However Small or Big the Leap You Need to Make During the Pandemic, You Will Never Make It Until You Play the Game

How and why I wrote a little book called “Gameful Isolation.”

The initial idea

It all started when at the end of March 2020, the editor and cover designer of my books, Alice Jago, suggested that I write a blog post called “Gameful Isolation.” She told me later that she thought that this project would make a good topic for a book, but because one needed to create content on this topic soon to be helpful and timely, then she thought of a blog post format.

This idea and my affinity for writing books helped me come up with the idea to write a short book. And that resonated most with me because I didn’t want to repeat what I wrote in my other books, but add ideas inspired by Self-Gamification (an approach to turning our lives into fun games), which could be valuable for the current situation worldwide with the COVID-19.

Another tip for a leap of faith

On the day I started the book project, I had an online meeting with a consultant and gamification specialist from Startup Club Aalborg of the Aalborg municipality. He listened with interest about what I do in my business.

He was particularly curious about the Self-Gamification approach, and he saw great value in it. He asked me how I market my products and services, and I named a few approaches I was practicing or testing. He agreed that these were worth pursuing and suggested I start making short videos on Self-Gamification and sharing them on LinkedIn. I appreciated his advice and said that I would definitely look into it. There was something in his advice that caught my attention.

Initial resistance

After finishing our talk, the idea of creating videos was buzzing in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I recalled my thoughts and fears of making videos. I was convinced that creating video courses wasn’t what I liked doing.

I have created one course (Motivate Yourself by Turning Your Life Into Fun Games) and published it on Udemy. I enjoyed communicating with the students who enrolled in it there, but I wasn’t drawn to create more courses.

Books remained my preferred way to create and share content.

I saw others creating short videos on what they do and sharing their expertise on LinkedIn, but somehow I didn’t think it was applicable to me or something I would want to pursue. Now I can see that I feared that I wouldn’t be as good, and the work on the videos would take too much effort with only average results.

Intrigued by an idea

However, this idea of short videos, plus the Gameful Isolation writing project, seemed to work so brilliantly together. The startup club consultant agreed with that when I told him about this book idea.

Initially, I decided to do the first video the next day. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I thought I fretted about doing the video.

At some point, I realized that I wasn’t really afraid. I was trying to convince myself that I was afraid. When I looked honestly, non-judgmentally, and with curiosity, like an anthropologist, I discovered that I couldn’t wait to try this suggestion of making short videos. I realized that I couldn’t wait to play this “game.”

Starting playing the game

So I chose a moment on the same day, March 30th, when my family came back in from our garden, took the microphone, my mobile, and stepped outside.

It was funny to observe that a brief sound of a motor saw in one of our neighbors’ gardens prompted me to think that it wasn’t a good time to make the video outside. But the observation of how much I wanted it kept me in place. I will just try it out, and if it doesn’t work, I can make another video later. So, I waited a few moments, switched the camera on, to face me, and to video mode.

Then I pressed start and said, “Hi! My name is Victoria Ichizli-Bartels,” before continuing to introduce myself further and this project.

It’s so much easier to play a project game than we think

I used only one take for almost all the videos in that series. I re-filmed only one video several times due to technical issues. The camera on my mobile started stopping in the middle of the recording. But the complete take occurred only once for that video too.

When I watched the videos afterward, I liked all of them. So I shared them as they were. I liked thinking of them as one of those “no filter” creations, which become more and more popular on social media and online in general.

Having fun playing the game

Fast forward to almost a week later, April 5th, 2020, as I wrote the chapter of Gameful Isolation that served as content for this article. I made five videos by that point and wanted to continue doing one a day on workdays for the rest of the project.

A few days before that, I said to my husband that I wanted to continue creating such videos even after I’d finished Gameful Isolation, but maybe not every day. Maybe once a week. Somehow I had this idea that I shouldn’t like doing it. When I shared the first video on one of the Gamification groups I am a member of, I wrote, “I’m embarking on a new adventure. And it brings me way out of my comfort zone.”

But friends who sent me their reactions to the first videos seemed to be of a different opinion. Alice wrote, “you’re a natural on film, it’s going to be great!” But my brain “pegged” for a few days on the thought that making videos was not for me.

On April 5th, I realized something. I did feel natural when I was making the video. And I liked the results. I made and shared the very first video in the early evening of March 30th, after starting writing the book and having the meeting with the startup consultant.

Not wanting to wait to start playing the next game round

Giving up the resistance to my wish to pursue the video project along with the writing one, unfolded in the following fact. I worked on the text, on the videos, and on sharing them, straight after the morning routine, breakfast, and helping my son to start his day with remote schooling.

I simply couldn’t wait to create and share the videos. The feedback and the appreciation for them were encouraging too. If I am not mistaken, these were the first videos I created that got comments on YouTube, and they have been shared on LinkedIn.

Plus, I discovered that I was looking forward to creating more of such projects. I even had a new name for the format of these video series projects. My very own version of “video books.” I realized that I wanted to create such a video book for the whole “Gameful Life” series and maybe even all of my books on Self-Gamification.

The moral of the tale

And the moral of this tale, which brings us to the title of this article, is:

We can’t find out what the game — either chosen by us or recommended by others — feels like, and whether we enjoy playing it or not, if we don’t start playing it.

The word “game” applies here not only to games in their traditional sense but also to any project, activity, or challenge. These include the design of my self-motivational games. That is a game too. So I don’t need to fantasize or worry about how to do something. I just need to wave the start flag for myself for any of these games and get going.

“Racing flags are traditionally used in auto racing and similar motorsports to indicate track condition and to communicate important messages to drivers. Typically, the starter, sometimes the grand marshal of a race, waves the flags atop a flag stand near the start/finish line.” — Wikipedia

The anthropologist’s ultimate tool, awareness, will help me to notice the waving flag at the finish line. Then after a short break, which is, of course, a game too, I can start playing the next game and so on.

Some of these challenges, projects, or activity “games” might require us to slow down; others will mean speeding up. All we need to do is to play them and discover the appropriate pace in the process by fully and wholeheartedly engaging in them. Only then will we be able to recognize whether we want to continue playing these games (right away and in general) or go on to another game.

A note to this article

This was an excerpt from my book Gameful Isolation: Making the Best of a Crisis, the Self-Gamification Way. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to access the vlog accompanying the book, check out this page: victoriaichizlibartels.com/gameful-isolation/.

And here is the video to the excerpt above:

Thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoyed this article. And if you did, then in addition to those quoted above, you might also like these:

P.S.

To get an “awareness booster” that will help you disentangle any tough project and a short story that could provide for that first advice of taking time off your stagnating project, subscribe to my newsletter, Optimist Writer.