"How you do one thing is how you do everything." -some person
It's funny how seemingly unrelated things, like video games and real life, are actually more related than one would think. Turns out, my trials and tribulations of becoming a respectable Fortnite player have shockingly similar roadblocks to my real, personal goals in life. In this blog post I will share with you five lessons I've learned in my Fortnite journey that have LITERALLY helped and translated to my real life.
As a Life Coach, of course I've found correlations between how I pursue my personal life goals and how I pursue my goal of winning consistently on Fortnite. Read these lessons and see how they apply to the goals you have in your life - then apply them as you see fit!
The breakdown of this post:
- What is Fortnite, for those who have never played it before.
- The 5 Life Lessons From Playing Fortnite, broken down in to five parts.
What the 'F' is Fortnite?
If you're not a male between the ages 4-35, you probably never played Fortnite, or know what it is. Fortnite is a last-man-standing, Hunger Games style type video game, where 100 players drop into a map and compete for what's called a "Victory Royale." It is easily the most popular game since the video game titan "Call of Duty 4" came out back in 2007. I love playing Fornite and so do millions of others.
What makes Fortnite so unique is that a player only gets one in-game life to accomplish the task at hand. Meaning, you can drop in the game, and within 10 seconds get shot and killed, and that's it - game over. Similarly, you can drop in the game, hide in a bush the entire time, and if your opponent falls off a cliff and accidentally suicides, you WIN with 0 kills.
The point is that it's HARD to get a win and be consistent. The variables that contribute to a win, and mostly losses, are overwhelming.
Yet, there ARE people who win at a fairly high rate. For example, a top ranking player has a 25% win-rate, which is crazy high considering the odds. Hell, even a 10% win rate is respectable.
To give you an idea, I've logged over 150 hours playing the game, and I have less than 20 wins total. That's easily...I don't know, maybe just under 1,000 games played? 20/1000 = 0.02. That's a 2% win-rate. Sadly, there are people who have logged way more hours than me and have less wins than that. "What is the difference between those that win at a high rate and those who lose at a high rate?" I'd ask myself.
This question can be broadened to real life: "What is the difference between those that succeed in life at a consistent rate, and those who do not?"
The correlation between what it takes to be a consistently winning Fortnite player, and being a consistently winning human being, are really not that far apart. Keep reading and see for yourself!!
Lesson #1: You can get lucky and win, but to win consistently takes PErsistent practice, focus, and modeling The Success of others.
Although I may have close to twenty wins under my belt, it's still a complete crap-shoot whenever I do get a win. Some weeks I'll get two wins, which is amazing. Then I'll go on a two week drought. Did the Fortnite gods bless me one week and smite me the next week? Nah.
A Big part of success is doing the right thing, at the right time, for the current situation, and being willing to adapt and be creative to find solutions.
If I don't hit my gun shots, then I'm not going to get kills. If I don't consistently take the high ground, my chances of getting killed are much higher. Point is, it is not by accident that the winning players win more than they lose. They are best at executing the actions that lead to wins, simple as that.
Same goes for Life: I may bring on a coaching client every now and then, but in order to consistently attract the clients I love working with, who are ready and willing to pay the amount my services are worth, then there is a course of actions that lead to those results. I may get lucky doing things sporadically, but if do what others have done to create the results I'm looking for, and practice and practice and practice, the results will be comparable.
Lesson #2: Consistent success depends on the will to be 100% responsible for the results.
There are so many excuses a person can use for why they aren't getting the result they want. In real life, those excuses look like not enough time and resources, to name a few. In Fortnite, you can easily get killed by a random guy, 100 meters away, sniping you while hiding in a bush (yes, that happens). Similarly, you can have two enemies team up on you (which is against the rules) effectively f**king you over.
YET, the best of the best, MUST be doing something that the other players aren't, that allows them to win on a consistent basis. They are dropping into the same game, with the same rules, and the same overwhelming amount of randomness.
What they do is they take 100% responsibility for their actions. They create scenarios that limit the possibility of being sniped by a bush-hider. They are prepared to take on 1, 2, 3 enemies at a time, and have practiced so much that that's EASY for them.
Their muscle memory to hit the right buttons, at the right times, for an infinite amount of situations, makes them superior to 99% of the Fortnite players.
What the LOSING Fortnite players do is they complain and they HOPE things go right so that they win by chance.
Same goes for life: Although one's life circumstance will vary from person to person, the arena in which we drop into has the same variables and limitations for all players. Look, I know that being white may be different than being black, BUT in terms of creating the type of success I'm talking about, using race, money, or anything really, as an excuse for not succeeding is not an option.
