 Today I'm with Rochelle Melander. She is a productivity writing coach and we're going to talk about gamifying your writing life Which means making your writing projects more fun, and you could apply to say any other project Rochelle. Thanks for being here Thank you for having me. Yeah, so Rochelle Let me read your official bio for the audience and then we'll get into this process of gamification so See Rochelle Melander is a certified professional coach and the best-selling author of 12 books including level-up quest to master mindset overcome procrastination and increased productivity Rochelle Melander helps coaches entrepreneurs and professionals Overcome distractions and focus on the most important goals as a writing coach She supports her clients and finding their unique story and creating a book that changes lives So Rochelle this idea of gamification. I I like it a lot actually because I have this Weird theory that our life is actually a video game and And actually I do think that we are finding allies and beating the monsters which are our own inner, you know And also outer sort of problems in the world, but but you're you're you have this wonderful you've outlined this process of taking any project, you know, whether we're writing a book whether we are Creating an online course whether we are getting into a consistent rhythm of of creating That that we can make it more fun. We can make it more exciting and we could see more progress. So Walk us through the the seven steps of gamification Sure, so let me just start by by defining it for our group or our listeners because I think you know If you haven't heard of it yet, it might be confusing So gamification just brings game elements to regular every day experiences to make them more engaging And let me give you a quick example. So about 10 years ago pre Pedometer watches my husband and I got those cute little pedometers that click on your belt and We immediately we've been we're always competitive with each other but this became this huge game like who could get more steps in a day and Suddenly my husband was doing things he'd never done before like I'm gonna take the kids to the park Or I'm gonna walk the books back to the library or I'm gonna walk to the grocery store to buy groceries and you know He would get 10,000 and then 15,000 and then 20,000 steps and I was struggling to keep up and And the the benefit was by turning this whole exercise thing into a game We both had more fun were more engaged and got more exercise So that's just a really basic easy example of how people gamify their life And when you think about gamification You think about the way you play games and all the things all the qualities you bring to a game when we play games We're more optimistic more creative usually more persistent Usually play games and it says you failed our first thought is not oh, I'm a loser Our first thought is I'm gonna beat this the next time And so we push retry and go right back trying to beat that same level until we level up to the next to the next Plateau and so I wrote my book level up to help people use quests Which is one of the pieces of gamification in figuring out how they can be more productive, especially as writers Yeah, and can you show can you show the book again? Just a little closer so that we can see and just go up a little closer here level up Quests to master mindset overcome procrastination and increase productivity. I yeah I I love this image you have in the book of kind of like you're you're taking can you show us one more time? It's like yeah, it's like kind of go. It's almost like going above the Typical to you know, it's like being having a having a bigger vision. So thank you. Yeah So I want to talk about there's basically seven elements to gamification I talk about them as steps, but they don't really happen in sequential order Um, so the first step or the first element is to challenge yourself to define your epic win And and one of the things or the thing I really love about this is I know that when we're anxious about a problem Like how to write a book or how to design a coaching program for our clients It's much easier to get excited about solving the problem than it is to try to calm down And soothe ourselves And so often when we combat our anxiety we're trying to calm down and that doesn't work And that's why gamification helps because gamification puts us in this challenge mindset And helps us get strategic about how we're going to solve the problem So the first step is to define an epic win to think about your challenge and with every client that I worked with That first step is defining. What would an epic win look like for you? Would it be finishing a book by a certain date? Would it be creating a course with the work you've done over the last, you know, 10 years? Or would it be um, just consistently creating and sharing content so that you weren't, you know, kind of like Oh, no, it's been six weeks since my last blog post So now with the epic win Quests are the stepping stones you take to achieve your epic win. Yeah Before we go into them. Sorry. Um, you just said something about, you know, setting this up that I thought was really interesting. You said When we're trying to create something we can feel anxious. I think that's a normal response to Doing something creating. I mean, there's something, you know, putting something birthing something that isn't here before You know is isn't okay. So so you're saying that a lot of people tend to try to soothe themselves and The irony of that is when you soothe yourself you have less energy To create and what you're saying is you're essentially saying with gamification. We are transforming The anxiety energy into a challenge energy Right, so that so that you can use the energy for good instead of just turning down the energy and then not feeling Like doing it anymore Yeah, and I think you know the one thing that I I've learned as someone who tends to be anxious is that anxiety and excitement feel identical Um, and so if you can instead of saying I don't want to feel this if you can say I'm going to feel this but I'm going to get excited About solving this problem. Yes. Um, and and then what because so because you divide your big epic challenge into quests Then they become smaller more manageable steps That give you a strategic way to complete the epic win or to get to the epic win Um, so the quests are the stepping stones that you take to achieve the win and we're going to get to that later But first I want to talk about some of the other elements Because it's really important if you're going to use gamification That you use the game elements And