So I was going through my touch flipping through applications the other day, when I came across it.  Doodle Jump.  For those of you who don’t know what Doodle Jump is, it’s an insanely addictive game where you move a little Doodler as he jumps from platform to platform, evading obstacles and monsters, to try and climb to a new highest score.

The game always ends with you reaching the inevitable frustration of watching your little Doodler plunge to his doom as you let out a, “Noooooo”…and then play again.

The thing is, I haven’t played this game in months.  At one time something that was so addictive and exciting has lost its allure.

I sat there wondering why my mind wasn’t interested in jumping through Doodle Land anymore.  I knew the appeal was gone as I sat there playing a game, just waiting for it to be over. (Well, actually I have to admit I still break this out from time to time.) But it was no where near as exciting as it once was.

And it dawned on me that the game just got to be monotonous.  What were once exciting challenges turned into redundant expectations.  The flow of the game had been lost because there were no new difficulties.

What I learned from Doodle Jump is that life without challenge becomes boring.  Entertaining new challenges and ideas would mean your considering doing something you did not think possible. Otherwise we get caught up in the rut of reaffirming what we already know we can do instead of trying out new ways of being.

Think about it.  We may enjoy when things become easy.  But overtime that enjoyment will transform into boredom.  A skier will get bored riding down the same green circle slope. They have acquired new skills and what once tested their abilities and gave them excitement now only gives a fraction of the happiness it used to.

A tennis player, will not enjoy hitting with someone who is well below their skill level as they would with someone who slightly surpasses it.  An avid reader will not get the same enjoyment from those 3rd grade picture books (Well, there are always exceptions!) But you get the picture.  (Pardon the pun)

New challenges are not something that should be avoided, but embraced as an opportunity for learning and improving skills. In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (Try pronouncing that one) Flow, he found that when challenges and skills were both high, people felt more cheerful, active, creative, and satisfied.

I have reached many points in my life where I have felt dissatisfied in something that once was a great source of joy.   Exercise seems to be the most redundant one.  I would try to just push through the resistance, but it was only making matters worse.  It was like forcing myself to play Doodle Jump for an hour each day.

It wasn’t until I started thinking about exercise in new ways, breaking free of my routines, and doing different genre’s of activities that I really got back into the enjoyment of an active lifestyle.  Swimming, hiking, sprinting, rock climbing, dancing, have all been new challenges and new levels of excitement.

I started hitting a wall with my blogging as well.  I was really starting to dread it.  I tried to be so methodical and precise in my posts that they lost their enjoyment. Now I try and take personal stories and examples and just talk them out.  Much more exciting because I don’t search for the ideas, I just live out my life, sit on my porch play some Doodle Jump, and then write a post on that!

I challenge you to challenge yourself.  It might just break the barrier of boredom you’ve been chronically hitting against.

What if there was an immeasurable power that existed. This power could transform your reality.  It could bring hope, optimism, motivation, change, love, achievement, and beauty to your life.  Would you use this power, going after everything you wanted, or would you simply let it go to waste?

This power is the story of you.  It is what makes your life so interesting, so authentic, so…empowering.  Think about the structure of a story.

A story made up of chapters. Chapters containing sequences of events.  Some foreshadowing others.  Others prefacing some.  And the rest are unknown twists of irony eluding any means of prediction.

The pages written can serve a versatile function.  Those pages could be setting up events to come or they could mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

The important piece, is that we are the author of these stories.  We write them and thus live them.  And where do we gather material filling the copious leather-bound pages of the intricate chronicles of life?  We gather them from our experiences.

Actions are consistently happening to us. We tell stories of these events.  We tell stories based off our perceptions, our reactions, our interpretations, and inevitably, what we come to believe.  And if beliefs shape our reality, then the perceptions of actions of our past influence our interaction with the events of our future.

But you see, our book of life is filled with stories not actions.  And so, as moments engage in the well practiced routine of moving forward, we forget the actual occurrence and remember the stories we tell.

In some way, the authentic instance is less important than the story we put on it.  So our stories hold a pivotal role, as they serve as the context of our life.

So if something happened, some action took place, and we tell ourselves the story that we are not good enough, it begins to become our reality.  For reality is what you make it.  In some ways, reality is not the actions that occur, but the way you perceive those events.

But our stories are as malleable as the words we use to shape them.  If we are telling ourselves the story of not being good enough, the interpretation, the perception, and the inevitable belief originates from you.

You have created this interpretation.  Whether it is be based off the context of how you should react to events or some subjective opinion – the creation of this story is solely traced back to the pen of its author.  The reality you are living in is formed by your perception of past events.

In this way, we are all artists.  Our days are a constant creation.

The best artists can take an object and see it a number of different ways.  The same practice can be applied to the actions of our lives.  There are many perceptions, many stories that could be told.

Some stories take courage to tell.  A story of ‘can’ sets the bar high.  I can create beautiful art, I can be a loving spouse, I can make a difference in the lives of others, I can find fulfillment in my work, I can loose ten pounds, I can renew a lost relationship, I can be accepted and loved by others.

