Discover the secret to approaching life with a playful spirit, overcoming challenges, and achieving your goals
"We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing."
You have an issue. You see them everywhere. Not dead people. Problems are wherever you look. Bill after bill, deadline after deadline, one struggle after the other, the flow of shit in your way is constant. Welcome to the world of grinders, but not the app users with the same name.
You want to enjoy your life. You are barely surviving it. You are not alone.
Deep down, you know that there is another way—there is always one—and it is all about destroying to recreate.
Destroy the war frame and rebuild the game frame. With that simple shift, life becomes a game. You can reframe your worldview from grinding to thriving.
You will explore the costs of:
1. The Grind Mentality
2. Taking Life Too Seriously
3. Avoiding Challenges
4. Seeing Failure as Punishment
5. The Win-or-Lose Mentality
In this article, you and I will explore why we bought the grind mindset, its limitations, and how to build a new frame of mind.
You will be more fulfilled, expand your mind, and enjoy the ride while it lasts.
Disclaimer: This article is not about undermining hard work. It is more about balancing work and rest and preserving your mental health while enjoying the journey.
1. The Grind Mentality
"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
- Charles R. Swindoll
With social media, you are flooded with shorts about the grind mentality. As you scroll through the feed, you are overwhelmed by stress and anxiety.
It’s easy; just follow my steps. Resting and sleep are for the weak. If I have done it, you can also.
All those dopamine hits drain your energy and motivation. You are locked on your screen and a prisoner of the grind mentality.
You look around and feel like they left you behind. All those influencers are having the best time of their lives. You? What did you accomplish today while they were awake at 05:00 AM?
Nothing excites you. You are a living statue chained to that social media platform. You feel guilty when you take some time to rest, reset, and reflect.
You have been playing by their rules, measuring your success by someone else's ruler. You are the fool. And that is not cool, my friend.
What if you could be the right fool? The intentional fool? The King of Fools, aka the Joker?
You could escape the rat race and embrace the life game. You could compete, yes, now and then. Most often, though, you will learn, grow, and definitely have fun.
Once you reframe life as a game, you become your own boss. Challenges become opportunities in disguise. You will be your kid self again. You will become kind to yourself again. You will regain the awe of playing, rediscover a sense of purpose about the game, and create your own hall of fame.
Shift your perspective on life. Repeat to yourself daily: it’s not a race. It’s a game. It is not about winning or losing. It is about just playing as long as possible.
Regain happiness and fulfillment while enjoying the ride. That‘s right before your eyes, my friend.
2. Taking Life Too Seriously
"Life is too important to be taken seriously."
– Coco Chanel
Why so serious? The Joker from The Dark Knight. Your face is a wonderland for your wrinkles. You like your “serious mode” and are always on about everything in life. Fun is for the fools. You show them your “do not disturb” face whenever joy bangs into your mind.
You take everything so seriously that you look away, even when a kid smiles.
You are so rigid that people pass by you thinking that you are a statue. You are a black hole of having fun. All fools die before your eyes. You freeze whenever something new drops close to you.
You are constantly stressed and anxious about being foolish. You see the world as depressing. Your face screams to the world: I am not happy. I am beaten up by dissatisfaction.
There is another way to your life than a constant dread of seriousness. Bring back that inner child. It is not about being childish in your approach to life. It is about seeing life through their eyes: having a sense of joy and curiosity.
Bring back humor to everything you do in life. Experiment with new things like that kid without fearing judgment or failure.
Life is suffering. Yes, maybe. But don’t let that deprive you of having fun, being playful, and laughing.
Summon your inner child into every challenge you face in life. Playfulness will open your mind and make the most challenging tasks enjoyable.
3. Avoiding Challenges
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
– Wayne Gretzky
You are constantly grinding. When a new challenge arises, you have no bandwidth to face it. You feel like walls surround you, trying to crush you.
You become allergic to any new opportunity. You just want to apply that blueprint you bought online from your favorite influencer.
You like it easy, you eat it easy, and you breathe easily. Fulfillment is not part of the criteria for a good life for you.
