Unleashing Your Inner Gamer:
Applying Gaming Mindset to Achieve Business Goals
We are used to looking to traditional sources for guidance and inspiration on our entrepreneurial journey. We read books. We listen to podcasts. We attend seminars on strategies of the giants of industry, on leadership and building and growing our business. But we often discount other sources, and one source in particular: video games and a gaming mindset!
As an avid gamer, I have found many of the principles that drive success in gaming, can also be applied to business. I have seen the lessons learned from playing video games, and adopting a gaming mindset can be applied with great success in business. In this post, I’ll share with you how you can unleash your inner gamer, dust off those consoles from your youth and use the mindset of gaming to help achieve your business goals.
Understanding the Gaming Mindset
But what do I mean by a “gaming mindset”? Let’s start by considering what it takes to succeed at games. Great video games require resilience, strategic thinking, problem-solving, adaptability, and a relentless pursuit of goals. Gamers don’t shrink from a challenge, facing challenge after challenge as they progress towards the ultimate goal. Every challenge comes with the opportunity to learn from their attempts to solve the challenges, beat the BOSS, learning from their mistakes as they improve their skills. They understand that the only failure is to stop playing, every defeat by the BOSS, is another opportunity to learn and grow, moving through the game with an experimental mindset.
Sharpening their skills against the progress of the game, they plunge headfirst into the fray, collecting the tools, skills and in some larger online games, colleagues, a clan, sharing skills and combining strengths to progress through the game.
This is the ‘gaming mindset’. The goal orientated, strategic thinking, skill growing, tool and team collecting, try and try again mindset.
Oh! And one other thing. Gamers are out to have fun, to play.
The Intersection of Gaming and Business
All of these skills are invaluable in the world of business, which is fraught with obstacles, challenges and setbacks. Successful entrepreneurs are resilient in the face of adversity, strategic in their planning, and adaptable to changing circumstances, all good gaming traits.
Consider the structure of a typical game. You start at level one, facing small challenges and learning the basics. As you progress, the challenges become more complex, the BOSS levels more challenging, but along the way, you’re gaining skills, knowledge, and experience. Isn’t this similar to the journey of building a business?
In business, as in gaming, we set goals (winning the game or growing the business), face obstacles (game levels or business challenges), and level up (gain skills or expand our business). The strategies we use to navigate a game can also be applied to navigate our business journey.
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So, how can we apply a gaming mindset to business? Let’s use my 54321…Go framework as an example. This framework is a strategic planning tool that I developed, inspired by my experience with Agile methodologies and gaming. It involves:
- 5-year vision: Where do you see your business in five years? This is your ultimate goal, the equivalent of the final boss in a game. It’s what you’re working towards.
- 4 seasons: These are your yearly milestones, the significant steps that move you closer to your 5-year vision. In gaming terms, these are the major levels or stages of the game.
- 3 months: This is your short-term planning period, similar to a game chapter or quest line. It’s a manageable chunk of time where you can focus on achieving specific goals, skilling up, building your clan, as you progress towards the major level-ups.
- 2 weeks: These are the small steps along the way, where you focus on specific tasks or challenges. In a game, this might be a quest or mission. A stepping stone along in the journey through the game.
- 1 day: This is your daily planning, where you decide what actions to take today to move you closer to your goals. It’s the grind, the routine that builds up the skills, collects the tools and plans the moves through the game.
By approaching your business goals like a game, you can make the process more engaging and manageable, introduce more fun and play. By recognising the levels or time period represents a step towards your ultimate goal, the daily grind can be seen for its place in journey through the levels, and each completed task is a victory that brings you closer to BOSS level.
Practical Tips to Develop a Gaming Mindset
Now that we’ve seen how a gaming mindset can be applied to business let’s look at some practical ways to develop this mindset:
Embrace Challenges:
In games, challenges are opportunities for learning and skilling-up. Cutting your teeth on these challenges, hones your abilities, collects the tools and the comrades to level up. Adopt the same mindset in your business. Don’t shy away from difficulties; instead, view them as chances to experiment, learn the rules of the game, and identify where you need more tools, more skills, or collaborators.
Set Clear Goals:
Just as games have clear objectives, the special tool, the skill levels and the muscle memory that you will need, so should your business. Use the 54321…Go framework to set and track your goals, from the 5 year vision, through to the daily skill grind.
Celebrate Wins:
In gaming, every successful level-up, every quest completed, and every tool collected is celebrated, no matter how small. Do the same in your business. Celebrate every milestone, every goal reached, and every problem solved, every day’s grind undertaken.
Learn from Failures:
In games, failure is not the end; it’s a chance to respawn, to learn and come back stronger, ready for the next time you face the challenge better prepared. When you face setbacks in your business, don’t get discouraged, no-one gets through the game without losing a life, and with every run through you learn. Instead, analyse what went wrong, learn from it, and use that knowledge to improve.
Stay Agile
Games often require quick thinking and adaptability, as you face each new quest, each new challenge. In business, the same can be true, as conditions can change rapidly, and the ability to adapt is crucial. Stay flexible and be ready to adjust your strategies as needed.
At first sight, the world of gaming seems miles away from the world of business, but upon further investigation games and gaming offers valuable lessons that can be applied to the world of business. Taking some of these lessons and adopting a gaming mindset, we can approach the daily grind and challenges of business, become more resilient, strategic, and adaptable, turning challenges into opportunities for growth. So, why not unleash your inner gamer, pick up the business console and start to PLAY the GAME of business?
AGame Masterminds helps small business owners grow sustainable and purpose-driven businesses, through community, masterminds and coaching. Book a call to find out how you can share your experiences, learn from others, and turn the game of business into an exciting adventure with AGame Masterminds.
