Speedrun your way to level INFINITY with these Life RPG cheats!

Jen Kirchner· October 06, 2025· [general]

I did it! I completed level 1 of my personal Life RPG and I’m now officially level TWO! It’s the equivalent of a toddler who can barely use utensils and might not remember how many fingers to show when you ask their age. But hey, progress is progress! If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, check out this blog post where I discuss turning my goals into my own live-action RPG where I complete quests, get rewards, and level up: Get in, losers, we’re going to Mordor.

It took me nine weeks to complete six quests of my own design. The quests were primarily focused on my big dreams of writing and health and fitness. Now that I’ve crossed the first finish line, I’m back to write a retrospective and share my experience—and some surprising tricks—in the hope that it will inspire you to start your own Life RPG journey. So let’s get into it.

Cheat #1: Arm yourself with correction tape

I bet you weren’t expecting me to say “correction tape,” but hear me out. Figuring out the difficulty of your level 1 quests is critical. After all, they’re your baseline. When you get to higher levels, you’ll probably repeat a lot of your level 1 quests at an increased difficulty. So where do you start? Think of your level 1 quests as Goldilocks and the Three Bears: If they’re too hard, you’ll get frustrated and might quit. If they’re too easy, you may question whether you’re really moving toward your goals or just wasting time. Like Goldilocks, you’ve gotta get the quests and their difficulty just right.

If you’re anything like me, you might create quests that are more robust than you’re capable of. Know what I mean? I jumped into the level 1 quests like Drizzt Do’Urden, but in reality I was more Rincewind.

For example, if I had set a goal to run on the treadmill for an hour, I wouldn’t have achieved it. I wouldn’t have even attempted it. Though it might feel amazing to write that goal down, the reality is that I enjoy exercise about as much as I enjoy a root canal. I would 100% bail on that quest, and then my Life RPG would fail. (No, I didn’t make a goal to do 1 hour on the treadmill. It was 15 minutes, and it felt like torture. Not only am I a little out of shape, I found it dreadfully boring.)

So, for the first week of my Life RPG, I tried out all my quests and then used correction tape to adjust them as needed. To keep myself accountable, the correction tape was no longer allowed after the first week. It was great because it forced me to engage with all of my goals in the first week. Procrastination: eliminated. And with revised goals that were still kinda hard, yet achievable, there was no excuse to quit.

Still, I can hear the roleplaying purists denouncing me and calling for the bucket of tar and a truckload of pillows. But I think we can all agree that it’s better to adjust and continue the adventure than to get demoralized and quit. Correction tape during week one: it’s the Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A of the Life RPG. Let’s not shame anyone for it.

Cheat #2: Individualized motivation and reward systems

Rewards are important—I talked about it in my original post—but my approach to rewards changed somewhere around week five or six. When I first set up my quest pages, I’d assigned specific rewards to each quest, but as I worked on my quests, the rewards became a lot less exciting. New yoga pants for completing my treadmill goal? That just sounds like I’m signing myself up for more treadmill quests. Clearly, I hadn’t considered the kinds of rewards that motivate me.

I did some cursory research and was reminded that everyone is motivated differently. Some are motivated by rewards, others by achievements. Some are more motivated by the idea or promise of a reward than the reward itself—and once they receive it, it doesn’t feel as exciting as the anticipation. Others are motivated by penalties—having rewards and perks removed. For most of us, it’s probably some combination of these.

As time went on, I realized that I’m in the category of people who like the idea of a reward but feel less excited when actually receiving it. So, I crossed off my specific goal rewards and instead created a list to select from. Then I divided the rewards into tiers. It’s kind of like an arcade with games that spit out tickets. The tickets can be redeemed for different prizes at the weirdly lit booth in the back corner. You know, the one run by the creepy guy who looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. The more tickets you have, the bigger the prize. If you skip two lower cost prizes, you could cash in for a bigger prize. Then you create strategies to get the one enormous reward. Who hasn’t done that before?

Just me? Liar.

With all that said, if you aren’t sure what kind of motivator you need, it’s not critical to identify it before starting level 1. I encourage you to pick some kind of reward system and then stay open to change.

Cheat #3: The looming 13th week…

I didn’t see this cheat coming. My writing work is scheduled in 12-week blocks. The idea came from a book called The 12 Week Year which was written by people who noticed that office workers scramble in December, before the end of the year, to hit their corporate goals or whatever. So, they came up with this idea to break up the year into 12-week blocks, 4 per year. When I first read this book, the jaded corporate drone in me thought it sounded like a scam, easily sold to executives who don’t care about anyone’s mental health or home life and that would love to see their employees scrambling all year long.

But I also have trouble taking regular breaks from writing (to recharge), so I thought I’d try it. For week 13, I scheduled a luxurious staycation of hardcore slacking. You know what I mean. Pizza and tacos for dinner. Reading and gaming marathons. Sweatpants and hoodies as a uniform.

So, while I was working through level 1, I saw the staycation coming up on the calendar. When it was still 8 or 9 weeks away, I didn’t think much of it. But as it got closer, I realized that I didn’t want to go on vacation with unfinished quests and projects looming over me—I’d be thinking about them during my break, and that is not relaxing. So, in the last 2 weeks before the deadline, I changed tactics and scrambled to get stuff done. On the first day of my staycation, I finished the very last quest and hit level 2.

Then it was video-game time.

Honestly, I’m torn about how successful the 12-week work block was. It felt incredible to have finished my quests and to sail into my vacation at level 2. But I don’t know how I feel about the deadline… and the scramble to finish everything. It was the very thing I hated!

But it also worked.

I have another staycation coming up, but whether I’ll succumb to the pressure of completing level 2 before it starts… we’ll see.

Ugh. You know I’m gonna scramble to wrap it up.

The 13th week as a break from quests: it really does work.

Cheat #4: Don’t use a “vanilla system” unless you want to

Shortly after I published the blog post about the Life RPG system, a friend emailed me about it. I could see myself doing this Life-RPG thing, he said, but I would probably use the Ironsworn system for it.

Cue the facepalm moment.

When I first drafted ideas for my system, I automatically wrote down the most well-known and commonly used stats (a.k.a. character attributes): stamina, strength, agility, charisma, wisdom, intelligence, dexterity… You know, the vanilla stats that many game systems use. I wasn’t even thinking about it. And I probably should have. Ironsworn’s stats are edge, heart, iron, shadow, and wits! The Witcher (the tabletop RPG, not the video game) uses intelligence, reflexes, dexterity, body, speed, empathy, craft, will, and luck. Cool, right? There are many other systems out there—fantastical, unique, and creative systems that give more color and depth to the games they support.

You could even make up your own stats. Do you want to level up your ninjatude and sexiness? You can do that. Or what about borrowing from other types of video games? Idle games encourage players to do a complete reset back to level 1 in order to (ironically) get even stronger, complete levels faster, and get more achievements. What about creative penalties like with Warhammer witches? If you want to incorporate a penalty for skipping too many days, you might farking explode and need to do something in order to resuscitate yourself!

There are so many more systems and attributes out there, and they’re all ripe for the taking—er, I mean, borrowing.

This probably seems like a lot of effort for a little goal-setting. Maybe it is, but it’s worth it. You’ll be spending a lot of time doing the Life RPG, so it’s important to make it fun. Don’t be daunted by the initial investment. When I crossed level 1’s finish line, I admit that I didn’t feel the kind of exhilaration I expected, like when you win an award or a big prize. It was a cautionary elation. That’s because my grander goals have not yet been achieved; my journey is far from over. But I finished a robust set of quests and started new habits that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I’m having fun doing it.

The Life RPG is the start of a grand adventure of self-improvement and rewards. If I quit, I know I’ll regret it. The only way to feel really proud about the work is to keep going—keep leveling up, doing incrementally harder quests, and making changes that will keep the journey fun, even if it means investing a little time and creativity into it—all to achieve the bigger dreams at the end.

I wish I’d known all of these little cheats when I started this process. Luckily, this is my very own personal Life RPG, so I can switch it up and do whatever I want! Look out, level 3! You’re getting a system upgrade.