Creating Successful Board Game New Year’s Resolutions

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Happy New Year’s to all board gamers! To wrap up the year Bruce shares some insightful suggestions of New Year’s Resolutions you can set to maximize your enjoyment of the board game hobby for 2019. More importantly Bruce goes into the research behind successful resolutions and offers suggestions to make your goals a reality for an awesome 2019!

I hope you enjoyed this interview episode.

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Transcription

00:00:04 - 00:05:12

In today's episode of board game impact, I'm looking into board. Game related New Year's resolutions. You're listening to board game impact podcast. We're looking board related topics that way, you can know the impact that they may have for your gaming group. My name is Bruce Brown, and I'm your host and outside of this channel leadership educator. And I'm working on my PHD in human resource development with the goal of helping people and organizations unlock their potential. I pull in this background in this research, focus to help build this content for your benefit. You can connect with me on board game geek, as Bruce Brown on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and patriotic as board game impact so many families, and many people have some different hallmark things that they do around this time of year. So if you're listening to this before New Year's, or after new years, a lot of this can still get pulled in to actually help enhance this time of the year or to set you off on the right foot, potentially. And so that's why I wanted to put this content out there because this is such a important time for many people around the world, specifically for many different areas around the. World, people have different traditions that they do to metaphorically start the year off on the right foot. Some examples may include a champagne toast knit midnight. I know that my brother and sister in law. Do this one where every year, they go out and get the newest release of their favorite champagne, and they always, always, always make sure to have a champagne toast. And they actually saved that bottle and the cork from year to year as a little memento of all the things that they've done from the past year. But then also to save that as a memory now, I'm living in the south and for many people around here, actually having black eyed peas on New Year's day sometimes with some corn bread is deemed as giving. Good luck for the year ahead, some different traditions around the world, burning paper stuff scarecrows in Ecuador or burning effigy and Panama in Spain. It's good luck to eat exactly twelve grapes. Not eleven thirteen or more or less. Exactly twelve grapes. There's this really cool thing in. Olivia where people make what they call a sweet coin which is similar to a New Orleans, king cake, from Louisiana for mardi gras for, for the mardi gras cake. The king cake, what they do is they hide this little plastic baby in it. And if you get this, that slice, it's deemed bring, you good luck as well as you have to provide the cake for the next year, a sweet coin in Bolivia, same idea, minus the baby ad in money coins. And if you get a slice that has a coin in it, then that's going to bring you good luck and you have good fortune for the year ahead, some curious, if there's anything that you're doing to start the year off on the right foot or things you've done the past that seem to make a difference, or we're just fun. But the real focus of today's on different topic, and that is on New Year's resolutions and many people around the world start off their year by setting goals for themselves to work towards in the upcoming year to be more fit to go to the gym more. More eat less in bad things. Eat more good things. Some people though for our hobby for board game set and board game related goals for themselves for the year and what I wanted to do in today's episode is really focused in on that and focus in on some things that you might wanna think about doing for the year ahead. So again, regardless of you're listening to this before New Year's or after new years. These are things you can still add to your list to try and do this upcoming year because you've got a whole year to get it done. And many of these, it's not about having it happened on a weekly basis is just about doing it. Overall, a hopefully this is helpful these examples are going to include some different things in terms of the quantity of plays different types of experiences things related to the hobby, but I'm not gonna leave it just that I would be doing you a disservice. What I'm actually trying to do is present options to you show some research on New Year's resolutions in general, and then offer some tips for six. That are shown to actually make these things help helpful and actually happen, because sadly spoiler alert majority of nears solutions, don't get completed around the world. And so I want to see you in the top percent. That does if you're choosing to do any of these okay so board game goals, the first section I briefly mentioned about is quantity based goals. There's one of three ways of this kind of plays out the first way is in which it's number of repeated plays of a certain game or certain amount of games that the total number of games that you might play in a year. That does not mean playing that one game a whole bunch of times, but just total amount in place or variation between Columbine column B, so the mo- one of the most common things you'll see on board game geek, is a thing called a ten by ten what it is.

