When I was young, I was always praised as a fast learner. I learned everything pretty fast. Sports, math, music, whatever. When it came to video games, however, I was on another level compared to my peers. I would quickly become the best at whatever popular game was being played at the time in my friend groups. And then I stopped being the best.
A few years later, I realized what was happening. I was only good at video games because of certain things I did. When I stopped doing the actions that made me good, then becoming mediocre was a no-brainer. In this post, I will share those things I did and show you how to get good at video games.
Getting Good At Video Games Is A Mental Battle
Your mind is what determines your ability to get good at video games. It’s not about your talent, game knowledge, or mechanics, although those things will help.
Anybody can get good at video games with the right mindset. What and how you think will determine whether you’re one of the best or below average.
Most guides on how to get good at video games skim over the part about your mind when it’s the most crucial part of your success. Things like mechanics and game knowledge stem directly from your ability to learn. And your ability to learn is directly determined by how you think.
I aim to show you how to think like a winner in this post because your mental alone determines your ability to get good at video games.
The Learning Mindset Is The Winning Mindset
Let’s start with the mindset.
Many articles and videos talk about being untiltable and learning from your losses, which is the learning mindset. To win over the long run, you need to be able to stay calm and logical at all times. Don’t get emotionally fed up when things don’t go your way, and you lose.
When I play games, I don’t directly think about winning. Of course, I’m trying to win, but I’m not thinking about how much I need to win. Let me explain in more detail.
I play a game called League of Legends quite a bit. It’s a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game where two teams of five strangers are assembled to play against each other. In this game, there’s a competitive ranking system just like many other online multiplayer games.
There’s also something called LP. To reach the next rank, you have to get a certain amount of LP. Winning gives you LP and losing loses your LP.
This is how most players think:
“I need to win this next game to get into my promos. I just need one more win to rank up. If I lose, I’m going to demote.”
And those thoughts above are exactly how players tilt. There are way too many variables that you can’t control, like your teammates and who the enemy is. When a player thinks like that and things start going downhill in their next game, their mindset crumbles, and they lose.
Here’s how I think:
“I want to learn something new this game. I want to try getting 0 deaths. I want to try punishing the enemy here instead of my usual strategy.”
You see, it’s a lot more about experimenting with ways of getting better. I’m still trying my absolute best to win, but it’s not the end of the world if I lose.
This is the learning mindset and how you become untiltable. Improving your rank in a particular game comes from getting better at the game, and that happens best when your objective going into every game is to learn something new.
Playing And Experimenting A Lot
To get good at anything, you need to practice a lot. But you probably already knew this. Anybody would become really good at something if they did it a million times every day.
My tip is a little more than just practicing a lot. I want you to experiment more.
“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” – Albert Einstein.
This is a nice little quote from Albert Einstein, and the same will happen in any game. If you limit yourself to doing the same things over and over, you’ll never be able to see new and better ways to play the game.
Yes, practicing the same thing over and over again will make you good, but experimenting with new strategies will make you even better.
Watch Better Players Play And Learn
Watching better players play goes along really well with experimenting. When you see other players play, you might learn new tricks they use to be good at the games they play that you would never have thought of.
The crucial part of watching better players play is that you have to apply what you see. You always want to be watching, learning, and applying. Another crucial part of your success is thinking about what and why other players do what they do. Understanding the concepts behind specific actions will allow you to think of different strategies and get even better.
Learning from other players is one of the best tips on this list. Practice is meaningless if you practice bad habits all the time. In my experience, watching better players play is what helped me improve the fastest.
When I just started playing League of Legends, I was horrible. I placed in Bronze V, the lowest rank of the time, in my second season. But I got better by watching a YouTuber’s full gameplays and climbed all the way to Silver II. This YouTuber was Anklespankin, a Diamond League of Legends player.
The next season, however, I got even higher. I started in Bronze I this time and climbed all the way to Platinum IV, and secured myself a place as the best League of Legends player in our friend group. How?
I spent a lot of time watching other players play and applying those strategies. I remember spending a lot of time watching videos from Trick2g, for example, playing the same champions in the same way he played them.
Over time, I forgot that this was one of the best strategies for me to get good at anything, and I became hardstuck. I was stuck at the same rank for quite a few seasons. I realize how powerful this strategy is now, and I’ve started improving a lot faster once again.
Recently I finally broke past Platinum into the Diamond playing bot lane. I spent a good deal of time watching Doublelift and Uzi and copying how they played.
You should try this strategy out if you aren’t doing it already. It will help you get good at any game you desire to be good at.
Competition Is Good If You Compete Against Yourself
You have to be careful with competition. Personally, when I try to compare and compete against other people, I get really frustrated. The problem with competing with other people is that we’re always trying to get instant gratification. And sometimes, it’s not possible.
For example, maybe I’m scrolling around the internet for a little bit, and I find news about a 13-year-old gamer who is better than me. If I try to compare myself to him, I would try to become the best right away, so I would probably jump into a few games trying to make a statement.
But no matter how hard I work, becoming the best does not happen in one day. It’s a matter of consistently practicing and getting better.
It would be best if you focused on comparing yourself to yourself. Try to be a little better than what you were yesterday. It’s not about comparing your progress to someone else’s progress. It’s about your own progress against yourself.
Specific Game Guides
This guide is a pretty general guide. There are specific tips and tricks you can use to get better for every game, and they can often be crucial to improving. Thus, I will be setting up guides for particular games and put them here as I write them.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below, and I’ll be happy to help you out always!