What can we learn at the arcade?

What can we learn at the arcade?

Recently my family spent an afternoon at a video game arcade.  While we all split off and played the types of games we each like, the one game we can all agree upon is a car race simulator.

Everyone has a different strategy to play this game.  My husband approaches the game with just a lot of speed, hoping to get out ahead early, and keep his lead for the whole race.

Our kid likes to stay in the middle, and then plan an attack close the end to reach the front of the pack just as we are crossing the finish line.

My strategy seems to be to crash a few times as possible.  It’s a given I will always lose, but it’s fun to put the pedal to the metal on the simulated track and see how we would do in a race.

By the second time we were playing, I realized why I seem to crash a lot. I overreacted, over-corrected for a steering problem, and then go off the track on the other side.  I seem to treat the game more like bumper cars, bouncing from one edge of the track to the other, crashing, rejuvenating, and trying again.

By the third time we were playing, I tried to do very small corrections, mini turns on the steering wheel to direct my car down the track.  Amazingly, this worked!  

I spent some time later that evening thinking about this lesson to the rest of our lives.  Have you noticed when you make a big change or correction, it doesn’t always get you the results you were looking for?  What if instead we made just minor corrections, tried that for a moment, and made another minor correction if needed? 

Try making small changes, small corrections to your direction and see where it takes you.  You might just end up winning like I did in our third game!