Level Up!

I'm writing this Sunday night, but Monday, our family is going through something pretty cool: my oldest starts Kindergarten Monday morning. It's certainly a nostalgic event, and a change across the family. We will have multiple stops dropping off and picking up from school, we will be waking up earlier, and we'll be adjusting to all sorts of new things which we are not even yet aware of.

But for my daughter, it is a really cool change. A "level up" for fans of video games. She's moving to "real" elementary school from the preschool where she has spent the last several years. It's a great milestone as she moves one step further in her academic career. For us, it's a milestone that means our little kid is growing up.

Once we become adults, though, we (mostly) no longer have parents worrying about us as we move from one thing to the next. So our individual triumphs become about the positive growth we experience and lose the nostalgia factor.

In Super Mario Brothers (yes, I know that dates me severely), when you got a mushroom, you grew, and if you got a fire flower, you could shoot fireballs. Nobody needs those in the instruction guide, because as you grab it, you can naturally understand what happens. Still, you play a few times, and you learn quickly how to power up and play with that.

Which brings me to the question to start off your week: What is your level up? What can you do or achieve or accomplish that gets you more power and a big boost in your job? How can you get the next one? Moving towards your next goal level-by-level is still moving towards the goal, and you avoid getting run over;

Try to figure out what your level up is, and go chase it.