Taking risks? Hell No. Are You crazy? What if I fail? What if I embarrass myself and someone is recording?
You move from one grind map to the other. You are the perfect starter and the worst finisher ever. But here is hope, my friend.
As Ryan Holiday said, the obstacle is the way. Challenges are the stepping stones to reaching your full potential.
Challenges are the oxygen of your growth zone. They are the fuel to build new skills and abilities, the ways to test your abilities, and the ways to grow your capabilities.
Reframe challenges as opportunities. Make the obstacle the way. Only through your challenges can you grow into your new self, capable of achieving more and being more resilient and confident.
Take that shot. Either you win, or you learn. You will never fail. Your future self is counting on you.
4. Seeing Failure as Punishment
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
– Thomas Edison
You always feel like the universe is conspiring against you. Each time you try something new, life punches you in the face. Yes, it hurts. I know. I have been there.
You see the gates of your comfort zone as a cemetery where you will never stop. You just don’t know it yet: your comfort zone is your dead zone, my friend.
You never take the chance of failing, so you risk failing by default. You are a cat, seeing every opportunity as a wave of water in your direction. You often find yourself beating yourself up for your mistakes—constantly.
Your river of opportunities has become dry. You have killed and buried every ounce of innovation or creativity within you.
Your self-esteem and your confidence level are skyrocketing to the doom pit.
100% of lottery winners have played. 100% of successful people have failed. 100% of those who have overcome defeats and setbacks learned from their failures.
Life is a wave, and failure is its water. The universe has nothing against you personally. You are not punished for trying. You feel like you are being punished because you are not ready to learn.
See your failures as paying tickets to the concert of your success. Learn from them and do things differently.
Don't carve your mind into the rigidity stone. Let it breathe. Let it live. Set it free into the wild so that it can be and grow.
5. The Win-or-Lose Mentality
"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
You see every person as a competitor who can still win your prize. Either you win, or they steal your prize.
You burn yourself into the way of being the “best” so that you can take it all. No, my friend, you cannot have it all. Even by some black magic you did, you could not eat it all.
You relentlessly compare yourself to other people. Again, they stole what was rightly yours. You feel entitled to downplay and ignore their success.
You only play when you are 100% sure that you will win. Or you cheat your way to success because the end justifies the means. Your end, not theirs.
Your wins don’t feel full because you are fooling yourself. All your relationships are strained.
Ditch the win-or-lose mentality. Life is definitely not a Zero-sum game. Don’t always try to get the most significant part of the pie at all costs.
Find innovative and inclusive ways to make the pie bigger for everyone.
Find joy in the journey and not the destination. Find communion in enjoying the ride together and further.
Set your own goals with your own metrics measured by your own ruler. Each daily win deserves a celebration, no matter how small or perceived as insignificant by others. Be your own cheerleader.
Fall in love with the process, not the product. Find joy in the present moment. Life is a musical. You cannot stop the music from reaching other people. That is outside of your control.
Dance now. That is in your control. You can win without others losing. They win because the universe is abundant, not because they stole from you. You can lose without others winning.
The Eternal Now is the same for everybody. Seize it before it flees.
Final Thoughts
You see your life as a football match. Yes, not soccer, you Americans. You feel like when the final whistles blow, either you win or lose.
You are trying to do everything necessary to eliminate the competition and win at all costs.
Yes, you are partially right. Life is a game. Yet it is not a sucker's game, you British people.
Life is an infinite game. There are no winners or losers. There is only the game playing into eternity. That is the ultimate mindset you need to get.
Build rest into your life to set yourself up to pay as long as possible. Preserve your energy by saying no as often as possible and setting clear boundaries with others. Your mental health is your primordial wealth.
Embrace the true meaning of the game of life. See challenges as opportunities. Everything that the universe throws at you is only to test your game skills.
That is the only way to the next level. You are ready to play with the growth mindset's superpowers, clarity of purpose, and shield of playfulness.
Life is a game. And you really start playing when you understand that you only have one shot.
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Photo by Evgeniy Alyoshin on Unsplash
