I didn’t realize how bad it was (it’s worse)

More random “conversations” this week.

By conversations, I mean I point out what people are doing wrong, and the rest is up to them.

Today’s entry came from a free discord from a major training site.

He says “I’m pretty happy with the mindset progress I’ve made and working on getting the balance right of being hard on myself to become better, without being too hard and creating doubt/negativity.”

Then he launched off into a couple more paragraphs, which I’ll spare you guys.

It all sounded logical, and it seemed he really believed he was getting somewhere.

My reply?

“why would being hard on yourself have to be part of it at all?”

This is usually the moment where either a light bulb goes off, or he gets real defensive about his beliefs, and I have no control over which one it is. For his sake, I hope it’s the former.

But, I get it.

I used to do all the same stuff.

And everyone around me did the same stuff as well.

If we weren’t hard on ourselves, how else were we supposed to show that we cared about our results? How else would we be driven to improve?

It’s what all the coaches and cool kids were teaching.

“Poker is hard”

Turns out getting better and improving at stuff is just a really satisfying and fulfilling endeavor for most people (especially poker players).

Remember how much you enjoyed learning when you first started?

Progress is fun.

But most of us were only taught one way of engaging with it.

Feeling like you’re missing something, or something is wrong, as a means to motivate yourself to go get the thing. Or believing that you’re a loser if you don’t reach some arbitrary goal (only to get there, and set a new one…)

Apparently you don’t have to do it like that.

You’re allowed to enjoy every step of it, whether it’s going the way you want it to or not.

But if you have no way of celebrating and enjoying the good things, it’s as if they never happened.

And if you have no way of accepting the experiences you don’t like, you’ll suffer the whole time they’re around.

And in poker and life, they’re around an awful lot.

If being able to enjoy everything life has to offer while working towards your goals, and being able to stay present with your emotions at all times sounds like something you’re interested in, hit me up here and let’s chat.