If you know anything about me, you know that I play the X-Box and play station quite often. The game of the month for me currently is NBA Live ‘08. Yes, I recognize how ironic it is that I play all of these sports games but don’t actually like sports themselves. Maybe it’s some subconscious fantasy of mine to be a sports player.
Who knows, and who cares?
Well anyway, one of the things I usually do when starting off a new game is I put the odds in favor of me winning. One of the challenges to playing a new game, particularly a sports game that’s fast moving and has a lot of dynamics to it is that you have to not only learn the usage of the controller, meaning which button does which things.
Like for NBA Live, making a jump shot is B, but doing a slam dunk is X. And A is pass. Now, this can become challenging when you become use to playing something like Madden, where A is for running and X is for passing. Obviously that can become quite confusing. But in addition to having to learn the dynamics of the controller, you also have to learn how to play the game. Things to do, things not to do, how long to hold down a button in order to get a certain jump shot from a certain distance and so on.
So as you can imagine, there’s a huge learning curve when you initially begin to play a game. Well, one of the things that I do to maintain a level of excitement and enjoyment out of the game is that I will usually start out with the absolute best team and I will play against the absolute worst team. And sometimes I may end up losing, but the majority of the time I end up winning.
And the reason why I end up winning is because the team stinks so badly and the players on my team are so good. So even by bumbling around, I’ll still end up winning the game, which actually makes me feel great.
I do this for a couple of reasons.
One, if I tried to start this game off playing against the computer on an even keel, I would lose, And most likely I would lose every single time. Having a series of losses can actually lead to a level of frustration that almost makes you want to give up and just not play the game anymore. So, I put the odds in my favor so that I can win.
Now, you may be thinking “Well, if you’ve got the best team and you’re playing against the worst team, you don’t really have an opportunity of learning; you don’t have an opportunity of getting better.” Well, what I usually do is over time I start evening out the playing field, and as I start getting more familiar with the controllers, as I start getting more familiar with the game play, I play against better and better teams.
And this has created not only a level of true fun and excitement from playing the game, but it also creates longevity in me playing the game. Because I’m winning. And the winning makes me feel better about myself. Then feeling better as you know, I attract more feeling better. It’s a really neat concept.
So, why am I even telling you this about my X-box escapades and how does this benefit you and your life? Well, as I’ mentioned before, getting easy wins is ax great way to put yourself in a very positive feeling space. When you are wanting to tackle a large project, don’t just look at the project as a whole.
Try to break your project down into smaller chunks, and make those smaller chunks as easy to do as humanly possible. Do those things, and keep easy wins to make you feel better. Because once you start feeling better, it inspires you and it motivates you to continue on. And in your continuing on, you keep getting these small wins.
Next thing you know, you’ve made this huge win, because you’ve taken a very difficult and challenging project and you’ve created it in a fashion where you can get quickly and easily some wins under your belt to make you feel good.
So, think about the things you’re working on right now, and in your life, whether it be from a business perspective, a personal perspective, - maybe you want to stop smoking. Maybe try to not smoke for a four hour period, or a three hour period, or even a one hour period if you’re a chain smoker or something.
You know, if you’re trying to attract a mate, instead of trying to get married tomorrow, maybe what you can do is just go to one internet site and set up a new account, and just get a small win. Or maybe you can just go out to a Jazz event and enjoy that.
Maybe you can just say “Hi,” to someone, not even try to start a conversation with them. If your thing is being shy, maybe just saying HI to them and walk off. You don’t have to sit there and have a full out conversation. If your shyness prevents you from approaching people, just saying “Hi,” to someone will give you a small win.
Practical Application
Make your life easy.
Make things as easy as possible for yourself in order to get wins. There are no rewards, there are no badges of honor or gold stars you’re going to get for working the hardest or making your life the most difficult.
That just does not exist. It really doesn’t.
So, don’t make your life more difficult than it has to be. Make things easy. Get quick and easy wins in order to propel yourself and motivate yourself and create momentum for getting even bigger wins.
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