What we can learn from Guitar Hero
Feb 1st, 2008 by Carlos
As I mentioned earlier this week, reading is one way that helps me brainstorm new ideas. It doesn’t have to be something new, it just has to be something interesting. So yesterday I was going through Ramit’s blog, Iwillteachyoutoberich, poking around some of his old posts looking for something interesting. For those that have never visited it, it’s very entertaining, very helpful, and his ideas are usually very original and creative.
Anyway, I could go on and on about Ramit like a star-crossed teenager, but for now I want to focus on a post titled “Set smaller goals: impress friends, get girls, lose weight.” Ramit talks about the ways we usually go about changing our behaviors and how inefficient (read: unsuccessful) we usually are.
He uses the example of someone trying to save money and starting off with too much ambition, saving so much that he/she can’t possibly sustain it. The same thing happens with people looking to lose weight or work out.
“Habits don’t change overnight, and if they do, chances are it won’t be sustainable.”
The idea is that you should set smaller goals, ones you can actually stick to over the long term. Isn’t that what change is all about? It’s the reason why my New Year’s resolution of working out twice a week is not very ambitious.
Twice a week? That’s pretty easy, isn’t it? Sure, I could try to commit to three or even four times a week, but I’ve done that before and it doesn’t stick for too long. So I chose two times a week knowing that I could probably stick to it. And I have.
Effective, long-lasting change happens gradually, a lot of times without us even noticing. Making changes to our lives isn’t easy, and the key word here is gradual.
Which brings me to Guitar Hero. If you’ve never played Guitar Hero before, you can read about it here before watching the video, but it’s basically a game where you hold a plastic guitar and hold five different colored buttons while strumming the guitar. The whole point is to try and hit the notes as they come across the bottom of the screen so the song you are playing sounds good and you become a rock star for four minutes.
I play the game on Medium difficulty:
Ok so that looks like it could be fun, right? It is. And the other day we were playing with some friends when it hit me: we can barely get through medium, what must hard be like? What about expert? And who could possibly finish a song on such a crazy difficulty level? Thanks for the magic of Youtube here is a dude playing the toughest song in the game on the hardest difficulty level:
If you haven’t played this game it might not look it, but what this guy is doing is ridiculous. It got me thinking about the amount of time and effort this guy put into learning to play the game. Mere mortals like myself may look at that video and think, “There’s no way I could possible do that.” And right now, it’s true—I can’t. This is what happens to a lot of people when they are starting out trying to take control of their financial life. They read about how people have an ING Account, they invest in the stock market, they have a budget, they have a diversified income, and on and on it goes.It’s overwhelming.If you are a beginner and are trying to take control of your finances: don’t worry, it won’t happen overnight. This is a slow, gradual process that takes time.If you are a personal-finance blogger who wants to help: don’t forget how overwhelming it can be when you’re starting out. Imagine that guy in the second video trying to teach you how to beat that song when you’ve never played Guitar Hero before. It would be pretty ugly and you wouldn’t get anything done.
I’ve seen this personally with M, my fiancée. She had a little bit of trouble with her finances when she first set up a budget and a system to save her money. But after a while she got more and more used to it and now she doesn’t need my help. Same thing with Guitar Hero—she had some problems going through Guitar Hero on the easy setting but now she’s nearing the end of the Medium level without many problems.
How did she get to this point? She’s been improving slowly and gradually.
That’s one thing about this game: it teaches you new things as you advance. Step by step, you get better and better until you gradually get good enough to move up the difficulty ladder.
The lesson we’ve learned from Guitar Hero: Changing our behavior happens slowly and gradually, so don’t try to rush it or you might not accomplish anything.
And if you’re looking for a place to start when it comes to personal finance, check out this post on ING Direct. The first step I took in taking control of my finances was opening a high-yield savings account with ING. Actually, I got referred by Ramit and got $25 for free. And now you can too. Full circle people, full circle.
remember monopoly? you have to buy a few green houses before you build a red hotel!