Change is Really Hard
As my clients know I love to know what their favorite and least favorite game is to play. I think there is a lot that comes to the surface when we know what attracts/repels us to games. Typically we are drawn to games that fit the way we think, challenge us, help us feel accomplished, and overall make us feel really good.
My favorite game has been and likely always will be Tetris. Tetris for me plays on my skills of loving to organize. You see all of the patterns at once, you know what is coming and know what is already in front of you. But most importantly I am in control. I may not be in control of what piece is coming and it might not fit perfectly immediately but I can at least know that it's coming so I can plan for the small errors. I can go through scenario planning quickly and make adjustments where it's needed and I know exactly what the adjustments will be. Even if it speeds up as you keep playing I eventually get in a zone and can make quick decisions as they come. But what does our least favorite game say about us?
My least favorite game...unpopular opinion I know. But I DESPISE Pac-man. You might think how is it all that different from Tetris? You don’t have control of the pieces in Tetris just like you don’t have control over the ghosts. But it's very very different. The ghosts in Pac man are completely unpredictable. They chase you, they change directions and you don’t know where they are going, and force you to make decisions that are not perfectly calculated. This game makes me very anxious because I don’t like making split-second decisions not knowing how it will end. Not knowing in the moment if I just made the worst decision. I want to see the beginning, middle, and end at once and feel confident in myself, my skills, and my decisions.
When I think about this as it relates to real life both of these games pinpoint my thinking to a T. I like seeing EVERYTHING at once and being able to see the pattern to know exactly what I should do next. It gives me the confidence to be able to know how to problem solve quickly. But not seeing the whole picture and not having the predictability makes me anxious and makes it REALLY hard to deal with change.
I had a boss who used to jokingly say to me “Alex, you need to live a little more in the gray”. But that was really hard for me to embrace the change because I don’t know what to anticipate and therefore can plan which inevitably means I make mistakes. I didn’t want people to second guess me or my decisions and I didn’t want them to think that the reasons I made the mistakes were because of my learning disabilities and ADHD. I rather perfect the task I understood than try something new. But if I really thought about it everything was new at one point.
So how can I feel a little more at ease playing “Pac-man” and embrace the change that makes me anxious, without feeling like people are blaming my mistakes on my disability? Before I “play” I take some deep breaths and I remind myself of a few things. Everyone makes mistakes, not everything is predictable and sometimes the best decisions we make are the ones we didn’t plan for.
Before you find yourself struggling with change I encourage you to play the games you despise. Face your fear because if you can face the games that scare you the most you won’t be as scared of the changes you cannot control. The change won’t feel as scary and you will likely be able to embrace the change a little more.
