I honestly think I got this experience from playing video games. My real motivation for playing games in my youth was that I enjoyed trying to become better th

I honestly think I got this experience from playing video games. My real motivation for playing games in my youth was that I enjoyed trying to become better than everyone else. I would come up with my own practice drills to build muscle memory and spent hours studying map layouts -- enough that I knew what each area of the map looked like from my enemy's viewpoint as well as my own. Eventually I started searching for bugs in the game that could give me an advantage over other players. To make the game more challenging, I'd set restrictions for myself and see if I could still win. All of this allowed me to see the game in a way that most other players did not. I'm convinced that this experience -- which all the adults in my life at the time deemed "unhealthy" -- actually taught me how to learn, and how to get good at something. I can remember feeling disappointed when everyone stopped playing that game. I felt like I'd spent thousands of hours studying something with no practical application. What a waste of time!. Looking back, I think I may have taken away more than I realized.