How to Level Up your Life

When you’re trying something new for the first time, inevitably you’re going to suck at it initially. There’s just no other way to say it. Accept it.

Do you remember your first time riding a bike? Do you remember how you got on the bike and immediately started pedaling and racing up and down the sidewalk? Yeah that likely never happened. What’s more likely is you fell off the bike several times and then many more times after that. You and I basically sucked at riding a bike initially. Had we stopped getting on the bike and trying again, we would have never beaten level 1 of learning how to ride a bike.

When we experience these momentary failures in life from trying something new, what most people do is they stop and give up completely. They’ll ring out a list of excuses from “It’s too hard”, the “timing isn’t right”, “I’ll try again later”, “I’m too busy to figure this out right now”. The list goes on…

When you say this to yourself, you first lose trust with yourself. You also stop yourself from trying new things in the future because you link previous failures at trying something to the new thing you’re trying now. You end up staying within the radius of your comfort because you know how to navigate and deal with it.

Most people feel “stuck” because the first failure stops them from trying again. Those early failures stay with them for so long that they can’t figure out what to do next so they never experiment and try new ideas or take up new experiences.

Enter the gamer’s mindset…

Allow me to elaborate.

Gamers from their earliest experiences playing games realized that they are going to fail and fail multiple times. They’re going to have to keep on playing the same level over and over until they finally gain the skills and competency to beat the challenges in front of them. Then this process repeats for level 2 except this time level 2 is even harder! Over time and across multiple levels, mastery occurs.

I remember one of my earliest gaming experiences as a kid playing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the Sega Genesis and not being able to beat the first level called Angel Island Act 2. I went to the kitchen and told my Mom that I’m usually not this bad at Sonic games. My Mom turned to me and said, you’ll have to keep trying and get better. Each time you try again, you learn one new thing that will eventually help you win. Thankfully I did end up passing Angel Island Act 2 and many more levels from there.

Each time you lose in a game, it forces you to reflect on what you did — what was working that I can continue to do again and what didn’t work? What part of my plan or strategy didn’t work so that I don’t repeat that again and can open myself up to a new strategy or idea. It could be perfecting the timing of when I take a certain action such as a precision movement. Maybe there’s a skill I haven’t yet learned or mastered and that’s what unlocks the ability for me to move forward and progress.

As long as the player stays on the journey, learns from the small failures, takes the feedback the game provides and gets better each time — the player inevitably beats the challenges in front of them. How long that process takes is up to the individual player.

The reason why games are so popular is because they allow us to improve our skills, proficiency and ultimately mastery in a certain task whether it’s solving puzzles in Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker, beating a complex final boss in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or outracing your friends to the finish line of a Mario Kart race.

Games are designed for players to continually grow and upgrade their skills. Each time a player learns a new skill, they’re immediately given an opportunity to use that skill to begin the process of obtaining mastery.

When you’re trying something new and struggling with it, remind yourself that you possess a gamer’s mindset. You don’t have to love or play games to adopt this mindset. What you have to adopt though is a willingness to keep trying over and over. You have to be comfortable staying on the journey and not jumping off the train too soon. You never know how close to your stop you were until you get there.

You have to stop and give yourself time to reflect on what was working so that you can double down on it, what wasn’t working so that you can stop doing that. Are there any skills that you’re lacking that would better help you overcome the current challenge? Maybe you need to take a course on AI or learn how to meditate because it will help reduce your anxiety or stress.

This is how you learn from the small failures, reflect, and gain new skills to beat challenges. Do this long enough and you’ll level up in life and win the long game.

TL:DR

Adopt a gamer’s mindset by:

· Being comfortable having to try things over and over again

· Reflecting on what’s working and doubling down on it

· Reflecting on what isn’t working so you can stop doing it

· Gaining new skills to meet your current challenges

· Staying on the journey even when you’re losing hope

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Thanks for reading and I’ll see you again soon.

~V

The Hustler’s Mindset