



DJ joins us to cover a very important aspect of improvement, being honest with yourself!





One of the hard things to do as human beings is to be real with ourselves. The idea that we could be bad at any one particular thing is almost devastating to our overall composure and self worth. However, being honest with ourselves is a vital part of not only succeeding in card games, but also life. This is also one of the hardest skills to master, and yes, it is a skill. This is not something you will be able to just wake up tomorrow and do, it takes a lot of practice to be able to truly look at your own thinking patterns in an unbiased way and will involve undoing YEARS worth of habits and heuristics that you have built up.





So what do I mean by being honest with yourself? Essentially what I am referring to is eliminating emotions from in game decisions and analyzing them through a logical lens that will hopefully also eliminate confirmation bias allowing you to make informed decisions based on logic and reason instead of personal ego and feelings. In other words, you take away the feelings attached to your decision making process and focus on logistics and analytics.





Being honest with yourself also means being aware of when you do things correctly and are exhibiting qualities of a good player. This is another concept that is hard for people to grasp. It is ok to proclaim that you are good at any sort of particular skill and is essential in improving at Mythgard or any game for that matter. You have to know where you stand skill wise to apply the appropriate steps to keep growing as a player. Being secure in ourselves but also being humble aren’t mutually exclusive things. You can do everything you are supposed to do in a game and still lose, but you could also do things technically wrong and still win. This one of the reasons that results orientated thinking is destructive in gaming. There are times where what you do during the game isn’t strictly correlated to the outcome of it. You can lose games and be good and you can also win games and be bad.





So what are some things that we can do to be honest with ourselves more often?





1) Have others watch you play/ask for constructive criticism with screenshots/screen recordings.





Getting the input of others that don’t have the same emotional connections to the game that you are playing is simply the best way to get some feedback from a critical eye. If you feel like you don’t really have anyone to help you critique check out our discord. We have plenty of people that don’t mind lending a helping hand.





2) Consume content.





There is a wealth of content to consume pertaining to just about any subject you can think of. When watching, or reading, or listening to content compare your thought processes and decision making skills to the person or persons that are producing the content. This can be a way to find holes in your thinking or just find ways to slightly tweak your thinking.





3) Ask questions.





This seems like a no-brainer but it can be incredibly intimidating to inquire about something that has nabbed your curiosity. Getting the answers to your questions could be what helps you get over what feels like a roadblock in your development or gain precious percentage points for your winrate. Find sources that you trust and feel like you can rely on and voice any concerns or questions that you have. I once against recommend our discord as we make it very vital that information provided is critical and presented in a way that is easily digestable.





CONCLUSION





Remember that changing how one thinks and receives is incredibly hard. For so many years of our lives we have consumed and processed information with our brains in certain ways and going against that requires a lot of concentration and hard work. As previously stated that is a skill that will need to be maintained and worked on for years to come but that’s what makes it so fun, at least to me personally. Constantly learning more and constantly reevaluating is what makes me enjoy gaming so much. So just learn and remember it’s ok to be honest. If you think you are bad then consume information and work on improving and if you think you are good but want to continue to get to the next level then well.. Do the same thing! No matter where you evaluate yourself you can always learn more. Happy gaming and I’ll see you on the ladder!



