The Infinite Game: How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People & Change the Rules of the Game
If you’re feeling left behind, it could be that you’re measuring yourself against the wrong benchmarks - or playing the wrong game entirely.
Do you find yourself comparing your progress to others? Perhaps it’s your peers, colleagues or even people on the other side of the world that you have never even met. What if you could reframe the game you’re playing for that instant winning feeling? One that doesn’t fade.
Stop measuring yourself by someone else’s scorecard. Change the rules of the game. Play a different game altogether. The Infinite Game. Comparison immediately loses its power, and you’re energised with more momentum than ever.
1. What is the Infinite Game?
Simon Sinek, best-selling author of Start With Why, wrote The Infinite Game to inspire long-term thinking.
Finite Game Versus Infinite Game
The idea of finite and infinite games was developed by a New York University professor, James P. Carse, in his 1986 book Finite and Infinite Games.
Finite Games have:
Known players
Fixed rules
Agreed-upon objectives that, when reached, end the game
Infinite Games are characterised by:
Known and unknown players
No exact rules
How players choose to play can change at any time
There is no finish line, therefore no such thing as ‘winning’. This creates an Infinite Game.
The primary objective becomes to keep playing, perpetuating the game
We can compare ourselves to people’s titles, business success, social media stats or material things, often measuring our beginning or progress to their peak.
Instead of obsessing over immediate results, Infinite Game players shift their thinking to:
Enduring over quick wins
Evolution over arrival
Play over pressure
It’s the long game that pays off long-term. Sinek says:
“We can’t simply go to the gym for nine hours and expect to be in shape. However, if we go to the gym every single day for twenty minutes, we will absolutely get into shape. Consistency becomes more important than intensity.”
Mega creator, MrBeast, is one of the best modern-day examples of someone playing the Infinite Game.
In my recent blog, Be Your Future Self Now: Hi Me in 10 Years. The Decisions That Shape Your Future, I described MrBeast’s rise from his high school bedroom to the world’s biggest YouTube creator within less than 10 years. With 500M+ subscribers on his main channel alone. MrBeast had 8K subscribers at the time of recording his future-self series.
He was, relatively speaking, an unknown player in the game of YouTube, yet he would change the rules of the game entirely.
I revisited MrBeast's success in a more recent blog, Your Knowledge Advantage: 3 Laws to Future-Proof Your Career. I watched an interview where he described YouTube as a knowledge game. He knows he will always dominate the channel because he is willing to obsessively study YouTube and play the knowledge game like no other.
For MrBeast, like an Infinite Game player, there is no arrival trap. No finish line. He is playing the game to perpetuate the game. He plays for the love of the game. An aspiring mega creator from when he was a teen, he has always been motivated by his cause.
2. Be Driven by a ‘Just Cause’
Playing an Infinite Game is underpinned by a Just Cause. Sinek proposes this is different to your Why - an idea he made a worldwide phenomenon. But he believes your Why comes from your past, like your origin story. A statement of who you are - your values and beliefs. But, for a Just Cause, he says:
“A Just Cause is a specific vision of a future state that does not yet exist; a future state so appealing that people are willing to make sacrifices in order to help advance toward that vision.”
Let’s compare a mindset devoid of a Just Cause to one with it:
Finite mindset (no Just Cause)
“I want a promotion this year.”
“I want to earn more.”
“I want to move companies for a better title.”
“I want to grow my social media dramatically this year.”
These are outcomes, not direction.
With a Just Cause mindset, you might think:
“I want to consistently operate at my next level, redefine the status quo and be rewarded for my value.”
“I want to completely reshape how our industry views our profession and be rewarded for my impact.”
“I want to own a piece of mental real estate in my audience’s mind.”
“I want to market a movement and build communities.”
These are future states that require ongoing work.
Playing the Long Game
The Infinite Game is not about doing more or achieving faster; it is about changing how you measure progress in the first place.
When you stop treating your career or success as something you can win, comparison begins to lose its power. You are no longer trying to outrun other people on a scoreboard you didn’t draw up. Instead, you are building momentum in a direction that compounds over time - one aligned to your Just Cause.
In the Infinite Game, there is no finish line to arrive at, only a standard to continuously raise.
You don’t solve comparison by thinking less about other people. You solve it by changing the game.
