The game that kicked my butt
Estimated read time: 1 min & 36 secs
Is there a goal you are currently trying to achieve?
Well a few months ago, I was trying to become a wizard.
There’s this game called Wizard of Legend. When you beat the game, you become a legendary wizard in a super cool fiction world.
The game has 10 levels.
Every time you die, you have to start all over again from the beginning of level 1.
No saves. No checkpoints. BRUTAL.
I wanted to give this game a try because it had great reviews, but I wasn’t willing to spend the time to beat all 10 levels.
So I set a modest goal of just beating 3 levels of the game.
Easy peasy, right?
Wrong.
After 6 hours — yes, you read that right, SIX HOURS — I hadn't even cleared the first level.
Level 1 was kicking my butt so hard that I started questioning everything.
“Is this game supposed to be this hard? Am I just bad at games? Why do I feel kind of dumb?”
Frustrated and beat, I decided to go for a walk. And that's when it hit me...
If I wanted to get past level 3, I had to stop making my gaming experience so miserable.
And ironically, I think my obsession with the end result (getting past level 3) is what was making my gaming experience miserable.
So, time for a perspective shift.
I decided I was going to stop obsessing over the end result, and just focus on getting better every time I played the game.
And you know what?
This made the game more fun because when I put in the work to get better, I improved. And when I improve, I feel good about myself.
It's a virtuous cycle.
Before, dying the game made me feel like a failure.
Now, dying the game is simply part of the learning process to get better.
I would even die on purpose sometimes just to learn the attack patterns of certain monsters.
But here's the thing: We can apply this mindset shift to LIFE too.
We often obsess over distant goals, making ourselves miserable. But what if we focused on improving a little each day instead?
I think it will make the journey of life less stressful.
If you liked today’s email, leave a comment.
As always, thanks for reading!
-George 🐙