Progress Points
Score, Track, and Celebrate Wins When It's Hard to See the Score
By designing personalized progress tracking systems, bridge the measurement gap and maintain momentum through the "Plateau of Latent Potential." The first book to combine game design principles, neuroscience of motivation, and practical tracking systems.
Status: Research & development phase
Series: The Resilience Compass (Northeast)
Target Length: ~75,000 words
About the Book
THE PROBLEM
Research shows that 80% of people abandon goals by February and 92% never achieve their goals—often not because they lack dedication, but because they can't see their progress. When you're working on something important but the results are delayed or invisible, motivation dies.
Creative work, parenting, learning new skills, building relationships—many of life's most important endeavors lack clear progress metrics. You can spend months writing without finishing a book, years parenting without obvious milestones, or weeks learning without feeling smarter. This "measurement gap" creates a psychological challenge that undermines motivation and wellbeing, leaving you wondering if you're making any progress at all.
Making the Invisible Visible
Progress Points provides a complete system for tracking, measuring, and celebrating progress in areas where traditional metrics are scarce, delayed, or ineffective. Drawing on game design principles, neuroscience, and behavioral psychology, you'll learn to create personalized measurement systems that maintain motivation and momentum during long, uncertain journeys.
WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT
Unlike habit trackers that only measure frequency, Progress Points teaches you to measure quality, impact, depth, and subtle improvements. It's the first book to combine game design mechanics (XP, levels, achievements) with neuroscience of motivation and domain-specific frameworks—creating ethical, personalized tracking systems that work when external validation is absent.
Key Frameworks You'll Learn:
The Measurement Gap Analysis
A diagnostic tool to identify where traditional measurement is failing and what type of custom metrics would be most beneficial for your specific situation.
The Progress Point Typology
Classification of different types of progress markers—threshold achievements, consistency metrics, compound indicators—for various life domains.
The Dopamine Tracking Method
Neuroscience-based system for designing progress indicators that optimize motivation through the brain's reward pathways.
The Visibility Grid
A matrix approach to transforming invisible or intangible progress into concrete, trackable indicators.
The Plateau Navigation System
Specialized measurement approaches for periods when progress becomes less visible or slows down—the critical phase where most people quit.
INSPIRED BY GAME DESIGN
Game designers have mastered the art of making progress visible and rewarding. This book applies those same principles ethically to your real life—turning important endeavors into engaging, sustainable journeys where every step forward is recognized and celebrated.
For People Who:
- • Work in creative fields where output is delayed or intangible
- • Are learning new skills with long mastery timelines
- • Parent without clear metrics for "doing it right"
- • Build businesses or careers in non-linear fields
- • Struggle with motivation during the "messy middle" of projects
- • Abandon goals because they can't see if they're making progress
- • Want sustainable motivation that doesn't depend on external validation
Part of The Resilience Compass
Progress Points represents the Northeast direction of The Resilience Compass—creating a bridge between finding worth within (North) and taking consistent action (East). It addresses a critical gap: how do you maintain motivation when you've freed yourself from external validation but still need to see progress to keep going?
By creating personalized measurement systems, you build sustainable motivation through visible achievement tracking—making invisible growth visible and maintaining momentum through life's longest, most important journeys.
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