In games

In games, new players start in the starter village.

There’s nothing but the weakest mobs nearby. You don’t know anything, your controls are clumsy, you haven’t learned any skills. But that’s fine, because these mobs are weak too.

Even if you can see higher-level monsters in the distance, you won’t go near them. The level above their heads is written in plain sight, blood-red “Level 80” floating right there. One look and you know: not now.

The first few levels go surprisingly fast. Kill a handful of mobs and you level up. Kill a few more and you level up again. Games make the beginning simple on purpose, letting you get used to the controls, understand the mechanics, and build confidence.

Nobody rushes to fight the final boss at level 1.

Take it slow. The first few levels come faster than you think.

In reality

In reality, there’s no starter village and no level display.

You don’t know what level “making a YouTube video” is, what level “writing a book” is, or what level “starting a business” is. Everything looks like something you can just go do.

Worse, what you see every day are the results of high-level players.

Algorithms only push highlight reels. “Six figures a month,” “abs in 21 days,” “learn to code in one month.” Nobody films their first day stumbling around. All you see are finished products, never the process.

Watch enough of that, and you start thinking you should be doing those things too.

Then you try, and you slam into a wall. Because you’re using level 1 abilities to attempt a level 99 quest.

Every high-level player has killed countless small mobs. Go look up the early work of someone you admire. A million-subscriber YouTuber’s first video was rough too. Entrepreneurs had their first time learning to code. Everyone started with small mobs. They just started earlier, fought longer, and fought harder than you.

So what’s your level 1 mob?

It’s the thing so simple you have no excuse not to do it.

Want to make videos? Spend an hour writing an article first. Want to be a designer? Copy one drawing a day. Want to learn to code? Write ten lines a day.

Something you can finish today and do again tomorrow.

Doing it once won’t change anything. But doing it ten times, fifty times, a hundred times, gradually increasing the difficulty along the way, and you’ll realize you’re not level 1 anymore.

It seems slow, but it’s actually faster.

Level 1 players fight level 1 monsters.

Player notes

I’ve watched over ten thousand hours of YouTube. I’m an expert at watching YouTube.

But the more I watched, the less I could create.

My taste had far outpaced my ability. The algorithm only pushes the best videos. Watch enough and you start thinking every video should be at that level. My first video had to be that good too.

I had to make a great video. But I never actually made any video. So I could never make a great video.

It was a vicious cycle I couldn’t break.

In game terms it’s obvious: I picked YouTuber as my class, stuffed my inventory with pay-to-win epic gear, but refused to step outside and fight mobs. Still level 1.

Because I’d watched too many level 99 players fight bosses, I wanted to fight bosses too. But how does level 1 beat level 99?

Can’t beat level 99 at level 1, so I wanted to quit. In a game, that sounds ridiculous. But that’s exactly what I was doing: never having made a single YouTube video, expecting the first one to be great, and wanting to give up when it wasn’t.

Once I figured this out, I went looking for my first small mob.

My first small mob was blogging. No camera to face, no video to edit. Just put my thoughts into words. Level up the skill of “organizing content” first.

Once the blog was flowing, I tried something a little harder. Step by step.

During the years I kept trying to fight bosses, I accomplished nothing. Once I started fighting small mobs, I actually began leveling up.

Leveling tips

□ List what you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t started. Ask yourself: what’s the simplest version of this?
□ If something leaves you completely clueless with no idea where to begin, it’s too high-level for you right now. Set it aside and find an easier mob
□ Find your “first small mob”: something that needs no preparation, doesn’t need to be perfect, can be started right now, and finished today. Fight that one first