00:05:12 - 00:10:01

It's committing yourself to playing ten games that you're gonna identify most likely at the beginning of the year. And then you will then. Play each of those games committing to playing each of those games ten times each so you have one hundred total plays within those ten games alone. Now you might play one of those games twenty times. But in order to meet your goal, you need to hit all of those games ten times now. Some people may right in there. Okay. It can be this game, or sometimes leave some of those blanks empty because they're going to, they know some games are coming out, or they wanna add in some room for new hotness or life things that come up. And so you might benefit by your top seven, and then add in, like three spaces that you're going to defy during the year some other variations on that are doing twenty by five playing twenty games five times each so again one hundred plays overall, but in total, you are going to be going and looking at twenty specific games. Another one is to play one hundred different games. At least one time each so again, it still adds up to that hundred total. But this in this one has it where you're looking. That hundred different games, which is really cool. Some people get a little bit more ambitious than that in some ways, and they actually go for two hundred fifty total plays. Now, this is not mean that has to be the same game you can play the same game. So if you play one game five times there's five plays and so understanding that and setting your goals, you might be like, I wanna play two hundred plays this year, or some people even go as far as five hundred plays there's another one, too, that's kind of cool in that is playing your collection. Now, this might be hard for some people that track. But there's actually a real easy way to do it. So by playing your collection. It's playing every single game in your entire collection. At least once a way that some people do this is they get those little post, it notes strips, not the big ones, because some of these games are smaller, right? And what they do with them. They put those little post it notes on every single game where it's visible, once you take it off the shelf. And play it, you take the post it note off, if you take it off the shelf, don't play it leave the posted note on. And so that way at the end of the year. You know what games you have played games haven't played and you might wanna make decisions based on that, now, some games might be harder for you to get to the table. And that's our whole next section, and that, that is about more of these big games so epic campaign in legacy style games. Some actually going to be doing an episode in the future, where I look at these three things, so epic campaign legacy and what the difference might be, but I'm gonna give you a kind of a cursory overview of each of them, and how they might be a goal for you that you might want to set for the year. So the first one is playing a big epic game, this might be playing twilight imperium fourth edition, which averages about an hour and a half to two hours per player and it's really best at the higher player count, so between four and six players. So that being said, if you have all new players, it's going. Probably be at least two hours per player, so you're committing to eight hours. If you have a full six player game going of twilight imperium, you may be sitting there for twelve hours plus like bathroom breaks things like that. So can time king stretch on the game is phenomenal. I actually got to the table twice this year and loved it, but then might be what you have for a goal just getting one of those types of games. It'd be twilight imperium wore the ring or some other examples to the table. The next one is really looking at those campaign style games. You might want to complete one of the campaign, sow games have in your collection or a friend has or one that's coming out, and so completing every single scenario that you can within that campaign. So, for example, gloom haven, this game has been super popular over the last century two years year and a half that game in the base game hasn't up to ninety four scenarios that the players may go through now say up to because depending on your choices in the game you might no longer have access to. Some of the scenarios because it might be go rescue this person. Well, if through other events, you find out that person has something else, happen or another group rescues him. Well, you can't do that anymore. And so really trying to play through as much of it as you, can, you can even do more simpler ones such as verse. Minions, which has a phenomenal production value. And that's put up by riot games. You can get it directly from their website. Mex- minions has around fifteen scenarios that you can go through now the last type of game within this categories. What's called a legacy? So you might wanna play through an entire legacy game a legacy game.

