Just ‘Candy Crush’ your life…

What keeps you going? Every game that has the ‘child in you’ craving for more keeps raising the bar. Your objective is to move to the next level. No matter how many times you fail, you persist. 

This constant progression through the levels becomes addictive. It even calls for healthy competition, the sharing of guidance from gamers who have progressed and a request for help when you are stuck. Because in terms of Candy Crush, no challenge is too hard; no level seems out of your reach. In fact, the harder the level, greater is the effort you exert. 

Yet, in life and business why is it that after a few mere failures you give up? What is the difference between your attitude towards life and Candy Crush? The insatiable appetite to progress through the levels of the game indicates that human beings do want to take on challenges. It is a reasonable conclusion as at times you even lose sleep as you strategise and persevere to proceed to a higher level. 

It is the same with life. You lose sleep, organise and persevere to ensure your business venture succeeds. That’s how you make money. If there is fallout in a relationship you don’t just try once, it’s a constant process. Where is the ‘disconnect’? Why is it that while in the real word you give up, yet in virtual reality you constantly persist? 

In games that are built for mobile phones, the challenges are sporadic and inconsistent. You do not know what the next level holds. Yet, unlike in life, you have no fear of the unknown. You almost seem to crave it. In games such as Candy Crush, you cannot strategise and plan well in advance like you would in chess. Certain levels move at such a pace that you do not even have a second to think. You react to the situaation and eventually your reaction speed improves. 

As an experienced gamer, you soon nurture an aptitude to make quick judgments. Spontaneity is your greatest ally. Though the frame may change and the difficulty level has increased, you are excited, fuelled up and ready face the challenge. Ask yourself, why is this not the same attitude with which you approach life or work? 

In (work) life, you have become complacent. You tend to take everything for granted. You won’t change the settings; you do not want the challenges to become bigger. Your reactions are routine, you have perfected the level, but are refusing to move to the next one. However, while in Candy Crush you will invest to buy another life or ‘booster’, in reality, where it counts, you will not. You refuse to lose sleep to move up in life, yet have no qualms with the thought of moving up a level keeping you up at night. 

In virtual reality you will hit and miss four or five times, yet you will continue. In fact your interest is peeked with each miss and eventually you win. You become very instinctive, like a child, so you learn and progress. 

Why don’t you adopt the ‘Candy Crush mindset’ in your work? Appreciate and accept that every move you make will have a different response. Sometimes you have to think and sometimes you have to be instinctive. In Candy Crush you are always ready for the difficult level, but you shy away from obstacles at work, in life and as a nation as a whole. 

Change the frame and go out there. Why don’t you ‘Candy Crush’ your life? The rewards might be better, most certainly better than illusive virtual toffees that you will never taste.  

The saga was released by a developer called King in April 2012, available in all android applications. By April 94, 93 million people had played the game. By February 2015, Candy Crush had about 8,254,000 daily players with about 100,000 new installations every day.