This is a video game controller.

And understanding this, can you help you master any skill.

It may be a simple revelation for some of you, but it become something much more consequential to me.

And it all came down to one principle: make it fun.

Pretty simple.

To apply it anything, I've boiled it down to 3 steps.

But in order to get to those steps. I had to first work through a roadblock.

You see, I grew up as a pretty avid gamer. But over the last 9 years I have had to take a big step back. I got married, started a family, went to graduate school. It's been a pretty full life.

But then 2022 came around. And everybody I knew or followed on social media that was even remotely connected to gaming was talking about this one game.

Elden Ring.

For anybody who does not know about this game, think of it like the Lord of the Rings, except you're always fighting demons.
Like a lot of demons.
A lot.

Honestly I tried to resist the call, but eventually I just caved in.

So I got the game, setup my keyboard and mice and got down to business.

Now without spoiling too much of this game for anybody, there is no difficult setting for you to adjust, which proved to be refreshing in a lot of ways.

But as a result you end up dying a lot in this game.

There is definitely an intentional learning curve here.

You face a lot of roadblocks right away before you even remotely start feeling like you’re competent at this.

You know, kind of like learning a new skill.

But as I tried to progress through the gameplay, I felt like the mechanics of this game were really punishing me.

So instead of trying and experimenting, I decided to step away from the game instead.

But a part of me, really wanted to keep trying this game. I really wanted to get good at it.

So one day several weeks after I had taken a break from the game, I decided to watch some gameplay of other people playing Elden Ring.

Maybe there was just something I was missing.

And not surprisingly that are some really freaking good players of this game.

But… there was also something else that stuck out to me that I hadn’t paid attention to at all before.

So I flipped through a few more clips to see if this was a thing and I kept seeing it.

All of these people were playing with a controller.

Now, this may not have been much a revelation for people who play this kind of game before, but again for me I was totally new to this.

It never crossed my mind to try this game with a controller. I had always played PC games on a keyboard and mouse.

So I thought, ok, why not.

I bought a used controller, and once it arrived I jumped back in.

Almost right away, I could feel a difference.

This was not the same game I was struggling with before.

Movement was more responsive. Camera motions felt more fluid. And the combat felt great.

I mean I still died a lot. But now I knew at least how fun this game could feel.

I was really enjoying it.

And because of that, I wanted to play more of it.

Experiment

And of course I wanted to play more of it. Having fun is rewarding. We will naturally do more of what we enjoy.

We’ve seen this idea covered in a lot of different books, like Atomic Habits.

But it’s also been heavily researched backed by many academic studies.

​One paper I found captured the idea I was figuring out for myself pretty perfectly:

Make something enjoyable to do and you’re likely to stick with that thing.

Pretty simple.

So How can you put this principle into practice?

Well, you’re probably doing some version of this already.

You just may not be doing an active version of it.

Here were the 3 steps I boiled my experience down to.

First it’s about awareness.

Recognize when you’re hitting roadblocks and ask yourself one important questions.

Do I actually want to do this thing?
Sometimes the answer to this is going to be no.
And you need to be really honest with yourself here.
I know I've fooled myself into thinking I really enjoyed a thing.
but really I was letting ego or reputation get in the way.
And now that I’ve lived a bit of my life,
I know how much of a waste that was.
So be really honest with yourself here.
Is this necessary?

Is this one of your ‘forever’ things that you want to do for as long as you can?

If no then move on. Life is too short to waste on things you don’t want to be a part of who you are.

If yes, then step two is research.

We live in a time where all the world’s information is at your fingertips.

Literally go to your preferred information platform of choice and do a search.

Find other people doing your thing and see how they do it. Are there habits or patterns or lessons that you can pick out?

Be active about this.

Look at how they approach the task and try to absorb it for yourself.

And then finally, step three is experiment.

You can’t let yourself get stuck in the loop of research, research, research. You need to try it for yourself.

Avoid analysis paralysis at all costs.

The best thing you can do is go try it.
Because in the act of trying it you discover things.
I like this, I don’t like this.

But discovery is the act of learning.
And learning is growing.

Because really, if you’ve decided you’re going to spend your time doing a thing, and making it a part of who you are, then it’s always going to be worth it to take the time figuring out how to make your forever thing as enjoyable as possible for you.

You owe that to yourself.

Conclusion

Using a principle for gaming for skill acquisition:

Make it fun, make it enjoyable, and you'll find it easier to immerse yourself.

Three easy steps to find a more enjoyable path:

1. Awareness
2. Research
3. Experiment

Hope that was helpful.

Take care for now.