00:10:01 - 00:15:02

Some legacy game examples are such as Penn democ legacy season one or season two maybe playing through both of them. Each of these legacy games have unlocks in the game that permanently alter the game board components, add new elements to the game, and some other examples of this might be the newer betrayal legacy or playing through. Artor stone by stone Meyer games, which I did this past year. It was a great experience unlock some of the different things and see how much change in our experience that we did that game over twelve sessions, which was wonderful. Now, you might wanna go things from a different lens for some of you finances might be your biggest concern, and that's completely. Okay. When you're looking at finances, you might wanna just spend a maximum amount on gaming while others may commit themselves to finding new homes for some of their games. So if you have done one of those resolutions we wanna play every game, and your collection and did that post it note while at the end of the year the start of the new year you might be like, hey, what do I do with all these games that I haven't played do should I keep them? And so if you've done that, or you've had those reflections in the past will, maybe you might modify new homes for them spread the hobby, that can be through selling them that might be on the board, Gangi marketplace, or things at different conventions. Or you can donate them to schools churches. Libraries, just make sure that the games are giving actually match the experiences that are being fostered there. Some games might not be appropriate to give to school just to call that or to a church. And so just make sure you're doing some due diligence there. Or simply give some your games to a friend, if if you know that this game like, hey, have it, you enjoy it, but it's not going to get to the table or if it's like it's not your style game. But it's definitely your friends game like your friend style game. Maybe give it to them. They're definitely gonna remember that and be really appreciative of it because you just gave them an experience, that they're going to have for the potentially the rest of their life, depending on how long they onto it and that could be really fulfilling for you. These goals can come in a different way you might want to learn a role playing games such as dungeons and dragons, fifth addition, monster the week, pathfinder's or different other ones, and then gay master that for your group of friends or family and to create a new experience and try something new in the hobby or on the same note. You might want to take that experiences that you've had and teach somebody else how to do it. And so these goals don't have to be focused on you. They can also spread the hobby be intentional. Maybe set a goal of, you know, what I want to introduce at least five new people to the hobby or play games with five new people in my hometown. That might be really good for you a way for you to kind of get some different experiences with people in his also to attend a board, gaming convention, the may be a smaller local convention, or tending some larger convention, so another goal in the final goal going to throw out here for you to consider is a little bit more from the creation lens. Why not try and design aboard game do research on what it takes to actually design a board game read some of the books I've talked about in this podcast in the past it just put something out there. Maybe play tested, a couple times doesn't have to be great. It doesn't have to be perfect. But you might learn something new about how you go about reading rule books. How you go about? Evaluating a game and seeing if it's your tile style game and also really learn some of the nuances and might become a better player, too. So now that I've gone through some different board game related goals, you might wanna set as I told you, I wanted also share with you, some of the research on years was Lucians, and then also quip you with some tools that might help you actually accomplish your goals, whether the board game related or not. And so, according to the US news and World Report, sadly, eighty percent of New Year's resolutions fail by February. That's crazy in the first after the first month of people going out there and trying to accomplish their goals. They fail. And that's why I wanted to do this for you and really share some things that are going to help you get set up for success that way, you're able to engage more with the hobby and enjoy these things that you're doing and setting yourself up for because your goal should be aligned to your outcomes that you're wanting to see and should really fill your bucket. And make you more connected to the hobby. It's the first thing is recognizing the locus of control for the goals that you set. So an example of this might be I wanna earn more money at work. Well, that's an extra music goal. And the problem with that is that's gonna come down for many people to their employer. Choosing to give that person more money recognizing you could work your tail off. But if you're not getting recognized by employer or if that's just the financial situation doesn't allow you to get a promotion or to get more funding, then it might not be in the cards. And so immediately that goal might be doomed before it even begins.

