I’ve rediscovered my love of board games recently. But trying a new game is always a risk, in ways that feel quite unique to other media. It’s because the learning process of a new game can be daunting at first. You’re at the whim of the game creator and how intuitively they designed the mechanics and wrote the instructions. If you picked too complicated of a game for the group you’re with or the mood you’re all in, you may be in for a rough night.
There’s always this bit of tension when you start out, but after the initial hurdles learning and understanding the concepts, there’s a moment where everything just clicks, and you see what all the fuss was about.
Working a new project or in a new role can feel similar to this. At first you feel totally lost and out of your element. But if you stick with it long enough, something clicks and suddenly you’re no longer a stranger in your world.
This adjustment period is always present, and always a little painful, and I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid. It’s easy to think things will never get better. But I like to think of these new situations as if I’m simply learning a new game, and the next course of action is to tough out the “tutorial” period. Eventually everything will click.