Adapting Habitica for Passive-Aggressive Behavior

This page describes some techniques which can be used to overcome passive-aggressive behavior with the help of HabitRPG.

What is Passive-Aggressive?
Have you ever noticed that tasks which make you feel uncomfortable are often more difficult to accomplish? It’s not necessarily the kind of tasks which frightens you with their difficulty or massiveness. Quite the opposite may be the case.

Try to think of the moment you learn about a new task and you think to yourself that:


 * your boss might have assigned new staff to your department for routine like this


 * your boss should have considered that you are overqualified for an assignment like this


 * your boss might have explained the assignment to you in person rather than passing on a memo


 * your boss might have been more polite when assigning the task


 * your boss or colleagues might have been much more verbal in appreciating your previous job before assigning a new task


 * your boss or colleagues might have remembered that you simply don’t like tasks like this


 * your boss or colleagues might have…


 * it is too much effort to try to accomplish a task like this because there’s no reward


 * you have some negative experience with tasks like this


 * you might believe you’re just a loser not capable of tasks like this and you’re ashamed of yourself

Yes, we know you might not even notice a moment you have such feelings on the go, that’s why we asked you to think of such a moment.

Anyways, having considered something of the kind, you accept the assignment without a word – because you’re simply not the one who would argue about trifles like this.

And so you know the task; you know how to handle it; you know the deadline – and everything else you may need. But a day before the deadline you find yourself having done almost nothing about this nasty assignment. What’s happening? – You may ask yourself.

It may turn out that being unable or unwilling to express your thoughts and feelings towards a person (your boss, a colleague, or even yourself) you transfer them into the attitude towards a task you unconsciously associate with that person.

According to Wikipedia

"Passive-aggressive behavior is the indirect expression of hostility, such as through procrastination, stubbornness, sullenness, or deliberate or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible."

Please note: psychologist also describe passive-aggressive personality disorder:

"a pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in social and occupational situations."

So if you experience difficulties with coping with your emotions or subliminal behavior motivation please don’t hesitate to consult with psychologist first. The following hints may help you but shouldn't be considered sufficient!

HabitRPG is Just the Right Place!
HabitRPG provides some useful tools to cope with passive-aggressive behavior.

Exploiting your motivation
All you need to do to accomplish tasks in question with ease is to separate them from your negative emotions.
 * Writing your tasks down is the starting point to separate the task from the person who assigned it to you
 * Thinking of a task as something your Avatar should deal with may help you distinguish the task from your own personality and previous experience in general
 * In HabitRPG Tasks may be considered as nasty creatures your avatar is fighting with
 * You are responsible for you avatar’s progress, health and achievements not only of your avatar, but also of the whole party
 * Isn’t it fun to get a whimsical flying pig or loyal wolf or your own custom reward after finally accomplishing a task?

Managing your tasks
Tasks in question may often be regarded as an elephant with the frog on its head. Frogs are something you don’t like and they prevent you from doing your best on the tasks. The longer the frog is sitting on the elephant the larger the elephant. The latter are the tasks which seem too massive to deal with on the go without special preparations, skills, or mood.
 * Build a Habit of dealing with frogs first!
 * Split up elephants (in your imagination of course) into manageable chunks and have To-Do’s for major ones:
 * Trunk – some initial general information you need in order to start dealing with the task
 * Head and ears – consult other people who have experience with tasks like this, analyze methodologies if needed
 * Legs – basic sub-tasks or sub-projects you need to do in order to accomplish the task
 * Back – systemizing the results of su-bprojects and sub-tasks
 * Tail – presenting your work (my personal favorite WikiaSphinx (talk) 11:12, May 19, 2015 (UTC) )


 * Each part can be subdivided into checklists.
 * Please have in mind that frogs tend to return and jump on various parts of an elephant even after they have been spooked out. So set up a Daily for reviewing your process
 * That’s it! Now you have your own Boss on HabitRPG – a Frog with an Elephant mount =).