00:15:02 - 00:20:08

And so, recognizing that you're locus of control might doom you before you begin or set you up for a lot of success. Another thing you can do is find way to organize your goals so that way during the process of year. You don't lose track of them a but be can be encouraged by the progress that you're making. Some of these things. So if you're thinking about it tracking, I'm going to play one hundred different games that can be Dongting to track. And so finding a way for you to track these things going to be important. A very common thing is just simply setting sheet of paper and a commonplace with your goals listed on it with check boxes. So if you're doing a ten by ten well, then you have a grid that's ten by ten and some space to the left of it, where you'll write the name of those games and then you'll simply fill in the box every time you play that game or put the date in it that might be even cooler. So you can see when the last time you played it was several Oetzi shops also have things to help with this. They actually create these really super high quality wooden boards, that have little Meatball inserts to move the Meatball along the ten by ten and a nice little drier race section on the left hand side feeder right in each year. If that's something you're gonna wanna do from year to year might be something worth investing in what I highly recommend though. Is using an app on your phone or other device such as Beedi stats and some other similar ones that track your plays. Many of these also have a challenge at on that you can add on for simple nominal fee thing. It's like a dollar or two dollars. But if you're thinking about it that's going to help you accomplish your goals, and also take away all of this, micromanaging, and back end administration that might be daunting and clogging up your process from actually making these goals happen. Overall, though, for you to hit your goals, here, three mantras, I want you to follow make it simple make it meaningful and make it smart make it simple. Make your goal something that you can easily recite to other people something you can easily write down on a small post in note. Those little square one, if it's too involved, it will be less likely to happen, and there's more points where it could potentially fail. So it's not just about keeping it simple. You can just write it down. Down. Recite it real easily. It's really about making it easy to understand, and you're not jumping five steps ahead. When you're really your goal should have been level one and so really focus in. And when I get to the smart aspect, that's going to help you with that. But really think okay. Am I making it simple? Or my adding a lot to this process. Make it meaningful as they're going. They're going to be times remai- fall behind. It's just life happens, sometimes these tests that you encounter. When we you a quick yourselves with the strength of meaning and having these goals is something that do truly mean, something do you will help push you through them. Also, if it's a meaningful gold, then you're likely to speak about it with passion to others and research shows that passion and hearing, the passionate feeling the passion from somebody else. Make someone else flock towards you which may also fill your bucket. No way. He didn't expect just rally behind you and your goal ask you about it. And create feedback system have goes meaningful enough that you want to savor them throughout the year and create memories and enjoying that process, those positive meaningful. Connections psychologically will enhance your experience and you'll be more inclined to do the behavior again. We like to do things that make us happy. And so these goals are meaningful and filling your bucket. You're likely to continue the process of doing them and see them through to fruition. Make it smart, one of the most important lessons. I teach you on. This is setting smart goals. For those of you who have heard about this before this is going to be a nice reminder, but I've actually found a lot of people don't know what's Markle's are. So smart is an acronym. It stands for specific measurable attainable realistic and timely. Some also or call that time oriented, so going to go into those real quick. So specific if your goal is just play more games. Well, that's not going to do much for you, define more be specific. So for ten by ten that's perfect while I'm gonna play ten games ten times, but name those games, but that wasn't a good goal in itself, just doing ten by ten that's not good enough making it measurable. You can create a nice little simple checklist. Dig- play ten games. Ten times. Yes. No. Here, the dates did it or didn't those little things can really help. And also makes it easier for somebody else to understand the actions. Behi-. What's going on? Without you having to spell it out. The next thing is actually looking is it attainable. And so I personally from last year's Biji secret Santa from twenty seventeen my Santa got on me real hard core about, hey, I see that you don't log plays.

00:20:08 - 00:25:05

While honestly, I didn't really know how to do that a year and a half ago. And my Santa taught me. And so for the last year, I've been tracking my games, and I can tell you right now that I have played one hundred sixty five different games this year. So when I'm looking at these goals, if I was to set the goal of una play five hundred ga- plays this year, while I just told you that given my life has passed year played one hundred sixty five games. It might not be attainable for me to say five hundred and might be a nice little stretch goal for me to say something like two hundred though, and so I want you to think about that as you're framing your goals, is it actually attainable. Give yourself that real gut check now this shouldn't be something. Yeah, I got this real easy. So I wouldn't set a goal of I'm gonna play one hundred games. That'd be dumb. I know that without trying. I got one hundred sixty five this year, so your goal should push you. But not stretch to the breaking point. And not be something that you're gonna just accomplish. Because what was appointed doing this process in the first place was early something you were gonna accomplish? Along. That line is, is it realistic given the life circumstances that you have that know about right now for the future? Is it going to be realistic? Do you have the capability to do some of these different things? And so what I mean by that is if one of your goals is to. Really play these epic games. These like big experience games will d you have or these legacy games. Do you have a group of people that you could call on that are gonna come to the table, time after time for things like gloom haven to play through up to ninety four scenarios? Do you have that capability, you might not? And that's okay. We're all in different different life circumstances. You might be able to solo that, that might be more realistic. But just understanding that as your framing, this can really help you hone in on crafting that goal in the last one is going to be the easiest one for you to accomplish, and that's make timely or time, oriented. And so what I mean by that is essentially whenever you're making a goal set a deadline for these things. Now says the easiest one because these are New Year's resolutions, these are things are accomplishing throughout this year should not be something that you're gonna do, okay. I'm going to set a goal for. The first week of the year while that's not near those. Listen. That's just a goal. This is something you're working towards. And so these are things are completing by the end of twenty nineteen so December thirty first a at midnight, I'd be doing a disservice and not being truthful, if I didn't also share some of my goals with you. And so these are not all of my goals. I have goals with my wife have goals for our family. I have goals with my extended family. I've goals with some aspects with work in the project aspects that I can control but also things here with this channel, and also with my gaming. And so one of those is during my PHD studies this year, I will research, one board game related topic for a project and I will work on it, and turn it in for an assignment, Verdy got some ideas on how am I be able to make that happen? But that's gonna take work. It's gonna take a lottery search get there and a lot of time to write some of these papers, because when I'm talking to paper it's usually at least thirty to forty references and about. A good thirty page paper. Taking in different scholarly works for a good amount of time and doing a lot of research online, and so that is a good goal for me of incorporating and bringing these things. More together some other goals and a half, I want to grow the board game impact Instagram, which is in this past week alone. Got twenty new followers, which I'm very thankful for, but I wanna grow that to having more than thousand followers. It's been growing a lot. But that's a nice goal for me to set. And I don't know when that can happen on just be honest. But I know I wanna get a thousand plus I'm working for it at something that really fills my bucket. I think Instagram's one of the most positive social media platforms out there. And so that's something I want to work towards for this podcast. And also some other visual things I want to generate and publish at least two videos to podcasts of month, four board game impact that is my goal. Now, if you've looked on the website, it says that I'm going to be putting out twenty episodes of the podcast in a year. And so this goal would actually have me at twenty four, but that's saying to per month, but just wanted to put that out there is something that I'm working towards another thing is, I've been working with a graphic designer for the last couple of months to actually design new logo and some new things for the channel. And so what I wanna do is finalize that new logo, and then I wanna create. Nate some tangible board game impact items for my phenomenal patriot backers and supporters that convention.

