Claudia Chan

I started playing FFXIV at the end of November 2021, and after playing for about 10 times (around 4-5 hours each), I reached level 51 in the main story on Dec 25, 2021. 

(To give you some perspective, my husband has been playing for 3-4 years and he just recently reached Level 62 in the main story. Of course, his character is way stronger in all other areas (Level 60+ in various jobs and tasks, while mine is only in 1 area.) 

Nonetheless, I am very impressed with myself, and even though it is just a game, here are 4 Life Lessons I took away!

1. Deliberately Choose What My Heart Wants!

This is the easiest thing to say, but not so easy to do. 

Because I wasn’t programmed to do what I want!

I was programmed to do what everyone else said I should be doing! 

I mean, my mom, school, work, culture, society.. all of them dictated how I should behave. 

After this many years of “training”, I barely knew who I was, let alone what I want! 

That’s why we need to get back into knowing who we are. Doing what we truly want to do is the truest definition of ourselves. 

This time, I felt a tug of desire to play after my husband created a character for my son. I felt it and said, Hey, I want to build my own character too, I want to play the game too. 

Then I chose to do it. That was power. 

2. Plan for It, Use It as a Reward!

For this game, I definitely planned for it. 

If I didn’t plan for it, 2 things would have happened. 

I would either: 

a) stop myself from playing the game, because part of me didn’t want to do the work. I knew if I don’t finish my work, my guilty conscience wouldn’t let me play in order to “punish” myself. 

or 

b) indulge so much into the game that I’d totally ignore my work. 

So by scheduling it, the game is now my reward. Once I get my work done, then I can play for the rest of the night! 

3. Going All In to Play Hard

I love achievements, that’s why I love playing games. That’s why once I start playing a new game, I go all in! 

When I reached level 50, I crashed.  

Contempt was the first to set in. I felt so disgusted with myself! My first thought was, “OMG… I “wasted” all these time to play this game!”

I had to reason with myself to say, “No, I deliberately scheduled to play!” 

So I had to lovingly change my thought from, “I wasted all this time” to “I am someone who play hard, work hard, rest hard!” 

4. Celebrate Myself

Since I love the feeling of achievements, it’s not a surprise that I was placing more importance on the end goal instead of the journey. 

And even though I’d achieved so much by getting to level 50, I was not proud of myself at all. I gave myself 0 credit. 

So I had to get myself to celebrate everything about myself!  

Here’re a few things about me that I celebrated:  

• my incredible sense of focus
• my high level of endurance
• I’m a fast-learner
• I don’t give up
• I’m willing to try something new
• I reached Level 50 in 10 days (on Christmas day!)
• I’m having fun and I CHOSE it!

So here they are, the 4 Life Lessons I learned from playing Final Fantasy XIV. 

1. When you feel a spark, choose it to give it a try. 
2. Put it into your schedule to make it happen 
3. Make a commitment to go all in, whether it is to play hard, work hard, or rest hard. 
4. Celebrate yourself every step of the way

Listen, we get to start living for ourselves. So if you ever feel a tug of desire within you, I hope you lean into it too! 

Guilt will come up, self contempt will come up, but I guarantee you that as you keep working through these, you will keep expanding. And don’t forget to keep celebrating yourself!