Jordan Peterson, a popular psychology professor, once said of Elon Musk:
“What the hell do you make of someone like that?”
He’s right, what do you make of someone like Elon Musk?
How does he do the seemingly impossible things he does? (Like launching an electric car into space.) Elon Musk can do these things because he learns differently.
Elon Musk once said in an interview:
“The more you can gamify the process of learning, the better. I do not have to encourage my kids to play video games.”
Elon Musk didn’t go much deeper than this. What I want to discover is: What does it mean to gamify learning?
Elon Musk said in the same interview:
“If you can explain the ‘why’ of things, then that makes a huge difference to people’s motivation. Then they understand purpose."
Before you can be motivated to gamify learning in your life, I have to explain what it is, then why its important.
What does it Mean to Gamify Learning?
The gamification of learning is the process you take to make learning fun again.
Learning for its own sake is essential to increasing your potential.
To gamify learning is to put human curiosity and potential back on its rightful pedestal.
Why the Gamification of Learning is Essential to the Betterment of YOU
You are a complex being who is motivated by many things. A majority of us are motivated by various things, commonly, money and status. We crave those as our rewards.
When you gamify learning you make learning the reward.
Learning is what allows us to create, and communicate better. By learning for fun, nothing is impossible.
Below are the direct benefits of making learning fun again.
The Gamification of Learning Will Make You More Original
When learning is fun:
you take new routes
you ask every question
you think differently
By having curiosity and asking the right questions you’ll start arriving at new paths. Paths that have yet to be blazed.
Becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of your favorite topic will inevitably turn you into an original thinker, and eventually, a leading one.
The Gamification of Learning Will Maximize the Time You Have
You should gamify learning to learn faster and better. Make the most with your time and have fun with it.
When you enjoy something, time flies, but you also operate more efficiently. You can also consider this “getting in the zone”.
Don’t waste any more time. Learn to learn better.
The Gamification of Learning Will Lead you to Your Calling, Faster
When you gamify learning you eliminate the boring and introduce the interesting.
This involves experimenting with new things.
After finding what interests you the most: learn, take action, and you’ll see your calling arrive.
Our Time & Talents have been Wasted through Bad Systems — An Example
Schools don’t motivate people to learn. Schools convince students that good grades are what are important to successful learning; however, learning does not create good grades.
Learning doesn’t create good grades because to learn you must make mistakes.
When you gamify learning you must allow for mistakes to be made. The only consequence comes from the application of false knowledge, not bad grades.
The first step to gamifying learning is to remove restrictive systems like schools.
Grades restrict our curiosity and experimental nature.
Past the grades, the literal school building is designed with obedience in mind, not learning.
You must tear down artificial systems, like schools, that have held you back for so long.
You are kept complacent, worried, and on a predestinated path by them.
Instead create your own system or find one that enhances your human potential and creativity.
The removal of oppressive systems gives your brain the freedom to think.
How to Reset Your Brain to Factory Default Settings— Childlike Experimentation
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
To experiment well is to test many waters, travel many roads, and experience many things, and have childlike fun doing it.
The experimentation process in relation to gamifying your learning involves one thing: going from the most general to the highly specific.
You achieve this by asking more precise questions. Remember, if you stay curious enough to ask questions in what you chose to learn about, you’re on the right path.
Generalized step-by-step process goes as follows:
1. I want to learn more and better. What do I want to learn about?
2. I found what I want to learn about. What is something within this topic that interests me?
3. I found what interests me within this topic. What can I produce with this newfound information?
4. I produced something. Is this something I would enjoy doing more of?
5. I enjoy doing more. What are some ways I can improve what I produce?
If your answer to any question is to stop or say no, then you may not be on the right path. However, a level of self-discipline is needed to make it to step 3.
Step 3 is important because once you produce something, you should step back and ponder: “Am I satisfied with what I produced?”
You may be on the right path even if you say yes or no.
If you say no, this may mean you’re thinking of new ways to improve what you created. This means you are already on step 5, you probably enjoy it!
If you aren’t thinking of ways to improve it, you may of have lost interest, and you should stop and learn about something else.
If you say yes, I am satisfied, you should keep producing, reiterating and improving on past prototypes. You’re on step 5 already in this case too.
In either case, you should finally arrive at step 6: The zone.
The Zone — a Mystery of the Mind
What is the zone?
The zone is a spur of the moment mindset of pure focus, passion, and creative energy.
Distractions are what keep us out of the zone. Part of the experimentation process I failed to mention above involves eliminating the unnecessary and prioritizing the important essentials.
I wrote a blog post specifically about achieving this.
The zone is rare to get into. It takes a particular combination of both discipline and motivation.
Discipline is what gets you started. Motivation is what keeps you going.
Achieving the zone takes long-term thoughtful effort, and you won’t even be aware that you entered it.
You’ll know when you exit, and it’ll seem like time passed quicker than it should have.
The zone is a mystery. For each person, the journey to arrive there is different.
What you should take away from this
Remind yourself that learning and creating should be fun. Avoid what drains you of life and energy.
Take the proper steps to put your mind into “gamified-mode” by following the experimentation process outlined above.
Try your best to remove systems that hold your passion and creativity back.
Take account of when you enter the zone and latch onto that thing you did. This may be your calling.
My Plan for this Project
If you hadn’t noticed, there seems to be a lot of unanswered questions from this article.
1. What are more specific things I can do to gamify my learning?
2. What more is there to learn about the zone?
3. What kind of systems restrict the freedom of my brain?
My vision is to turn this into a long running series and then boil everything down into an easy to read, easy to act upon guide.
I’ll be answering these questions and more.
The deeper dive guide will be available on my soon to be launched website: madguides.com.
If you’re interested in this subject matter subscribe and follow my Medium to receive updates on stuff like:
New articles about self-enhancement, cryptocurrency, and actionable economics.
Launch of MadGuides
Thought experiments
The next post in this series will cover the differences between motivation and discipline and how that relates to being a happily productive person.
Be on the lookout for that. Until next time! Thanks for reading.
Credit: Maddox
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