The Unfortunate Lesson I Learnt From Boycotting Video Games

After beating one of my friends 3-0 at Fifa in 2012 (One of my rare ever victories), I decided to retire from pretty much all video games. I hated losing so much that I would rather never play again than risk defeat to any of my hyper competitive friends.

It’s probably important to mention that I was also really bad at these games... I would lose a lot. I blamed my parents for not buying me a Playstation 1 until Playstation 2 was out. But I also blamed our garden for making me build tree houses when I could have been glued to a TV screen developing my “friend beating” skills. 

The other day I was hanging out with some of my now more mature 30 year old friends, who were fighting each other as Pikachu and Kirby while playing Super Smash Brothers. 

They asked me if I wanted to play and I said no. But while watching them laugh and insult each other, I wondered how good I would be at video games if I hadn’t quit 8-9 years ago...

Have you ever hated losing at something so much that you’ve refused to ever play? Or where in your life have you held back from trying because of your fear of failure? 

Maybe you didn’t apply for that higher paying job… Maybe you declined doing a presentation… Maybe you refuse to ever play table tennis...

My whole experience with video games is quite an accurate metaphor for how many of us live our lives. 

Our fear of failure stops us from doing things we would like to be good at, we reassure ourselves by blaming our parents, our upbringing or past circumstances, and miss huge opportunities to learn and grow. Then we look back with regret and tell ourselves “If only I had…”.  

This is a very common pattern. From a very young age, a lot of us are praised mainly for our intelligence or our talent (from learning how to walk to getting good grades). As a result we become highly dependent on validation. This teaches us to spend more time proving how good we are instead of actually getting better. 

We long for praise like “You are so smart” or “Wow you're a natural” and rarely get told “Well done for really persevering” or “Wow you put a lot of effort into that and it paid off”. We learn that failure is bad and should be avoided at all cost. 

And as our egos develop, it’s only normal that when faced with the option to not lose by not playing, we pick that one. 

In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, there’s a saying, which is also a quote from Nelson Mandela that goes: “There’s no such thing as losing, you either win or you learn”.

If you want to feel less fear of failure and more confidence/enjoyment when taking on activities you are not good at, try to adopt this mentality. Everytime you lose, you are getting better, everytime you lose, you are growing. 

You can even scrap the word “lose” from your vocabulary and switch it with “learn”. Adopt a Growth Mindset, learn to cultivate what you are good at through your efforts.  

Not many people talk about the 9000 shots that Michael Jordan missed, JK Rowling’s countless publisher rejections or Sir James Dyson’s 5126 failed prototypes before finally creating the bestselling vacuum cleaner. 

So next time you feel resistance towards doing something new or something that you’re not good at, just do it anyways. Drop your ego and see it as an opportunity to learn. Change your way of seeing failure, learn to embrace it instead.

But what if I get made fun of for losing or failing? 

Just laugh about it too, if you are going to suck at something, might as well have fun while you do it 😉

I hope this resonated, if so let me know the one thing you’re going to embrace losing or failing at!!