How To Know When It’s Time To Level Up In Your Life

Sometimes life gives you no option but to level up.

Level up: to advance one’s character to the next level of development; to progress to the next level.

The truth is, sometimes we’re not good enough. We can’t meet the demands of a new phase of life. It’s a tough pill to swallow—sometimes we are the least skilled person in the room. The least knowledgeable, the least experienced. Yet somehow we have to keep up. We have to swallow our pride and level up to meet life where it is.

Look. I’m not going to coddle you. That’s your mother’s job. The simple fact is that by and large, the world won’t give you what you haven’t earned.

Maybe you aren’t good enough for a new job. Maybe you aren’t good enough for the kind of person you want to date. Maybe you aren’t good enough for the school you want to attend. Whatever the situation is, life presents you with two options: either level up or back down. Otherwise you’re just kidding yourself.

But here’s the good news: you can earn your way to what you want. You can choose to level up. You can put aside the alcohol and the drugs. You can read every day. You can go to the gym. You can learn new skills. You can master your craft. You can level up.

“In RPGs (role-playing games), it is normal to enter a new section of the game where you can’t proceed because your characters are not strong enough to defeat the enemies. This happens when the new enemies you are fighting are much stronger than the ones you’ve fought before.

Do you stop playing? Of course not! The next step is to train and level up your characters… and when you face obstacles in a goal, obstacles that you’re not able to tackle at this moment, it just means that the goal is currently bigger than you.

Level up such that you become stronger, better, and smarter, and you are able to conquer these obstacles.” – Celestine Chua, Personal Excellence

And what else would you do? What else would you do with this one life you’ve been given? Are you really going to choose to be less than what you are capable of being? Aren’t you positively dying of curiosity, of the desire to know how far you can go?

If this leveling-up business seems like onerous and unnecessary poppycock, realize that you’re missing the mark. The entire purpose of your existence here is to overcome obstacles, to reach higher heights, and to show people that they can do the same. Leveling up opens you to entirely new avenues of life. You will get to discover parts of yourself you’ve never known, cities you’ve never visited, types of people you’ve never met. So whether you politely decline your destiny, or give it a grand “fuck you,” you’re cheating yourself.

“There is no passion to be found playing small–in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela