Are you ready to level up?

When I was younger, I loved video games, specifically, Super Mario Brothers. Little Mario traveled his way through all sorts of obstacles and challenges, bumping into mushrooms, dodging flaming balls, and jumping on turtles, all in an attempt to rescue the princess.

I remember the sense of accomplishment when Mario achieved the next milestone, but that dopamine hit didn’t last long. As soon as I made it to the next level, the game got more difficult. The threats were greater, the challenges harder, and the next level seemed impossible. I had a couple of choices: I could keep playing the levels I’d already passed. After all, I knew the tricks and shortcuts, and every time I went through those levels, they got a little easier. Or I could try the next level where I was most certainly going to fail.

Like a video game, life is a series of challenges, obstacles, lessons, and growth. It can feel like the second you recover from one challenge, you are confronted with another. You put in the work, you learn, you grow, you overcome, yet there always seems to be another challenge ahead.

Just like a video game, life is a series of opportunities to level up.

Think of your life as a series of levels.

In level 1, childhood, you learn the basics of life: How to walk, talk, eat. Quicker than you realize, you advance from one level to the next, learning to work with others, problem solve, live on your own.

All the skills you learn in level 1 build in level 2. You’ll still need to know how to walk, talk, and eat in level 2, but it won’t solve all your problems. That is something we constantly forget. While the skills we’ve learned are helpful, what worked to win in level 1 and 2, won’t always work in level 3 and 4.

The same is true in any time or place of change. When your team is changing at work, you’re starting a new level. New circumstances, new skills, new challenges, new teammates. The way you’ve always done things isn’t always going to work.

Leveling up often happens without you even realizing. Once you find yourself outside of your comfort zone, feeling stuck, scared, or lost, you’ve probably leveled up. The real question is, how do you find comfort and success in this new level of your life?

Whether it is learning to walk, getting through high school (you couldn’t pay me enough to do that again), starting a new job, or building relationships, we face obstacles, learn, make a plan, and move forward. We can either play it safe and do what we’ve always done, or we can choose to tackle the next level. The only way to achieve our potential (or save the princess) is to embrace the discomfort of the unknown.

So, I have two questions for you, and you can reply in the comments with your answers:

1. If your life were a video game, what game would it be?

2. Where in your life would you most like to level up and why?

Over the next few weeks, I'll dive into different ways to level up to battle burnout and improve well-being.