By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
1–10 of 110 posts
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#2Anyone tried anything like this, informally as described here or in a formal setting?
I wonder how often it is successful.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#3Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#4what is it with gamifaction? I don't get it - it doesn't motivate me at all, infact it probably has the opposite effect.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#5video - 5 min
"Mark Moschel - 30 Days of Rejection Therapy"
Presented at the 2013 Quantified Self Conference
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#6what is it with gamifaction? I don't get it - it doesn't motivate me at all, infact it probably has the opposite effect.
People are motivated by different things. This guy was motivated by quantitative value tracking with defined goals ('scores', 'winning'). Some people's brains increase levels of serotonin in response to situations where they perceive they've done something good - you have a physical neural response to a psychological event. Other people's brains don't (or they release less serotonin, or there's serotonin uptake inhibitor at work somewhere). People like that doesn't feel 'good' in response to 'winning' so classical gamification doesn't work.
The key to motivation is to make a psychological bridge between things that you don't want to do and the emotional state that releases neurological chemicals that in turn make you feel happy.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#7If my wife had divorced me and i ended up a crying heap on the floor like this guy i would probably want to try this. Most people are not in that situation though, it's all relative.
Fair play to him though.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#8As a teenager I went to an all boys school, so was very shy with women. One day I just decided to get over my fear and resolved to ask for the telephone number of every pretty girl that caught my attention in public, even if they were with other girls. Importantly to the process was that it was never my intention to actually call the girl - just to see what percentage gave me their number. Since the outcome was not important, it did not matter if I was successful or not.
It worked surprisngly well. I got over my fear and was quite amazed at my success rate. IIRC it was around 25%, maybe even higher.
It was important to not be creepy, just friendly and withdraw if the situation became at all uncomfortable.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#9what is it with gamifaction? I don't get it - it doesn't motivate me at all, infact it probably has the opposite effect.
I doubt that. It's just that gamification requires you to buy into the premise of the game in the first place: to agree to try to maximize whatever "point" system the game scores you with. In some sense, income is a point system which you're almost certainly trying to maximize.
Your comment reminds me of myself when I used to claim marketing doesn't work on me, and that it even made me less likely to buy things. And then found out about the brown bag effect (a marketing technique which uses drab colors and minimal text to look non-flashy). Gamification isn't as developed a science as marketing, but it still works pretty well, and it's very unlikely that it doesn't work on you.
Re: By Making a Game Out of Rejection, a Man Conquers Fear
#10I play Go and chess, and I think of it this way: the best players may have won more than others, but they have also lost more than others, because they have simply played more games. Frequent loss or rejection is a necessary step to goodness. This also applies to business, the opposite sex, and most anything else that might matter to you.
Or, to paraphrase many an artist and CEO: if I have not failed today, it means I have not been ambitious enough.