When I was young I played a lot of video games. My favorite games were the ones where you leveled up your character by collecting certain objects, saving fictitious money to buy a new upgrade, or the classic fighting enemies for experience. If you are not an active video game player this is what is referred to as grinding. I had heard that term a lot at my previous job mostly regarding putting in the extra time needed to accomplish the task at hand. This had got me thinking, did video games play a part in making me a hard worker?
That seems a little backwards because most people see video games as an escape from hard work. However, I’m starting to see a lot of correlations between the drive to be successful in the workplace and the drive to beat the final boss in a video game. I will do my best to describe the scenario of starting a new job and starting new game and the similarities between the two.
You start off your journey in a new place you have never been before except for in brief glimpses such as an interview or a game demo being released. You are introduced to your new team and what your daily functions will be, otherwise known as the tutorial level. Then after getting the base knowledge needed you are thrown into your first challenge. Now depending on your job and what you do on a day to day basis this could be anything. My most recent job was a sales role so I will use the example of your first sales call as the mini boss that gets introduced at the beginning of every game. You want to start off on a good foot, and most likely you don’t feel fully prepared for this challenge. This describes so many first days at new jobs I have had I am a little surprised I didn’t notice the similarity sooner. Then after making it through your first day or the tutorial level you start the grind.
These are the day to day tasks that are needed to get you better and push you closer to the goals that you are looking to accomplish. The goal is the most important thing to keep in mind for the grind. In video games, your goal is already determined. You must save the princess, or slay the evil monster, or simply get the high score. The point is that in a video game you are okay with the grind because you can see the goal in front of you and you know what you must do achieve that goal. In a work environment the goals can be tricky because not everyone has the same goal in mind.
I once heard a motivational speaker say that a lot of people are afraid to go for their goals because they are afraid to fail. Since they are afraid to fail they never see success they want because they never want to take risks. This may seem like a stretch, but everyone I know who plays video games has that one game that took them hours to beat because they kept failing at the same part repeatedly. At that point you get so angry, but you don’t give up. You must beat the game you can’t let it beat you. So, you grind, and you keep pushing through until you accomplish your goal of beating this game.
I know this topic is a little silly, but the similarities between the day to day grind at work and beating a game are there. I think that if you look at going to work as something that you can beat, and set that goal for yourself no matter what it is that the day to day grind becomes a lot easier. Sometimes you need to look at things with a different perspective like this to find the success you are looking for. So, if you are ever in a position where you are interviewing a candidate for a job, see if they play video games. They may show you all the traits you want from an employee based on their gamer score.