How I gamified the process of quitting my job?

It’s been more than a year since I quit my job after I worked in the corporation for 7.5 years and it’s time to tell how I was planning to give up and make a game of the whole process to make it more interesting for me.

A job becomes a prison

For the last couple of years, I could no longer learn anything in the current position and I was just working for money. When you only work for money, it means you’ve become an empty number, a fat man who spins the wheel up to death. I knew I needed to do something because it was time consuming.

I felt like I was in jail, as if I were serving a prison sentence where I could go home on weekends.

Eat Different is growing

I started Eat Different in 2015, and at first I did not think too much about earnings. I looked at it more as a project through which I could express and help people, educate and entertain them, and social media were on the rise, especially Facebook. Realistically, I had the daily growth of new fans and I have it today on a daily basis.

I began to be aware that I should build a house where I could stay after I escape from this prison. And for every escape from prison, you need an escape plan.

The escape plan

And so am, about four months before I planned to quit my job, made a plan to escape from this jail. On the wooden board that hangs in the room I wrote the stages, how much I need to blow the tunnel to escape undisturbed.

I made a game of the whole process.

Where are the guards who can catch me? How fast do I have to run so that the night lights of the guard do not see me? How high is the fence, do I have to skip or cut it? When will be a day when I’ll do it because the escape can only be tried once.

Of course, these are all metaphors that symbolize the creation of content for Different, sales of personal training in the gym, nutrition plans and other things that will help me to escape. When I know I have at least 30% of the salary from these things, then it’s time to escape.

And every day I dig a tunnel.

And I observe the guards.

I strategize.

And it happens that I get two new clients, a couple, my work colleagues! In my little game I interpreted this as the guard gave me confidential information about some of the things I was struggling to escape. This is even more fun when you share a story with your friends and day after day you get news of the plan, and the wooden board with ithangs on the wall of your room all the time and you are constantly upgrading it.

That day comes when I decide to escape from prison. Night fall, I go through the tunnel.  The moon is full, everything is silent. I am cautious, trying to learn the sound of my steps so that I could adjust it in the way. The guards are in their positions, some of them on the towers, circulating with the light.

I’m watching the light circles, my heart knocking harder and harder. I’m so close, I have only one chance. My last leg bounces on the ground, the heart stops beating and stands aside to watch the situation, my hand passes through the air and I run. I run perfectly, like Usain Bolt in every race.

I avoid all the lights, observing the sound of my steps while running, breathing silently, I know I’m very close. I have a tall, thin fence in front of me. I’m gonna run without problems and I’m there.

I’m climbing over the fence. I’m making noise. Loud noise. I took the guard’s attention, heard their voices, felt their strong light on my back and saw my shadow in front of me. They noticed me, but it’s too late. I’m already on the other side of the fence, running to the unknown area.

I’m free 🙂

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