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MAXX THE F*CK UP
Does Mogging Actually Work?
The short answer: Depends what you mean by work. As a way to feel better about yourself by outclassing strangers, no. The comparison never resolves, because there is always someone further up, so the feeling never arrives.
As a monthly check of your own numbers against your own previous numbers, it works extremely well, and it is one of the few things in this corner of the internet that does.
Mogging strangers cannot work, structurally
The point of ranking yourself against other people is to reach a position where the ranking stops hurting. That position does not exist. Every level up reveals a new room with a bigger fish in it, and the people who mog hardest online are usually the ones most anxious about being mogged. It is not that it fails sometimes. It cannot succeed.
What the mog check does instead
Take one stat. Log it honestly for thirty days. At the end, put this month's numbers next to last month's on the same page and shade what moved. Sleep average, snoozes, best streak, whatever the stat is. That is a mog check. You are mogging last month's version of yourself, who is the only person whose numbers you can actually see.
Why it works when the other thing does not
Logged stats improve on their own, because measurement changes behavior. The comparison has a fixed opponent who cannot run away. And the result is written down, so it cannot be argued with at 2 a.m. when the doubt turns up. Same mechanism as tracking any personal stat, just with a name teenagers will use.
The honest caveat
None of this makes the appearance-obsessed version safe. Comparing yourself to your past self is healthy right up until the thing being compared is how thin your face looks, and then it is the same problem wearing a better outfit. Where the line sits is worth reading before any of this, and the tiers are explained separately for anyone who came here for those.
Maxx The F*ck Up
The gamified year: twelve levels, daily quests, boss fights and a character sheet. Sleep, body, style, skills, money and character, scored.
Does mogging make you more attractive?
Ranking yourself against other people does nothing to how you look and a great deal to how anxious you are. Tracking your own sleep, training and grooming numbers month over month does change how you look, slowly, and it does not depend on anyone else.
What is a mog check?
A monthly comparison of your own numbers for one stat against the previous month's numbers, written on one page. Nobody else is involved. It is the only version of mogging with a fixed, beatable opponent.
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written by the author, at the kitchen table, after work.