Since the start of Covid-19, many of us have been thrown into lockdown, giving us plenty of time to work from home. It induces us to incorporate our work life with our home life. Some of us started exploring many new games during this pandemic. Much like Girls In Charge’s gamified workshops, we can also learn applicable life skills from games! We may not be toddlers but games are definitely a fun way to engage our brain cells!
Here are our three lessons we learnt from playing games:
1. Getting to know each of your players’ strengths and weaknesses
Similar to real life, leadership means that you need to know your team members and their individual strengths and weaknesses. (Check out Belbin’s Team Roles on this! Belbin Team Roles | Belbin)
In choosing my Clash Royale ‘game team’, it’s not a matter of having the strongest players on it, rather having a diverse set of players. The best diverse team is one where the weaknesses of some players complement the strengths of the other players and vice versa. This creates a balanced and neutral team.
2. Not showing all your cards at once
When coming face to face with competition, it is best not to show your cards or players all at once.
Rather, observe who makes the first move and know what cards your opponent is dealt with. Then, you can plan the order and timing of releasing your players out in the Gamefield. Patience and timing are great assets in the real world.
3. Losing well
We seem to accept that losing is part of games. While sometimes we are good losers, other times we don’t take losing so well - think table-flipping, loud-shouting Monopoly losses. But in the end, we learn what we could from the failure and we play again.
In real life, we seem to have a much harder time accepting our failures. Be it from self-given pressure or an external force, we tend to treat ourselves harshly when we fail. But if we can take a ‘games-mindset’ - fail fast and get back in the game- we are more likely to grow and be better at the game of life. And yes, it is easier said than done, but we should at least give it a go.
More generally though, as we cannot explore the real world the way we used to (bye bye travelling… for now), we can explore the many fantasy worlds in games. Moreover, we may even make friends from different corners of the world! Of course, spending time with people online is great, but don’t forget to spend time with people in real life too (Covid-permitting!). How about trying some board games?
Stay tuned for our top picks of digital and board games!