00:25:05 - 00:29:02

So that way, you can have a little bit of this, not just in this podcast form or online, but actually something you can take and and feel and have, so my overall thoughts on all this. I'm going to go back to the old mantra of like Rome wasn't built in a day. That might be true, but they're laying bricks every hour labor every hour throughout the year enjoy that process of laying those bricks but delay the bricks write down your goals, and revisit them, often if you're able to see them and be reminded of them, they're more likely to happen that being said, this is a learning process, if you get through the year and your gold did not fill your bucket. Don't do that goal again. Use it as a guide towards creating more meaningful goals in the future. That doesn't mean if you're not hitting it or you're not filling your bucket immediately to give up on it. Don't you that most importantly, though, with all of this just have fun and enjoy the process? This should be something that helps you connect with the hobby more something that you're able to be proud of at the end of the year, something that you'd want to, if this is your flavor to raise a toast, to and to celebrate you achieving and something for you to learn a little bit more about the hobby, too. And so with all that, just encourage you to try. To put something pen to paper and put it out there to the world, and try something make it simple make it meaningful and make it smart curious to hear from you. If you wouldn't mind shoot me a message of some goals that you have for the upcoming year and that way, I can set up a couple of reminders, actually send you a message throughout the year of the check in how it's going. And so, I'd like to be your accountability partner in some of this, and I'd like for you to also share some tips with me. If you have any that have helped you in the past, but also just going to say it just good luck with all this half on and enjoy it. Again. My name is Bruce Brown and you can find me on board game geek, as Bruce Brown. Thank you for listening to board game impact hope that learning about what experiences are going on for me is having a positive impact for you and your gaming group. You can learn more about me visiting the website board game impact dot com. If you have any topics that you'd like to have discussed or wanna shoot me those goals that you have, please shoot me an Email board game impacted gmaiLcom. You can help me reach one of my goals by following me on Instagram, which is at board game impact, you can like the Facebook page, you can get those videos, I was talking about, like going to board game impact, I also just want to take a moment to thank my phenomenal patriot backers for supporting the show that your support means more than you can possibly know. And I'm so thankful that I have urine current going into this upcoming year. Speaking about the show, I've been doing some reflection over the past couple of weeks, and I've updated some things at the patriot for board game impact. And so I wanted to share that with you, real quick. And so what that is, is. I have actually created a slack channel slack will allow us to connect share experiences. Tell our stories give us updates about your goals, and really just connect together on board game related topics and tan gentle ones as well for those who are unfamiliar with lack. It's kind of like a group me a group messaging service, but so much better because it has stream line topics of conversation through different channels similar to read. It's sub read. It's and to kick off the new year you can be added to that slack channel by simply backing the board game impact patriot for just a dollar at that supporter level. This reward will be going up to the regular player level. At the end of January twenty eighteen and so while you're on the site, you can see glimpse of the goals that I've had four enhancing the podcast and the other media platforms that putting out here for you and creating for your benefit. In addition, I have some goals, that'll be unlocked, and they'll be a surprise. And so if you'd like to know where you can go to get access to that slack channel become an awesome backer. Just visit the patriot which is patriot dot com slash board game impact until next time set some great goals, and make your goals have a positive impact on the world.