1: In July of 2009, game designer and PhD Jane McGonigal suffered a severe concussion.
“There is no known effective therapy or treatment for post-concussion syndrome,” Jane writes in her book SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully.
She was on total cognitive rest. “I literally had nothing to do. ‘Rest and wait’ is the only prescription,” she recalls. “Which meant I couldn’t do anything that stimulated my brain: No reading, writing, email, work, or computer time,”
Activity of any type brought on vertigo and nausea. “Even just watching television, playing games, and talking with others brought on severe headaches,” Jane notes.
She couldn’t entertain herself, be productive, or connect with the world around her.
“Weeks passed, and nothing got better,” she recalls. “Day after day, I woke up dreading the endless stretch of time before me. I was bored and lonely. I had never felt so helpless in my life.
“I was also incredibly anxious,” Jane writes, “because I wasn’t able to work, and my husband had recently lost his job.”
She felt hopeless. Depression and suicidal thoughts became Jane’s reality.
“I spent hours every day curled up in a ball, weeping—as quietly as I could, because I didn’t want to make my husband worry.”
As a game designer, a thought occurred to her: “If there’s nothing to do in a game, no goal to pursue, no further way to make progress, the player will quit. . .
“I knew that I needed to find one thing to do each day to feel a sense of purpose and productivity,” she remembers.
When you play a game, you have a quest. Jane recognized she needed one too.
“No matter how strong my suicidal thoughts, I knew deep down that I did not want to quit. Even if I couldn’t get out of bed, even if I couldn’t turn on my computer, I would find something, anything to do. I needed a quest. I needed a way to win the day.”
Since her thinking was fuzzy, she enlisted her twin sister, Kelly. “I invited her to call me once a day and give me a quest for the next twenty-four hours,” Jane recalls.
What was the first quest that Kelly gave Jane?
“Your bed is near a window, right?” Kelly said to her sister. “I want you to spend some time looking out the window, and tomorrow, tell me if you saw anything interesting. Try to find at least one interesting thing to tell me about.”
Jane thought: “Look out the window. This was something I could do from bed, and it didn’t require too much thinking. And there was a clear goal: Keep looking until you see something interesting!”
Looking back now, she can’t remember what she found interesting.
“My memory from the first few months after my concussion is a bit spotty,” Jane notes. “What I do remember is that that day I felt like I had a purpose. I watched the world from my window.
“And I looked forward to talking to my sister and telling her that I had succeeded in my quest,” she remembers.
“And when I did, I felt fantastic. Someone had asked me to do something, and I had done it,” she explains. “It was the first time in a very long while that I had set my mind to do something and succeeded. . . I felt triumphant!”
2: While Jane didn’t know it at the time, she was experiencing the benefit of taking committed action: Taking small steps each day that aligned with her goals and values, even when it was challenging for her.
“Researchers have shown that every time you successfully take committed action, you increase your hope, optimism, and self-efficacy,” Jane writes.
Hope, optimism, and self-efficacy are three different, but related strengths.
“Hope is what you feel when you believe that a good outcome is possible,” she notes. “If you can imagine any good outcome at all, no matter how unlikely, you have hope. The more different good outcomes you can imagine, the more hope you have.”
Optimism is the next level up. Not only is a good outcome possible, but it’s also likely.
“As a result, you’re willing to set higher goals and put in greater effort to achieve them,” Jane shares. “You’re also more open to trying new things and taking others’ advice—two things that often lead to greater success.”
The third piece of the strengths puzzle is self-efficacy.
Self-efficacy is that “I can do this!” feeling. “When you have high self-efficacy, you not only believe a good outcome is likely, you believe it is in your direct control,” Jane explains.
Together, these three strengths “make up the secret sauce of unstoppable motivation and willpower,” she states. The more hope, optimism, and self-efficacy you have, the more effort you’ll put forth on the things that matter most to you.
“That’s why developing your hope, optimism, and self-efficacy is so important,” Jane notes.
“And quests are an ideal way to do that.”
3: Quests are the fourth element of effective game design you can apply in your real life. You start by challenging yourself. Then, you collect and activate power-ups. Next, you identify and battle “bad guys.”
Jane defines a quest as “simple, daily actions that help you reach your bigger goals.”
It’s a purposeful action, not just another to-do item.
“Maybe you’re searching for better health, or better relationships, or a better job, or a better life for your family. Maybe you’re just searching for your next great adventure,” Jane notes.
“Whatever it is, completing quests in your everyday life will bring you one step closer to that which you seek.”
The hero’s journey is made up of many quests. “This is true whether the journey is found in literature or mythology, in sports movies or video games,” she observes.
“From the epic Greek hero Odysseus to the Chinese warrior Mulan, from boxing underdog Rocky Balboa to Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, every hero must be willing to complete many smaller feats and missions. Each and every feat makes the hero just a little bit smarter, stronger, or braver–and more prepared for the bigger challenge ahead.”
Quests let you focus on what matters, even when tired, sick, busy, or depressed.
Research shows that completing just one quest a day impacts how happy, healthy, and brave you feel.
“As you build willpower, well-being, and purpose, you can tackle bigger quests,” Jane writes.
Just thinking about a quest is powerful because you are building hope: “A quest is, after all, simply a description of a specific action you can take to achieve a good outcome,” she observes.
Jane’s advice: “Don’t be afraid to brainstorm lots of quests. Simply making a list of potential quests is enough to spark powerful hope.”
Then, when you complete a quest, optimism grows.
“The more quests you complete,” Jane writes, “the more optimistic you’ll get. That’s because increasing the frequency with which you experience good outcomes is one of the most efficient ways to increase optimism.
“In fact, the research shows that frequency of success matters more than the size of the success,” she notes. “So it doesn’t matter if your quest is small or easy. In fact, it helps if it’s small and easy, because that increases your chances of success.”
Which leads to more self-efficacy. You feel more in control.
“This is why game developers make the early levels so easy,” Jane explains. “It’s important to give players a dose of triumph early on, to build their emotional resilience ahead of the challenges to come.”
The key takeaway?
“Quests make you better,” she shares. “You develop useful abilities, learn important information, and expand your strategies.
“And because with every quest you complete you are inarguably getting better in concrete and specific ways, you develop more confidence in your power to positively impact your own health, happiness, and future.”
This creates a positive, self-reinforcing upward spiral: “Your new skills,” Jane states, “combined with your increased confidence will allow you to tackle harder quests in the future.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: What is one small “quest” I can complete today that would move me one step closer to the life I want?
Action: Create one simple, achievable quest for today—something small enough to complete, but meaningful enough to build momentum.
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