I have been struggling to get myself to play the piano recently. With some experience and a degree in music education, you think it would be easier. The piece that I want to play is a ridiculous rendition of Kung Fu Panda’s Oogway Ascends. This is achievable, but not immediately, I would need to practice multiple hours a day for several months to achieve it. But I don’t do it. Why not? Do I not enjoy playing piano? Right now, I don’t—but it’s less about piano itself and more about how I design my practice.

What video games get right

On paper, most people would rather be good at piano than video games. Video games offer little reward outside the joy of playing, no prestige that transfers to the real world. So why do so many people (myself included) end up better at video games than piano?

Video game designers build reward loops. The structure is OCR: Objective, Challenge, Reward. They think carefully about both what the rewards are and how often they hit.

Rewards can be extrinsic—levels, loot, currency—or intrinsic—the satisfaction of overcoming a real challenge. I still remember beating the second boss in the Ocarina of Time, I was terrified of it, and overcoming it was more meaningful than the heart container I received.

And when it comes to frequency, modern games are obsessed with the pacing of rewards. They layer in smaller and smaller loops so you’re never waiting long for a reward, even when working towards something bigger.

Designing for flow

When someone tells me about a new habit they’re picking up, I can usually predict whether they’ll still be at it in a month. The tell? The design of the reward loops. With this in mind, it’s no wonder I don’t practice.

My piano campaign drops me half naked into a boss fight. I’ve practiced and made it further before getting my ass kicked, but it’s not an experience I want to repeat. I’m miles from intrinsic reward, and there’s no extrinsic reward to speak of.

What we’re aiming for is Csikszentmihalyi’s flow channel. If the challenge is too easy, the rewards are too small to be meaningful and we get bored. If it’s too hard, we never reach the reward and get frustrated. I’ve found I almost never err on the side of making things too easy, and instead I have difficult challenges with no incremental rewards along the way.

Improving reward loops

You don’t need to change your ambitions, you just need to get rewards sooner, through smaller reward loops. There are two ways to do this.

The first is to find an easier version of the same goal. For piano it might mean learning a simpler arrangement, or stripping a piece down to a melody and single bass note instead of full voicings. For exercise, it might mean 20 minutes at the gym instead of an hour. You’re still working towards the same thing, you’ve just added incremental challenges that you can get the reward from faster.

The second is side quests: different, easier goals that build the same underlying skill. On piano that means learning other pieces that you can finish and feel good about, while your ambitious goal waits on the horizon, becoming more achievable as you improve.

Both approaches are doing the same thing, adding incremental rewards to keep you motivated as you work towards your larger goal.

The best extrinsic motivator

I haven’t had great success with extrinsic rewards like cookies or cash. The reward is either too small to matter or too large for me to resist cheating.

Social rewards are different. Not only are we wired to seek them, but you can’t self-administer: the validation only comes if you show the work.

Show a supportive friend or family member the song you learned that week. Post it on social media, or an alt account if you’re shy about it. The bar is low, one person is enough.

Change the game

The goal isn’t to “be better at the game,” it’s to design a game you will want to play again tomorrow. This is not easy. Designing a curriculum—sorry, campaign—that is both interesting and rewarding is a challenge unto itself, just ask the game designers.

But this is better than white-knuckling through it, teaching your body and brain that this hobby is inherently unpleasant and without reward.

So next time you find yourself losing momentum, don’t hate the player, change the game.