and barely know my own name. A million times a day the word can’t goes through your mind, and it murders your soul by inches. If I boil all the benefits of this game down to one thing, it is this: SuperBetter turns can’t into can. Sure, there are still things you aren’t allowed to or shouldn’t do, but you stop focusing so much on the limitations. You begin to see and celebrate your achievements.”
Jessica invited her doctors and nurses to be allies, and they had a lot to say about the game, too.
“The question everyone asks is ‘Did it help speed your recovery?’ I can’t say unequivocally that I got better faster because of this game, but I will tell you what my infectious disease doctor told me. In nearly fifty years of medical practice, he said he’s come to one conclusion: patients’ attitudes overwhelmingly influence the recovery process. He told me, ‘I don’t know if you got better faster, but you got better better.'”
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