While playing poker, you come across many upswings and downswings because of which you get to experience both joy and sorrow. And these instances help you learn the valuable lessons that help you in other phases of life. Apart from probabilities, odds, patience, etc., poker can help you learn following lessons of practical life:
Target on Circle of Influence
Playing poker helps you focus on Circle of Influence, that is, it helps you analyze whether you played optimally in each street. Though the cards dealt are not in your control, but you can adjust your gameplay according to the hole cards. Similarly, you come across problems in real life which cannot be controlled. In such times, you need to analyze the problem and overcome it accordingly.
Lose With Dignity
Poker is a skill game where you not only win but also lose. There are at times you may loose continuously for 10 days. In such a case, poker players usually take a break and analyze their mistakes because of which losses occurred. This helps them to learn from the mistakes and start playing the game with a fresh and positive mind. Similarly, in life we face days when nothing is going our way and whatever we try goes wrong. So, we should always learn from our bad days and should not let them affect our present life. Thus, there exist a variable factor, and uncertainty exists in both life and poker.
Emotional, Mental, and Financial Discipline
Poker helps us you to control your emotions and finances. There are certain unsaid rules of poker like never play when on tilt and never play above your limits and skill level. Many experienced poker players follow these two rules by heart as it develops them to be a disciplined player. Likewise, in life, emotional control can help maintain your composure in tensed situations, and financial control helps you keep grounded.
Frame Goals Accurately
Good planning is an integral part of poker. If you don’t plan your game, you may end up being a losing player. For instance, planning the number of hands to play in a day is considered better goal than deciding the money to earn from poker in a day. So, your goal should focus on action instead of end result. Similarly, planning makes your life easier. For instance, if you plan to loose weight, then deciding the hours you can spend for daily exercise is better goal than deciding the weight you want to lose in a week. Hence, you should always start with small goals in achieving bigger goals.
Know When to Drop Out
Dropping out of the game is a skill that poker players should be trained in. In the game of poker, you will find many players who do not quit apart from running into losses. Instead, such players play to recover their previous losses. To be a long term winning player, you should know when to leave your ego aside and quit the game because there is a limit to everything. In a similar way, in life, it is sometimes important to quit in order to achieve happiness.
Therefore, it is important to realize that playing poker is like a long endless journey with no perceived destination. Even if you reach at the top, you have to continue playing the game to keep grinding. And, life is itself a journey where you go through different phases in order to continue living.
