Good Thursday morning to you. We are now past the halfway mark in our week of focusing on Life is a Game. I feel like I have only given you a small part of the info I wanted to put into this week. This is one of those subjects that is so rich I will create a program in the future to expand on it further.
Today I was thinking that, in each of our lives, we live with different objectives. Each one of us has a different outlook on things. Two people can sit and watch the same movie and relate to different characters and get totally different meanings out of the same movie. That is because no two of us are wired the same. When we set out to create a game out of our lives, we will all have a different objective.
So when you decide to make a game of life, or finally decided that life is a game and you need to learn to play more with it, first set out your objective. Have a purpose. This will help you with direction, and we all need direction in our lives.
One of the hardest things to learn in our world is to see the other side of the coin, to view the world from the shoes of someone else. Well I have worked hard to see it that way, but if you ask Gwynne or Jess they will tell you I am in need of much growth in that area of my life. Before I teach it to someone I need to take a brush up course on it myself.
But let’s imagine we have set out an objective in our game. Last night I was reading an article about someone who created an online game to help people understand what it was like to live on a low wage, what it was like to face the choices of being a single mom having to change the world up with sudden choices. I went to the sight and played the game and was able to win at it every time. But it gave me the same thing at the end of every game month. You made it with so much money left but rent is due tomorrow and you are short.
In playing this game, it was easy for me to make the choices. The instructions and the rules at the beginning asked “Can you make it through month without running out of money?” It did not tell me that the objective was to make my kids happy; that I had to have a certain amount of food or what kind of car I had to drive. It only gave small ideas of what was needed. The purpose of this game is to let you know what it’s like to live on a small wage, and make tough choices like giving your kids money for school lunches, or attending a family memorial service out of state. Yes, these are tough choices that people must make and with limited resources it’s tough to decide what to do and what to put off.
But I looked at it wearing the shoes of those who are in the game, the point of view of how the choices are made. I know some will make their decisions based on how they feel, others on rational facts. Well I played the game with the focus on “Can I get through?”
What if we change our objective in whatever game we are playing right now? Take the struggles you are facing and let’s turn to a game that gets you to think your way to make the outcome you want to happen, to make the choices that would give you the life you want. Now the first response I had to that challenge was “You’re going to cheat yourself out of things.” Well you could look at it that way, but change your focus and look at it from my shoes. I did live on a low income six years ago. I remember working a 40-hour week getting my check and living on less than what I paid in child support. I thought about how some would say it was impossible to do, that prompted me to be determined to make it past that time in life.
Life will not always be fair; yes there are people who want to make it fair, I want to help as many people to find ways to get past the problem that keeps them from reaching their objective in the game of life they are playing. I’ve mentioned before that at our house we play a game of Scrabble with my honey and her dad. This is not like the monopoly game I mentioned in my family yesterday. Our objective every time we play Scrabble is to use all the letters up and everyone who plays wins. We can’t do this for the world, but we can start to plan our own game and win at our own game, then take our time to help someone win at their game where they cannot get past a problem.
In my game in life I want to see more and more people start a business idea from their home, take a small amount of money and a dream and build a million or billion dollar business out of it. Or maybe just build a company that hires 10 to 50 people and create more jobs in our country. So what is the game you are going to create today? How can I, as a coach, help you find your game plan? A free coaching session is only a call or email away.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time for you to live the dream you always wanted, to love what you do and those you share life with. Start your game and become the RockStar playing it today.
