RE: Introducing the Information Finding Championship! (PowerHouseCreatives contest entry)
I love @ifc, but I'm often scared away by the topics, lol. Even when there is no specific topic, like last week.
I just noticed this week's topic is 'Inspiration' - Not so hard you'd think. Still, I'm not sure I will be able to get a post up. Lots of ideas are going through my head... but I don't know which one to work with.
Guess I'm also held back by my fair of failure. Silly, but I can't help it.
I entered last season when there was an assignment to - if I remember correctly - write something in which every word had the same first letter. I love to play language games, and I know I'm good at it, so I didn't think twice before submitting my entry. But most of the time, I feel a lot of pressure - although there isn't any. It's something I do to myself...
That's some valuable feedback and something for me to consider.. Perhaps I should work on making the quests easier and less intimidating. I was thinking about doing the one you mentioned that @bashadow came up with where each word starts with the same letter this week, though felt like inspiration was something I needed in my life so went with that, however.. I'm probably planning on doing that one next week! So if you can't think of any this time keep a look out and I'll try to keep thinking of ways to make the quests less intimidating.
And to be fair, there is a bit of pressure and it's not easy to win.. During the finals of last season it got a bit heated actually.. So you're not alone. I think some people enjoy that pressure though and some perhaps don't sort of akin to the conversation we had recently about talking to bigger fish on the platform and directly asking someone who their "alt" account was.. It can be a bit of a shift in perception to find pleasure and enjoyment in competition, and I've debated before and asked the community if we could find a way to make our game so there's no winners or losers and everyone just learns and has fun.. But overwhelmingly they all said we need a winner. Heh. So.. It's probably going to continue to be that way into the future, however.. Maybe some day we could create a lil side game where there are no winners and losers and have that be a separate thing from the IFC.. Something to think about! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, gave me some stuff to ponder over.
It's not the competition that I find intimidating, I'm a very competitive person myself. I would have voted to keep it a competition too :0)
In my early days on SteemIt, I wrote a post that may help you understand what I mean.
Although I wrote it over a year ago, I'm still stuck in the same mindset. It's hard to break old habits..
https://steemit.com/mapsters/@simplymike/i-m-my-own-worst-enemy-self-critisism-and-fear-of-failure
I see. Yeah.. I couldn't figure out how to make it work without a winner as well but felt like I didn't want people fighting and getting upset at each other and in the finals it got a bit heated there and I could see how it could get even more heated some day if our contest ever got super popular, sort of like the UFC.. I had just been to watch one of the big fights with my brother and it seemed like the people watching were so riled up they wanted to fight each other! So I didn't wanna add to that kind of "conflict" where people get angry at each other and wanna fight over a game.. But.. I dunno how else to do it and maybe if I figure it out someday we can make a complimentary game where there is no winner and people just do it for fun.
I read your post and left a detailed comment over there so not sure how much I should say here but.. That's a bummer that you still feel like you're stuck in the same mindset.. It can be a tricky one to work out of! After playing many games my whole life I still get stuck in that mindset as well.
I don't wanna repeat what I said in the other message so I guess I would just say that.. I think if we are able to get out of that mindset and find a way to overcome the fear of failure that there can be some amazing rewards on the other side of it! Not just the chance of winning, but.. More so the personal development that can come with trying. The self discovery and discovery of other things in my opinion is often worth more than whatever the prize might be. If you can try to look at it as a fun learning experience then hopefully the fear of learning is reduced, furthermore.. If you're able to do what many of the "superstars" in various sports do.. Then you can even turn that fear into an excitement.. Instead of being scared of losing, you become excited and turning that negative debilitating energy into an uplifting positive form I think can do amazing things for you, especially when it comes to your odds of winning the game! I think we all get scared, and that fear can be a good thing as well if we learn how to tap into it and use it and have it make us more alive rather than paralyzing us. It's a powerful energy and if you can direct it better instead of allowing it to direct you, I think you'll really be onto something that not a lot of people are able to get. I think that is perhaps one of the secrets of competition and then you can apply it to other areas in life as well. :) Anyways.. I hope you're able to find a better way of looking at it and that you're able to get unstuck from the fear and perhaps even turn it into an energy that helps empower you. That would be inspiring in my opinion. :D Good luck simplymike!