Low self-esteem amongst young men is both extremely commonplace and extremely debilitating. We talk a lot in this sub about generating a mindset of “abundance”, but it is utterly impossible to create this mindset if you do not believe that you are deserving of the benefits which the world has to offer.

Most of us found this sub due to our profoundly negative experiences with the opposite sex, and this is true of myself also. I am divorced, she cheated with another guy and left me for him. Whatever, it’s in the past. The point is that this event CRUSHED my self-esteem. I hated myself and I believed that she was right to leave me (in a way, this is true – I was a loser back then). There is nothing like being rejected by a woman to make you feel like a worthless piece of shit.

No matter how much I tried to improve, that sense of self-hatred stood as an impenetrable barrier to cultivating an abundance mentality. I achieved a huge amount – weight loss, fitness, career progression, bought a house, car, etc etc – but until I found a way to feel good about myself, it counted for nothing, because deep down I still hated myself.

I’d like to share with you a simple idea that I developed which helped me immensely. I call it the “Life Points” (LP) system. The premise is based around the XP system found in just about every video game known to man. You achieve things in game, and as a result you are rewarded with XP (Experience Points). Your XP total becomes something of a measure of your level of achievement and progress in the game. In many games, it also becomes a status symbol. It’s something for you to feel proud about.

I decided to adapt this process to real life. I figured that I could reward myself for achievements, and give myself something of a “life score” that would serve as a tangible record of all the things I had achieved. This why I call them LP instead of XP – they apply ONLY to real life achievements and rewards.

How I set up my LP

  • Firstly, I went to an online print shop and printed some business cards. There are a ton of extremely cheap online print houses where you can do this. I used vistaprint, but google “online printing” and choose the one that works for you. You need to find one that will allow you to customise the front and back of your business cards.
  • On one side of the business cards, print “+10 LP”. The other side is blank, because this is where you will write a short description of your achievement.
  • Now you have a box of 500 “+10 LP” cards. Your job is to begin rewarding yourself for your life achievements by taking a card and writing a description of your achievement on the back, with the aim to eventually fill every card in the box.

What you reward yourself for is up to you. Obviously, if you make your LP very easy to earn, they become less valuable and ultimately meaningless. If you make them too hard to earn, they become an impossible goal. It’s up to you to find the balance, and everyone’s balance will be different, based on your current life situation. This is a completely personal exercise, and you don’t have to share or compare your LP with anyone. This is just for you, to track your own achievements.

Rules

There are a couple of rules when it comes to LP.

  1. LP must only be given for tangible actions, not feelings. For example, you can’t give yourself LP because “I feel really sexy today!”. Your self-esteem is built on ACTION, not sentiment. In addition, tangible action is how improvement is created. You absolutely will NOT change your life by just giving yourself warm and fuzzy feelings (just look at every woman on the planet for proof of this). You must ACT to earn LP.

  2. Your LP cards MUST be physical. You MUST write the description by hand. Don’t just make a Word document and keep track, this is not the same. Your LP cards are like trophies. You must be able to touch them and see them as physical, real-world objects. Not digital objects. The reason is that your rewards must be tangible. This is also a way to push you to live in the real world, not the digital world.

  3. How you reward yourself is up to you, but the process of ascribing meaning to your LP must be an honest one. You shouldn’t just give yourself LP for stupid shit that makes no difference to your life, or that was really easy and took no effort, or that you didn’t have to leave your comfort zone for. Otherwise your LP will become meaningless.

  4. LP can only be given for things which you did, not good things which happened to you. You can only give them for direct actions which you took. For example "got the job!" isn't a valid reason to reward yourself, but "put in an amazing interview performance, worked hard on my portfolio, hit the streets for three weeks and as a result got the job!" is more what you're aiming for. It focuses on the element of your success that is attributed directly to your effort and your actions, not choices made by others or random good fortune.

  5. You CANNOT take LP away. Once you have rewarded yourself LP, they exist forever, and nobody can take them away from you. Self-esteem is a process of speaking and acting positively towards yourself, so it’s important to reward, not punish. Obviously self-discipline is critical, but its separate to the LP process.

Here are some examples of the most recent LP I gave myself:

  • Reached a weight loss milestone.
  • Was afraid to spar with very experienced guy in kickboxing but forced myself to do it anyway.
  • Held my own against far more experienced opponent.
  • Almost asked sparring partner to take it to 50% in fear of getting hurt but sucked it up and went 100% for the whole round.
  • Had a difficult conversation with my boss about salary but stayed calm and composed, and said all the things I wanted to say.

Your LP goals might be different. If you’ve been struggling with crippling depression, maybe you’ll give yourself +10LP for something as simple as getting out of bed on time or doing the dishes. If you totally suck with girls, maybe you can reward yourself for holding 5 seconds of eye contact with that cute cashier who you’re terrified of. It’s important to reward yourself with LP in a way that makes sense to you and your goals.

If you need help getting started, here’s two achievements for you to aim for:

+10LP: Contacted an online print house and got my LP cards printed.

+10LP: Wrote a list of 5 goals for myself to strive towards.

Once you get on a roll with your LP, when you think of who you are and how you see yourself, you can think to your LP box and all of the cool shit you’ve achieved. It will make you feel like you are somebody. Sure, maybe that girl will still reject you – but your LP box is TANGIBLE, REAL WORLD PROOF that you’re the kind of man who knows how to achieve shit in life. You can set goals and hit them, you can strive and achieve and you CAN improve yourself. Even if you haven’t achieved your goal yet, you still know how to TAKE ACTION and make one more step towards your target. In your LP box, you have irrefutable, physical proof that you can get shit done and improve yourself.

At the end of the day, you might think sure, this is just a game and LP don’t really mean anything and this whole idea is stupid. That’s fine, maybe this isn’t for you, and maybe you don’t need this. But if you are struggling with the first step on your journey or you’re having feelings of worthlessness then I would strongly recommend that you try this. It’s very easy and it really is immensely powerful. It has totally changed my opinion of myself, which in turn has really helped me cultivate a very powerful abundance mentality in my life.