The Guide on Being a Mature Distinguished Gamer: Part 4 – Finding Your Goals

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Games with Coffee!

At last, we have arrived at the final part of my miniseries. To those of you who have stuck with my ramblings so far, a heartfelt thanks goes to each of you. I also want to thank everyone in the WordPress community for being an amazing bunch of talented and friendly writers and also for inspiring me to write this series. I finally feel that I’ve fulfilled the requirements I have set out in the tagline of this blog: A Blog for the Mature Distinguished Gamer.

Read the previous three parts here:

Part 1 – Priorities

Part 2 – Failure, Success and The Gaming Mindset

Part 3 – Respect, Kindness and Empathy

The first three parts in this series all lead up to this final one about Finding Your Goals. In the games we play, the characters we play as have a goal or a dream that they want to accomplish. Some are as simple as rescuing a princess or fulfilling a last wish. Some are as difficult as overthrowing an empire, uncovering the truth on a conspiracy or saving the world from a deadly threat. Whatever the case, these characters pursue these goals with abandon.

The Mature, Distinguished Gamer (MDG) must embody that same pursuit with their own goals. However, they should be kind and empathetic to themselves when pursing them. They should realize that the mindset will make or break accomplishing those goals. They should understand that failures or setbacks won’t derail their efforts, but will instead make them stronger for the future. And finally, they need to set priorities so that they can focus on accomplishing their goals.

But what if you don’t know what your goals are? That’s what this part of the series focuses on today. Let’s get cracking on the final part of The Guide on Being a Mature, Distinguished Gamer.

Go On A Quest

On January 1st, 2017, I decided to take a Quest for personal discovery. I’ve written on this subject just over two years ago, on my thirtieth birthday, and you can read that post here. In it, I go over my process. It’s a good compliment to this post.

But the thing is, I’ve dialed back on this constant stream of updating experience. Why? Well, the objective of The Quest wasn’t just to establish good habits, but to identify both the things that were important to me and the things that I’m passionate about. In my case, it was my writing. While I enjoy my job as an engineer, it didn’t necessarily spark the same drive and passion that I have for writing. The Quest helped me to realize that I both love to write and want to work on it more. It also established a set of goals I have for myself, which include writing and publishing an original story among other things.

Now, you don’t have to employ my method, but it’s well worth it for the MDG to take a real close look at yourself and to see what you’re passionate about. From there, one should establish a system where they track the activities related to those passions and then set goals for them accordingly. You can use productivity apps/sites that utilize gamification, like Life RPG, SuperBetter or Level Up Life to track and maintain goals. Or use a system like mine and track through spreadsheets or lists. Whatever choice you make, do the research and make sure that it’s the right system for you.

So, the bottom line here is that if you want to truly find out what you want out of this fleeting life we all live, go on a personal quest of discovery!

Keep A Log

During The Quest, I kept a notebook and documented what I did in a day, noting the highlights and lowlights in that period. It was a way to help track the goals that I laid out in my Quest. Rereading some of the passages I’ve written has helped me to set new goals or reframe old ones, like writing twice a week as opposed to every day as originally planned.

Sometimes, writing out your thoughts and feelings over a period of time and then looking back through it can reveal a lot about what you want for yourself. You may even come to a realization about yourself that you may have missed altogether! It may not be as earth shattering a revelation as when Kratos learns of his godhood in the God of War series or the fact that Solid Snake and Liquid Snake are twin brothers, but it can set a path for the MDG to move forward, as opposed to aimlessly wandering about. For me, writing about writing was the kicker; I just never realized it until I took a closer look at myself by writing a log of my day.

Two Final Notes

I’d like for you to try this exercise when you get a chance: make a list of the things you really want to spend your time on in a day. In other words, what would you typically want to do in a day if you had no restrictions? Below is what I would love to do in a day, as an example:

Write my novel.
Write some fanfiction.
Write something for the blog.
Interact with my fellow games writers.
Spend time with my wife and son.
Stream online.
Bake stuff.
Exercise
Design and build something really cool.

Now, with that in mind, make a list of the things you typically do in a day and how long you spend on each. Again, I’ll be the example:

Work – 8.5 hours
Commute – 2 hours
Spend time with wife and son – 3 hours
Gaming – 1.5 hours
Writing -1 hour
Sleep – 6 hours
Workout – 0.5 hour
Misc. (Interacting with other writers, baking, chores etc.) – 1.5 hour

Now compare the two lists. You can see that between working, commuting, family time and sleeping, there’s not a lot of wiggle room to work with. If you do your own list, does it make you feel uncomfortable seeing how much time you have left remaining once all your responsibilities are handled? If so, why does it make you uncomfortable? What would you do to change that?

Ultimately, this exercise shows why it’s important to budget time for yourself and your goals. Doing quests and writing logs for your goals does nothing unless you carve out some time out to achieve them. It may require some sacrifice (I might have to cut my gaming time for my case), but it will only help in the long run when it comes to accomplishing your goals. It’s something to keep in mind.

Finally, as we conclude this miniseries, I’d like for you to keep this statement in mind: Focus on being better and chase the impossible. Life is naught but a journey through highs and lows. More specifically, as Auron would say:

And with that, we conclude the series. I thank you for joining me as I (finally, after much delay!) celebrate the blog’s third birthday.

But before I sign off, I have some important announcements. Bear with me, all.

Announcements

First and foremost, with the conclusion of this series, I will be taking an extended hiatus on this blog until I finish my fanfiction passion project. It’s been a goal of mine to finish this and I’ve put it off for far too long. It’s gotten to the point where it has literally taken over my brain and is preventing me from coming up with new ideas here, so I need to get this thing completed once and for all so I can move forward. As I’ve finished my outline roughly last year, I surmise it’ll take me a few more months to completely finish it. Which leads to my next announcement.

I will be posting this story here on this blog exclusively once it’s completed and beta read by others. I used to write on fanfiction.net, but I feel that I have better fanbase here on the blog than anywhere else. No lie, you guys who have been following me, (whether it’s from day one or recently), rock so hard, so I think it’s fair that you all get first dibs on the final, ultimate version my story.

In the intern, I will continue to write for The Well Red Mage and Normal Happenings as a contributor to their respective blogs. As The Hyperactive Coffee Mage on TWRM, I will be writing up more in-depth game reviews and participating in collaborations when they arise. One of which is the absolutely MASSIVE Super Mario Multiverse collaboration! We’re still looking for writers, so check out the post if you want the 411 on this epic undertaking!

On Normal Happenings, I am but one of 52 other bloggers celebrating “The Characters That Define Us:” another massive blogging collaboration featuring writers discussing the characters that made them who they are today! I’m excited to share my story about Sonic the Hedgehog. Look out for it next year! I’ll also be lurking around here and there, reading and commenting and whatnot!

Beyond that, this will be the final post this year for the blog unless I change my mind (or when part one of this epic fanfic is fully finished…). Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding. I love and appreciate you all.

With that, this has been Ryan from Games with Coffee, thanking each and every one of you for joining me on these ramblings and always reminding you to Keep Gaming and Keep Brewing! See you all soon!