You have to work for it.

Sure, occasionally you’ll find a friend or guildmate to carry you through the game but not often. You have to earn your achievements. You have to down the bosses for your epic loot. There’s usually no way around this. If you want that Best in Slot piece of gear your going to have to put the time in to learning the fight, upping your current gear stats and working together with a group to get the job done.

Similarly, if you’re after a shiny new six-pack you’re going to have to earn it. You have to put the time in. You’ve got to learn what works, what doesn’t. You’ve got to trim your fat. You’ve got to work your ass off. But the payoff? It’s glorious. At this point I should note that I am not even in the same region as Sixpackland. But I know what I have to do to get there.

Everyone is a noob.

Well, at first anyway. Everyone starts at level 1. Even if you’ve got some MMO time in other games under your belt, I’m willing to bet you will still have to learn the ropes of a new game. The goal here is to not get discouraged when you see a level 50 in all of his epic gear. Instead know that one day, you will get there too.

Toss out the ‘vendor trash’.

In the MMOs I’ve played all items have a rarity/value system. Gray, white, green, blue, purple (and orange/tan but that’s not important) with gray being the lowest quality. You don’t need grays at all. They are referred to as “junk” or “vendor trash”. Don’t waste your time with these. In the same way you wouldn’t hang on to a bag full of grays, you wouldn’t keep a cabinet full of junk food in your kitchen. They serve no purpose, you will never need them and they will only take up space – eventually in your gut (we’re talking about junk food still right?). Drop it and make room for your greens, blues and purples (Paleo, organic Paleo, local & organic Paleo. respectively.)

Train often.

If you don’t train and learn new abilities you’ll never down the boss. Simply put, if you don’t continue to push yourself you’ll never improve. Don’t do it before you’re ready though, you’ll hurt yourself.  See, told you it was simply put.

Appreciate where you’ve been.

Remember when you were a level 1 noob? Yeah me too – it’s a very recent reality. It’s important to look back and remember how far you’ve come in your quest for happiness and health. Look back at the challanges you’ve had and the rewards that they’ve given you. It’s more important than you think and you’ll learn from it.

It’s your responsibility to help the noobs.

Not everyone will progress as quickly as you. That’s OK. Maybe you don’t want to run a level 50 dungeon with a level 23 but it’s important that you realize that they are rolling at their own pace and (presumably) doing what works for them. Sometimes you may want to help them along and run them trough some content and that’s OK too but make sure you’re helping them learn how to do it on their own one day. I may be the only one that thinks this way.

Did geek-speak get in the way? Are you a gamer? What lessons have you learned from your games that you can apply to your quest for fitness? I’d really love to hear about it in the comments!

-Arron