How my mental wellness journey helped me become a video game producer.
Changing one’s career trajectory is never easy. And I don’t just mean the all-too-common moment when you pursue a job post-college that is different from your undergraduate major (though I must admit, the transition from history to high tech was certainly jarring). The real challenge is taking a step off your current, well-worn path to seemingly start anew.
From 2016 through 2021, I worked in high-performance computing as an operations manager, patent author, and communications director. I had established working and personal relationships with distinguished technologists, business leaders, and academics from across the globe and was slowly but surely earning respect as a young person in the hardware startup space. I was a member of teams that installed proprietary interconnects at federal labs and got to travel to new and exciting places. And through my professional endeavors, I was able to support a comfortable lifestyle in a bustling city. I fit the typical profile of the moderately successful urban millennial.
Yet, as good as things seemed to be, I suffered from a lack of passion and tremendous mental and physical strain. This manifested itself in significant digestive troubles, annual upper respiratory viral infections, and persistent upper shoulder and neck pain. After years of poor health piling on, I knew things had to change.
A dedication to wellness practices helped me clear my mind and reassess my passions.
Mindfulness meditation, image transformation therapy, and Tai Chi were among the tools I used in my early wellness voyage. I also spent more time getting in tune with the natural world. What began as outlets to relieve stress became core elements of a much greater journey. For the first time, I was experiencing the correlation between body and spirit. I learned how to connect my physical form with my state of mind. And through that, I discovered mature clarity.
Once I had managed to control my stress-derived symptoms, the COVID lockdown forced me to thoroughly reevaluate my position. I realized that while my career had afforded me a fulfilling and rewarding lifestyle, I was not pursuing something I loved. I wanted to apply my talents in managing people, projects, and relationships to something more creative. Through that, I realized this could be achieved in tandem with my lifelong enthusiasm for video games.
I decided to take my time and calmly consider the options before me.
My mental health journey was not an overnight accomplishment. And I firmly believed a career change would not be so simple either. I was familiar with the stigma of overworked game developers, and the last thing I wanted to do was rush out of one unhealthy situation into another. While keeping my full-time job, I enrolled in three community college classes to test my enthusiasm and determine if video game development truly interested me. I wanted to ensure this was a career I felt I could succeed in. Through that experience, I learned about the various roles on development teams and realized that production marked the ideal intersection of my skills and interests. One of the courses was taught by an alumnus of SMU Guildhall, who spoke highly of the graduate program and encouraged me to apply. I was accepted that following Spring and formally began my path toward videogame production.
Now, as the lead producer on a 48-person team, I am reminded every day of the correct choice I made and am grateful for the things that brought me here. I strive to promote mentally healthy teams so that those who work with me can operate with the same degree of comfort and clarity that I am blessed to have finally found. In future blogs, I intend to share how this affects my leadership style and the type of producer I strive to be.
