Life lessons aren’t always intentionally learned as they can be picked up in a myriad of places through a number of different means. From our personal learned experiences, blogs like the one you’re reading right now, and even general advice you receive from peers, family, and friends, no matter where we’re at or who we’re with there’s always something to learn. We don’t just pick up lessons in the classroom or the workplace, we pick them up almost everywhere even in unexpected places. These opportunities should be seen as a time to grow and a chance to reach the highest potential becoming better every day. Poker is a fine example of this, at face value it’s easy to see poker as a simple game of chance but if you dig down a bit there are plenty of life lessons to learn at the table. In this piece, we’ll go over just a few of the life lessons this classic card game teaches us.
Builds Emotional Maturity
Poker is a roller coaster of a game, it can last hours upon hours on end, you’ll lose some hands, and you’ll win some hands, the key is not letting your opponents know the roller coaster you’re going through. The minute you’ve exposed how you feel, your opponents can easily read that and make even better-educated guesses about where your hand is going to land you. Poker is really challenging and can help us grow in that department. Emotional maturity is an important facet in all of our relationships, reacting immediately without first assessing the situation can put you in a bad spot later. Consider that next time you get a bad hand, try activating your inner poker face and keep your cool.
Inspires Honest Self-Assessment
Genuine self-assessment is a key aspect of personal growth for anyone. It’s a key attribute in those seeking to become a professional poker player, too. First off perfection doesn’t exist and while we should always be patient with ourselves and the process, we also need to understand our strengths and weaknesses. The same goes for the sporting field too, athletes constantly need to self-assess and understand which parts of their game they need to work on and improve. Poker players trying to win matches and profit sometimes will go back and watch previous footage to see where they’ve made mistakes and to see what they could’ve done better. It even touches on our previous lesson of emotional maturity, we have to take time to see how we’re progressing and make adjustments accordingly.
Improves Your Decision-Making Ability
Decision-making comes in multiple forms and sometimes in ways we’re not always consciously aware of. Quick decisions, decisions that affect things in the long-term, financial decisions, even your decision to read this article, life is a decision. If you’ve ever watched a poker game, you can see players assessing their hands but also taking into consideration the entire match as a whole. Making quick, brash decisions can lead to losing a lot of money at the poker table when playing at a high level so making quick, educated decisions is key.
Sometimes Risk-Taking Is A Good Thing
Growing up a lot of us are taught to play it safe as it assures close to the best results. This isn’t always the case, now to be clear no one is telling you to put everything on the line and put yourself in harm’s way, but I think we can all look back on opportunities we passed up out of fear of taking a risk. Earlier in this piece, we talked about poker being a game of chance, but it could be defined as a game of risk too. Despite all your best efforts and putting some of the important life lessons we’ve talked about into practice may still require that you make a move without knowing all the facts. However, risk-taking when done correctly can lead to bigger opportunities and sometimes bigger profit as well.