you don't have to use all of them, but the more you use the more fun It's going to be for you and the more successful you're going to be So the second thing is to is and this is I think the most fun one is get a secret identity And the reason it sounds kind of kooky, but the reason we do this is because a secret identity Helps us focus on our strengths. So if you think of yourself kind of like Like a wonder woman or a batman or Superman or you know, one of the other superheroes that you like or one that you create That shares some of your strengths that secret super identity can help you tap into whatever your strength is Whether it's resilience or persistence or That's interesting details and what if What if you I mean because a lot of us have a tagline or a professional title Could that be an identity? We we try to embody like if I'm like authentic business coach or something like that is that Does does that count or it needs to be something that's that's secret meaning nobody else knows about this Well, I think it's great if it can be something that's a little tweak on that So it's a little bit secret Um And and it's great like I encourage people just to do use google and search for Superhero name generator And then you'll come up with you'll come up with these generators that are already created that have lots of good Adjectives that help you kind of come up with things Um, so someone I know thought thought of themselves as the super content generator The fastest drafter in town Or a word nerd, um making up fun stuff since 1999 um But your your secret identity should really help you tap into your strengths So whatever you are really good at and I think the thing is Most of us are not aware of or not We're not we don't celebrate what we're really good at. It's just second nature to us You know, so I'm super good at drafting first drafts are really easy for me So I assume they're easy for everybody, but they're not And and should the identity be connected to the the project at hand So if we weren't working on a writing project, let's say we're working on an exercise project. Yeah Right, then then we use an identity that's related to that I think that's a great idea. I think I think your identity needs to be related to your core strengths So that let's say you're horrible at exercising, but you're great at content generation Then think about well, what are the strengths I use for content generation that are going to help me In my exercise challenge and how can I You know, so one of my strengths is I'm super disciplined and so that Would be something in my secret identity I could employ For a daily exercise challenge You know, so that makes sense secret identity is something that you can kind of keep around you So that when you're feeling discouraged, you're like, but I'm the super content generator I can do this or but I'm the wonder woman of content or the wonder woman of exercise Yeah, that sounds good. So the next thing is to identify allies and I feel like, you know There's a lot of research that talks about that when we connect with other people around support Our stress levels go down And we feel happier And we tend to rise to the to the level of the people around us So if they're really good at doing what they do, we get better at doing what we do So it's good to have a list of people that are going to be your allies during your game Maybe people who are doing the same things or maybe people who are doing their own challenges And so you can kind of hold each other accountable Right, and I also have neglected to mention that rachel you are a member of my master heart business mentoring program So it's it's wonderful that you are an ally to others in the program and others are an ally to you as well So yeah, yeah, that is one of the most helpful things I think about a group program like that is that it's got these regular check-ins So that you have allies that you're with every week As opposed to having allies that you just connect with when you feel like it Um, and then this the fourth the fourth element are villains So we all have them And a villain is anything or anyone that prevents you from achieving your goals So it could be your inner critic It could be the fact that you're super distracted and love to play games online Or love to be on facebook or other social media Or it could be that you have toxic family members or friends or colleagues who are consistently putting you down Um, but you it's important to kind of get a sense of who these villains are or what these villains are And then thinking about how you're going to defeat them because that then again that puts that strategic mindset on so a simple example would be um For many of us who work as entrepreneurs one of our villains is social media I mean it helps us but it also can be a huge time waster and it just like sucks the life out of content creation um And so one of the things I've created is a plan where I do my writing before I even go online to check social media Because once I get online once I go into email i'm lost for the day or I could be lost for the day It's easy to get lost um So the fifth element Is power-ups and this is probably I don't know if it's the most important element. It's one of the most important elements If you've ever played a game, you know, how exciting it is in a video game to get a power-up So it's like those little pellets that you get in pac-man um The the things you get along the way that help you fight the villains and win the game Um, and you can get special ones. You can get timed ones. They're all sorts of cool ways that they can happen um in real life power-ups are things that help you Feel stronger happier more energized In the book I list a number of things that I find to be energy renewing And that are actually and I talk in the book about the research behind it But research proves that exercise and walking in nature renews our energy Actually walking in nature is one of the few things that renews your ability to pay attention Which decreases during the day? Making art taking a nap Listening to music all of these things are ways to boost your energy Because none of us can create or work through a whole day Without these power-ups um, and so power-ups are just I mean, I think absolutely essential for getting stuff done I I have a power-up that I do that I do which Some of you watching have have heard about which is my energy reboot and it takes me literally Like 20 seconds to do sometimes 30 seconds and sometimes I just do one part of the energy But which takes me five seconds to do. I mean literally, you know when I'm like just in the moment of writing something I'm