The ability of can lies in the story you tell.  What we tell ourselves is impossible, simply hasn’t been written yet.  It is unknown.  Those words lie in the pages to come, and those pages lie in the stories you tell.

The only thing that is, the only thing that truly exists, is the reality your mind creates.  It effectively gathers its plot, tone, imagery, characters, and theme from the content you have created.  Then, there is nothing left to do, but play out the sequence of events according to your self-created potential.

This is the most important story of your life.  Let it be audacious and unimaginable. Let it be brilliant and ridiculous. Let it be extraordinary and legendary.  But most of all let it be you – the surreal, beautiful story, written and lived by you.

So then, what’s your story?

It is the tiniest parts of life that can make the the biggest differences.  A chess player won’t overlook the necessity of its pawns and a sprinter knows the importance of a tenth of a second.

A moment is valuable. Some more then others, but if we start to chuck them out the window like worthless pennies, we will most definitely neglect some of the most worthwhile ones.

Life comes at us in waves.  Literally, giant, oceanic, swirling waves.  Heaps of water crashing down, each with different breaking points.

In the midst of all this chaos of crashing, it becomes increasingly difficult to hone in on a single molecule of water.  Each is part of a chain of events created by ripples and wind speed.  In the midst of a wave, it is tough to appreciate a single drop of water.  But it is the change in air pressure flickering across the individual molecules of water that gives birth to this massive swell – this unstoppable movement of change.

And so the culmination of these water molecules create something much bigger then itself.  The same principle can be applied to life.  Little achievements can make a big difference.  In fact little achievements are the path to a big difference.

Financial guru, Dave Ramsey, illustrates the power of small successes though an unprecedented debt-fighting technique.  While most financial consultants will take the obvious steps of paying out the highest interest debts first, Ramsey takes a different tactic, focusing in on other outstanding payments.

His game plan is simple, pay off the minimum payment on all outstanding debts and then put the rest of your money to paying off the smallest debt.  Ramsey completely disregards high-interest debts.  The idea being that you will quickly pay off the smallest loan and then move on to the next, and the next, creating a snowball effect of money being applied to the sequential debt payment.

You need quick wins to get you fired up.  Our brain responds to these positive outcomes, giving us signs of hope.  The timeless sports quote, “a win is a win,” could not be more true.  Our mind recognizes and is stimulated by these accomplishments, no matter the size.  They motivate us, rallying a mental effort preparing for the next positive feeling of a win.

Ramsey says, “If you pay $185 toward a $20,000 debt on a high interest credit card, you’re still going to feel hopeless. But if you completely pay off a $185 overdue utility bill, you can cross that off your list. You’ve won a small victory over debt.”

When we face overwhelming moments in life, those gigantic, crashing waves, we tend to avoid them.  A wave builds up and breaks down by instinct. It is its very nature.  Following this visceral pattern of mother nature, can aid in the accomplishment of extraordinary things.  Break down looming obstacles, build up legendary moments.  The tiniest actions, fit into our daily lives, stimulate positive emotions, and build a changing surge filled with the thrill of ecstasy, the power of legendary.

We interact with life through a set of contexts, a scale of possibilities.  The bar gets set and everything under it becomes achievable.

We become familiar with the scales of our lives telling us what we can or cannot do.  Everything within it, achievable.  Everything beyond it, unknown.

If a 3 mile run is part of a person’s daily workout, they generally accomplish it with little doubt.  They have a resume of successes from all their past runs.  It acts as evidence for their ability – known, definite, and achievable.

Now say this person is asked to go on a 10 mile run.  “Woah, hold on a sec now. That’s far.”

It is far if you’ve been used to 3 mile runs, but if you’re a person training for a marathon, 10 miles is a breeze.

It’s all about the context of the situation and the scales you have built in your life. They tell you what you can do just as much as they tell you what you cannot.

Think about all the scales in your life.  Money, friends, enjoyment, exercise, success, creativity, knowledge, all set to a scale, our scale.  I make x amount of money, I have y number of friends, I exercise that much, I’m this creativite.  We fulfill these expectations for ourselves, but we have trouble surpassing them.

Change your scale, shift your context.  Be unrealistic, be unreasonable.  If you expect to run 10 miles everyday, even if you only get 5 or 6, it still makes that 3 miles a breeze.

Soon you set a new scale for yourself.  You start gathering new evidence, accomplishing new things.

Everything you have done has currently gotten you to where you are.  The context of your life shows all your current known abilities.  Raise that bar.

Everything done this far is known, because it is past.  The goals you set for the future can fall in line with your current context or they can be completely unrealistic in comparison.

Some would say it’s not good to be unreasonable or unrealistic.  But when you’re reasonable you use the same strategies that worked before, the same scales that you know you will find success in.

If you set the bar high for yourself, if you embrace different strategies, set different goals, look at things with a new perspective you will breakthrough to new areas of your life.

Don’t live life to scale, that just isn’t realistic.