Continuing on the subject of Forever Goals and Infinite Games, let’s compare them to habits.

As a reminder, an Infinite Game is one you play so that you can play it. It is intrinsically fun. The goal, if there even is one, is to get better so that you can keep playing. A Forever Goal is something you will always want, but can’t really achieve. You approach a Forever Goal. Asymptotically. Over infinite time. I think there’s a connection.

Since you can only approach a Forever Goal with constant work, I think designing an infinite game that incidentally gets you closer is a good strategy. Habits can also work, but for different reasons.

Habits aren’t designed to be fun. An infinite game is more like a bad habit. They’re both addictive. Good habits usually aren’t. BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits [ad], says to design habits that are so small that you will still do them even when you aren’t motivated. They need to be easy because they’re not fun.

Infinite games, however, are fun. They are designed to be their own motivation. You would play even if you had no extrinsic goal. The goal of the game is to keep playing the game. Habits aren’t like this. They are a means to an end. If you don’t want the end or the habit doesn’t work, you’ll stop.

The benefit of a game over a habit is that it can be more complex and take more time and energy. Tiny Habits are supposed to lead to bigger actions, but they rely on motivation. If you do a habit and you happen to have a lot of energy for the activity, then you could extend it (e.g.: a tiny habit of flossing one tooth could lead to flossing all of your teeth). But you don’t need motivation to keep playing a fun game. You need motivation to stop. When you put more time and energy into something, even as it gets more complex, you get better faster.

Another difference is that habits get easier over time, but infinite games get harder. It’s even more important that it gets more fun the better you are at it. A game shouldn’t be easy to master. Mastery might take forever. And the rewards should increase with your skill. If not, it gets boring and you will quit. When the game’s difficulty is achievable and the outcome is rewarding, you don’t need motivation to play it.

Applying this to my life, I use a combination of habits and games. My morning routine is mostly built on habits: taking vitamins, flossing, etc. Backed by reminders and environmental cues. But, my fitness is almost completely game-based. I don’t need any motivation because I just want to play, sometimes to my detriment (like a bad habit) as I nurse injuries.

And this all brings me back to learning Spanish, which I still force myself to do, and not very well. Still not a game and not even a consistent habit.

If an activity is an infinite game, then you don’t need motivation to do it. It’s more likely you need motivation to not do it too much. Like smoking.

If you play infinite games that are good for you, then that’s fine. I did my first 5k in 2005 and first marathon in 2009. I was addicted to running and got a lot of health benefits. Better than that, I ate as much as I wanted. I loved running, and I thought I would do it forever.

But all of that running did have downsides, and I had to give it up. It was hard. Last year, I was sidelined for six months because I injured a knee trying to re-incorporate running into my routine. That was enough to make me quit (I hope). I still think about doing it, though.

Bad habits are hard to break because you get an immediate benefit. The bad part usually comes in the long-term. When designing an infinite game, we need to keep the immediate benefit part. It’s best if that benefit is obvious when you are playing the game. Or at worst, you see improvement the next time you play.

This is easy at the beginning, which helps you get hooked. Couch to 5K is a good example. But as you improve, it gets harder for a small gain to seem significant. This happens for bad habits too, which is how you can eventually end up with a two-pack a day smoking habit.

Right now, I am trying to figure out an infinite game to learn Spanish. I really think that there’s no downside to do this, but I am really struggling to find a fun game with immediate benefits. My improvements are imperceptible to me. Maybe I just need to play longer each day for now to get more of a fix.

In my post reviewing The Inner Game of Tennis, I wrote that I thought the book applied to any physical activity. I also think it could apply to language acquisition, because we speak and listen with our automatic mind. You don’t want a judging mind to be evaluating how well you are pronouncing words and understanding. But if it’s not judging, then what?

The trick described in The Inner Game is to give your judging mind something to do. In tennis, Gallwey recommends having your thinking, judging self track the ball’s spin or think “bounce”, “hit” when appropriate. You could have it just track the position of your arm right before you hit. The key is that it is something objective.

I want to use this technique to get better at Spanish comprehension. One way I do that is to watch Dreaming Spanish videos to get comprehensible input (native language without translation, just above my level). It’s hard. I can feel my mind wander as it judges that I am not doing well enough.

Here are some things I am going to try out to give my thinking mind something to do:

• Observe the mouth of the speaker: I am hoping I’ll see some connections to the sounds they are making. This is easier with a video than in real life, of course.
• Sketchnote the content of the video: I am specifically trying to avoid translation. I want the Spanish words to evoke pictures in my mind.
• Transcribe: Not every word, but phrases here and there. I will probably combine this with sketchnoting.

The goal is to get my mind to stop doing meta-thinking about how well I am understanding, and if that’s good enough. I want it to provide neutral, objective information to my automatic brain. I’ll share more after I’ve been trying it a while.