In games

In games, damage a monster down to 1% health and then run away? Zero experience points.

Not reduced. Zero.

The system only cares about one thing: did the monster die? If it didn’t, it’s as if you never fought it. No experience, no loot drops, nothing.

Beginners often make this mistake: they pull several monsters at once, get each to half health, then run out of stamina and lose them all. Looks busy. Ends up with nothing.

Veterans don’t do this. They kill the monster in front of them first, collect the experience and loot, then move on to the next.

It gets worse. In many games, monsters slowly regenerate health once they leave combat. You painstakingly chip one down to 10% health, step away for a moment, come back, and it’s at full health again. Back to square one.

And in online games, monsters don’t politely wait for you to return. You leave one nearly dead, another player walks by, lands the finishing blow, and takes everything. The experience is theirs. The loot is theirs. All your effort just did someone else’s work for them.

Monsters don’t save the reward for you because you hit them first. Whoever finishes them off gets the reward.

In reality

In real life, we’re surrounded by monsters at low health.

Articles we started writing. Guitar we practiced for two weeks. An app built halfway. Books left on the shelf after three chapters.

We took a few swings at each, then ran off to pull a new monster.

Why? Because the first 10% is the most fun. Everything is new, full of possibility. By the middle, the novelty fades. You realize you’re not as talented as you thought. Right about then, a more exciting monster catches your eye, and you’re gone.

But those monsters you didn’t finish off won’t give you anything.

An unfinished book won’t be read by anyone. A half-built app can’t launch. Half-learned skills are useless.

On the flip side, finishing off a monster often rewards you more than you expected.

You don’t just get the work itself. You get confidence, experience, and feedback from others. All of this makes you faster and more grounded the next time. The first monster is the hardest because you have nothing. But after killing your first one, you have experience and gear. The second is a little easier. The third, even more so. It builds momentum. That’s the positive feedback loop.

So the point isn’t to fight one giant monster. Start by killing a small one, collect the reward, then move on to the next.

And reality has kill-stealing too. That book you’ve been putting off? Someone else finished and published it. That app you’ve been planning? Someone else launched it. That proposal you hesitated over for three months? Your colleague pitched it and got the promotion.

Opportunities don’t wait around just because you thought of them first. Whoever finishes first gets the reward.

And monsters you leave alone regenerate health. That half-finished project, come back to it three months later and you can’t remember where you left off. The code makes no sense, your notes are unclear, and the time to re-orient is about the same as starting over. The monster is back at full health. Square one.

These low-health monsters also take up your mental bandwidth. You know they’re still out there. Not finished. Not abandoned. Just hanging. Each one quietly drains your attention.

Either focus fire and kill it, or formally abandon it and delete it from your task list. The worst thing is letting it sit there, nagging at your conscience while you do nothing about it.

You only get rewards when you finish the monster off.

Player notes

I’m a three-minute-enthusiasm kind of person, so I’ve abandoned way too many things halfway through. I learn a little bit, decide “I basically get it” or “I’ve got a new interest now,” and run off to the next thing. The result is nothing accumulated, no achievements unlocked.

I don’t lack ideas. What I lack is the patience to see any single idea through to the end. Even while writing this book, I was simultaneously brainstorming two other books and building three apps. There’s always a newer, more exciting monster waving at me.

But looking back, everything that actually changed my life was a monster I finished off.

My Japanese language app was rough when it first launched, but because I pushed it out the door, it eventually became an income source that let me leave my corporate job and do what I wanted. Blogging didn’t get much readership at first, but writing consistently gave me the confidence to start this book. Every monster I killed gave me the momentum and resources to take on the next one.

The biggest one was YouTube. I mentioned in this book’s preface that I procrastinated for nearly ten years before daring to film anything. While writing this book, I kept brainwashing myself with “you only get rewards when you finish the monster off” until I finally forced myself to upload my first video.

Then some things happened that I didn’t expect. The comments were plentiful, and warm. Someone said using games as metaphors was brilliant. Someone said the video helped her a lot. A friend I hadn’t heard from in years messaged me saying the algorithm pushed my video to her.

The hard part about YouTube is that the positive feedback comes so late. Before those comments, everything you experience is self-doubt. But this time I finished the monster off. The moment the positive feedback arrived, it felt amazing.

Finishing an 80-point piece of work is more valuable than endlessly polishing a perfect one. Because only by finishing do you get feedback. And only with feedback do you have the motivation to fight the next monster.

So now I try to shorten the cycle of each creative project, bringing the positive feedback back faster. You don’t need to kill the monster beautifully. Just kill it.

Leveling tips

□ List every monster you’ve “started but haven’t killed.” Write them all in one place and look at the full list
□ Monsters you don’t want to fight anymore: formally declare them abandoned and delete them from your task list. Leaving things unresolved drains you more than letting go
□ Start with the smallest one, the one closest to done. Get your first round of experience points. Use that first kill to start the positive feedback loop
□ Monsters that are too big: break them into smaller ones. Each small kill still gives rewards, and that’s easier to sustain than chewing through one massive beast
□ Set a deadline for your low-health monsters. Don’t give them a chance to regenerate. Before this one is dead, don’t start a new one