Doesn't matter if you're poor, rich, black, white, tall, or short. If you're willing to be 100% responsible for your success, then your success is inevitable.
Lesson #3: One must practice and develop ALL components of a winning-formula in order to win consistently.
There are two components to winning in Fortnite, (1) kill everyone that tries to kill you and (2) stay alive. There is more detail if you want to get into it, but for the sake of this article that's the basic formula.
What a number of players do is HIDE all game. That's a boring way to play, BUT they've found a way to increase their odds of winning. Hiding is essentially avoiding the possibility of being killed, aka staying alive, which is half of the game.
Problem is, most good hiders are horrible killers, which means even if they get down to the final two players left, they won't win because they don't know how to win gun-fights. And, typically, a very high level player is the last person you're going to face. Guess who is going to win that fight 99% of the time - the player who practices and is consistently better all components of the game.
If you don't practice ALL components of a winning-formula, then you cannot expect to win consistently - if at all.
Same goes with life: Take your health and body for example The winning formula for the body I want is as follows: lift weights + eat healthy + get sleep.
Like the Fortnite winning formula I shared, the health and fitness equation is much more detailed than that, like the kind of lifting program, the right macros, and how much sleep. But that's the basic formula right there.
In my many trials to get the "body I've always wanted" I'd only practice one, maybe even two components of the winning formula. And even then, the details to which I was following them were not on track with the results I wanted.
Not so surprisingly, I've yet to consistently create the health and fitness results I've always wanted but never had.
Think about your results in the area of life that you've always wanted to improve but never have. Consider that you are not following and developing every component of the winning formula for your goals. If you were following them, then you'd have the results you want. Right? Right.
Lesson #4: You must have a paradigm that allows you to constantly fail in order to improve - without losing enthusiasm.
Failure can be frustrating, which can lead to quitting altogether. However, the players who get better and win on a consistent basis have a paradigm that allows them to continue developing despite losing 1000's of times.
Like I mentioned before, there are so many variables and situations this game throws at a player. It is frustrating as hell to lose, constantly, to the dumbest of reasons. You can have the game of your life, get 20 kills, and still lose because you panicked, pressed the wrong buttons, and pulled out your med-kit instead of the rocket launcher you needed.
Simply put, the best players find a way to learn from their mistakes and, moving forward, implement the right move instead. They do not let losing cloud their emotional state. They may get upset or frustrated in the moment, but they ultimately LEARN from it and use what they learned to SUCCEED.
They may continue to die from that same situation, BUT over time, their consistent implementation of a new, working strategy will flip things around. And like the previous lesson stated, they take full responsibility for their results.
Same goes with life: If a person does the same thing every day, he will get the same results every day. The key is to have a paradigm that fuels constant learning from failures while loving the process (enthusiasm). Play, practice, fail, learn, and apply working strategies in order to achieve long-term, consistent success.
Lesson #5: You must handle your emotions and thoughts and focus on doing the right actions, especially in the clutch.
A Fortnite game can be broken down into three parts: early game, mid game, and late game. Each portion of the game is a mini-game of its own and requires different skills and weapons than the others.
For example, "early game" is the first 1-5 minutes of the game. This is when everyone is dropping in and searching for loot. During this portion of the overall game, players are everywhere, left and right. You can get double, triple teamed. You may not find a gun, while your opponent has a legendary scar (the best gun in the game). If you're not good at shooting people down, in various high-action situations, you're probably going to die. That said, knowing this, you can adjust your drop location to somewhere that is slower paced.
Whereas in "late game", which is when it's down to the last 10-15 players, you'll need to be a master at building and establishing dominant positions. And, of course, your gun skills must be even more on point because the skill level of other players is much higher during the late game.
All of this knowledge is USELESS, if you can't handle your thoughts and emotions in the clutch. Said another way, one must be FOCUSED on doing the right actions at the right times, not saying to himself "Oh god, it's the final 10, I hope I win. Please God." Those thoughts literally come to my mind almost every time I'm in the final 10, haha. It takes conscious effort to stay focused.
Same goes with life:
It's not thinking or knowing the right things that get a person the results. It's DOING the right things.
Final Thoughts:
Think of anything it took you considerable amounts of time and practice to master. For me, that's solving a Rubik's Cube in under a minute, or riding a bike with no handle bars. It doesn't have to be a big thing.
Simply adopt the mindset and work ethic that it took for you to master one craft, and translate it to the craft you want to master next!
Cheers!
