Something Valuable I Learned From "Brain It On!"

This is Brain It On!. I started playing this game on my phone recently and it has been a valuable learning experience. Similar to how chess taught me about blind spots - how you can see the whole board, how your and your opponent's pieces are laid out, yet still be surprised by an attack that you weren't focusing on, the game Brain It On! has also taught me something interesting about myself and how the mind works. Basically, you try to creatively solve puzzles by creating your own pieces and strategy for completing a short objective. What's interesting to me is that oftentimes I'll feel like a puzzle is nearly impossible and have no idea how to solve it. I'll try several different things over and over, take breaks from the game, but then eventually I figure it out - I'll come up with a new idea and quickly solve it or just try different things until I slowly get it right. There were several levels where I thought they may be the end of the game for me.

What's fascinating about this to me is that if I were to only put in an initial effort I would never have solved most of the puzzles, and I might be left with the impression that most of them are impossible or too difficult. Of course, my willingness to persist was largely based on the assumption that the game is well-designed and thus the puzzles are solveable, but that's where in real-life there may be a wisdom factor in deciding how much effort is worth putting in for something where the possibility of the outcome is unknown. What's really insightful about all of this, though, is that I can apply this realization to other areas of my life - if I only put an initial effort into my goals and endeavors, then for many of them I'll never get nearly as far as I could if I really applied myself. The valueable application of this for me is in thinking, "how many things in my life do I bring that level of persistent effort to?"