like, okay. I'm feeling a little bit, you know anxious about something It's like breathing is you know breathing intentionally Can be this one of the simplest power-ups, right? And it's really it's it's almost like a reset within the game So when you're playing a video game, you know after each level you kind of reset You gain some more strength some more power-ups a power-up kind of resets you and gives you a little more oomph to move forward And then a sixth element is identifying rewards and rewards are just like bigger power-ups That's what you get when you're done with a quest and the last thing And it is it is to design quests. So as I said earlier, you got your epic win Um, you don't get from start to your epic win without quests Quests are the little steps that get you there And so if your epic win is completing a draft of your business book by the end of may You need to figure out how are the little ways you're going to get there between now and then because if you wrote Complete business book in your to-do list You would just be overwhelmed. Um, so quests have little have little things Elements that make them work. So they're measurable Um, so they have some sort of measurable goal like write 500 words a day Um, what what exercise for 20 minutes, you know, eat something green for every meal Those are all kind of small measurable quests It's also great if you're doing a quest to kind of have a win where and what So you kind of know when you're going to do something where you're going to do it and what so it might be After breakfast, I will sit at my desk and write 500 words of my business book or write 500 words of this specific piece of my book Um, it's good to have a power up. So when I get stuck, I'm going to and you already have a plan I'm going when I get stuck. I'm going to sweep the floor. I'm going to do my breathing or Take a walk around the block And then you have your rewards So you know what you're going to get out of finishing it and honestly at the beginning of the process when you start using quests It's all about the reward it's all about getting to the good stuff because Sometimes that quest piece is so painful, especially if you're a person who's struggled around writing For a long time or struggled around exercise or eating your vegetables You know, it's all about getting to that piece of chocolate at the end of the meal Um, but as you go and play the quest over and over again Pretty soon the quest will bring its own rewards and you'll get that kind of feeling of You know, aren't I awesome? For completing this quest, you know for doing my work for doing my exercise Um, yeah, this is this is powerful. I mean on on just different levels. I mean one level is that Um, like at this deeper level when we when we see life as a video game I mean when we think about a video game Actually, we're not trying to get to the end of the video game as fast as possible Right. It's at the irony is when we're playing video game. We are enjoying All the different scenes along the way and the different, you know The elements and they're like, oh, it's not cool. Oh, wow. Oh, it's not it's not scary But that's kind of cool because it's because we know it's just a game It's like if we could also see our own project says to like to notice and enjoy The all the various details along the way, that's that's like then we can enjoy the whole thing Right, exactly. Yeah, and I think I mean I You know, so many of us have so many Issues surrounding creative work Um and or whatever it is So I said, you know, I work mostly work with people who are writers But or who are professionals who need to write as part of their job And and there's a lot of stress around this because it was part of what we did with school. And so I think um gamification helps us to make it more fun And it's a great way to overcome the stress of it um With with a little bit of ease You know as opposed to with so much effort. I mean we need both effort and ease But gamification makes it more fun And I had um a colleague of mine from master heart Took my gamification workshop and and you know before that he said he really struggled with writing He really struggled to get there. He would create all sorts of reasons and excuses creative excuses not to do it um But using gamification He said his writing and his writing process was completely changed by it that now he has fun And and he's able to show up and get stuff done with ease and not with the pain that he used to have Wow, this is fantastic. So um, let's wrap up this conversation and For those who are watching who would love to do more work with rachelle Um a couple of ways one of course is get the book. So rachelle show us the book again Uh, and this book is available anywhere everywhere books are sold wherever you buy a book you can find it there And secondly, um rachelle you do workshops Online workshops people can attend from anywhere in the world on topics like this I will be sure to put a link and by the way for those who want the summary of the seven steps again There's that's in the notes of the videos So be sure to look above or below the video wherever you're watching this to look for the notes And then there's also going to be a link to rachelle's workshops And then rachelle also does one-to-one work So whether you are wanting coaching on on your writing projects or on your productivity She could do the one-on-one work with you in terms of the productivity or in terms of the actual writing She's a pro writer. She's published by traditional publishers as well as self-published. So she's done both And uh, she knows the publishing process book publishing process very well And editing process all that stuff. So rachelle anything you want to say about how you work with clients? Um Sorry, I just I lost my train of thought. I I work with clients individually I work with them in groups So I have some group coaching programs where we work together and helping you get from book idea to finished book Um, and then I had some coaching groups which help you get more done and kind of get writing to be a regular part of your life And so the consultation enables us to kind of talk and figure out What's the best fit for you and me in terms of how we would work together in a way that's going to benefit you and your goals Great. Yeah, so that that's really the next step if you're interested in working With rachelle either in a group or one-to-one is get that Complimentary consultation with her and kind of get to know her a bit and see what is the best fit Thank you so much rachelle for this conversation and for the work that you do. Thank you so much george. This has been great. Thanks