I have been really into roguelike games recently. This is games like Hades 1 and 2, Against the Storm, Moonlighter, Cult of the Lamb, and Balatro, just to name a few. If you’re unfamiliar, the gist is this:
You start with very little in the way of abilities or powers, and you must navigate a world you are thrown into without much if any explanation. Enemies are a challenge, if not seemingly impossible; the environment is unfamiliar with strange features and unexpected dangers around every corner. If you get lucky and survive the first few rooms or areas, you’ll find items or power-ups that will benefit you. But even so, failure is almost certain at this stage. And so invariably you “die.” Death in these games can come in many forms, but regardless of the nature of the death, your run is over and you return to your home base or the main menu. Likely, you’ll also lose what items or abilities you gained during the run. At your base, you can regroup, catch your breath, and usually get some kind of explanation of what’s happening and what’s expected of you. And then armed with a little new knowledge and a little bit of experience, you start a new run and try again. That’s the gameplay loop.
But the thing about roguelikes is that they don’t punish you for failure. In fact, since failure is built into the loop and expected, and you don’t know the difference between “correct” strategies and “incorrect” strategies (insofar as there even is a correct/incorrect way to play), you can feel more free to play around, to experiment, to not let fear of failure and expectation of success to inhibit you. As you are learning and you don’t have preconceived notions of what success even looks like, you have liberty to explore, to find what works for you. You can’t be afraid of not making the “perfect” choice because you don’t even know what perfect is yet! That will come with time, and many, many iterations of the loop.
This is such a good analogy for learning something new or acquiring a new skill, like a language or a new hobby. When you start learning a new language it can seem overwhelming, completely foreign, just a vast ocean of things you do not know. Failure is almost certain. And that’s ok. Your vocabulary is small. You don’t have the rhythm of the language yet, your pronunciation and comprehension is poor because you haven’t heard or spoken enough. But that’s ok! That’s how it is! Treat the learning of a language like the roguelike it is; know you’re going to fail, you’re going to start over from the beginning quite a few times. But every time you start a new run, you’ve learned what not to do. Or you discovered a strategy that worked for you and got you farther than you got last time, and you just need to adapt it to the next challenge, the next new area.
It’s easier to say, certainly, than it is to put it into practice, but the more you are able to decouple the fear of failure and the drive to be perfect from your learning journey, the more enjoyment, satisfaction, and honestly, success you will have. The experience is worth it apart from the outcome.
And I am speaking from experience. I have tried learning languages and I have tried exercising many times in my life, and I’ve bounced off those things so many times, burnt out and dejected from the lack of my perceived progress and success. But the less I think about the goal, about the end, about the progress, and instead focus on the doing, on the experience, on the play, the more enjoyment I have experienced. The days, the lessons, the repetitions start to blend together, and the tasks become more familiar, more second nature. You start to develop a foundation, a fundamental understanding of the basics, and when you look back you can see the progress. How far you’ve come. And you can also see more clearly where you want to go.
It probably sounds a bit trite, but life is like a roguelike. You’re thrown into it without any guidance and you have to learn as you go. You’re going to fail, a lot. But the other great thing about roguelikes is that no run is the end. You can always start again and you can try something new this time. Pick a different set of skills, a different weapon, a different deck, and try again. Don’t fear failure, don’t expect perfection, and just enjoy the run.
