Goals???
After discussing with Demetrius a little more, an interesting question came up in our conversation. “Why was I getting so exhausted playing pool now?” Playing pool was much more of a challenge than it had ever been before, and it was good to question why. I was thinking about more than I ever had before, and concentrating more than I ever had before. The extreme focus could be draining. It was more of a challenge and it was interesting, but it had lost a little of its magic and fun. I needed to get that fun back. Afterall, that’s why I played pool in the first place.
I feel it was becoming stressful because I was putting too much pressure on myself to win each individual match as if I lost the mat6ch I was no longer a good pool player. I was working towards both short and long-term goals of perfection, which wasn’t really an attainable goal at all. It was the wrong road to head down, and I was getting frustrated in matches with any simple mistake. I needed to work toward goals that were meaningful to me and that I felt I could actually make progress toward what I wanted.
The question is, what did I want? What did I aspire to do in my journey? Long term I wanted to be able to one of those guys that could consistently run racks. It was really as simple as that. It didn’t have to be every time and it didn’t have to be the most challenging of racks, but I wanted to be a good enough player to consistently run racks out. Not only just easy racks either. I wanted to come up with a plan, and if the table was reasonable, to be comfortable with my ability to finish the rack off. I wanted to be comfortable and confident that I could win a game when I saw the average table table. I could come up with future goals after I started making progress towards this one, but this was my current long term strategy.
Short term, what did I need to do to make this happen. I needed to focus on my stroke, tempo, and keep consistently practicing. Demetrius told me once that he made a list of everything that would make him better at pool and then sorted the list by cost and difficulty. I felt like I needed to do that same thing. I would start with consistent practicing and also try to knock off some low hanging fruit in the process. It was time to start looking into the future, and it was time to look into a reasonable and attainable future.
Lessons learned: I needed reasonable and attainable short and long term goals. I also needed to make a list of things that could improve my game and work on those things.
I feel it was becoming stressful because I was putting too much pressure on myself to win each individual match as if I lost the mat6ch I was no longer a good pool player. I was working towards both short and long-term goals of perfection, which wasn’t really an attainable goal at all. It was the wrong road to head down, and I was getting frustrated in matches with any simple mistake. I needed to work toward goals that were meaningful to me and that I felt I could actually make progress toward what I wanted.
The question is, what did I want? What did I aspire to do in my journey? Long term I wanted to be able to one of those guys that could consistently run racks. It was really as simple as that. It didn’t have to be every time and it didn’t have to be the most challenging of racks, but I wanted to be a good enough player to consistently run racks out. Not only just easy racks either. I wanted to come up with a plan, and if the table was reasonable, to be comfortable with my ability to finish the rack off. I wanted to be comfortable and confident that I could win a game when I saw the average table table. I could come up with future goals after I started making progress towards this one, but this was my current long term strategy.
Short term, what did I need to do to make this happen. I needed to focus on my stroke, tempo, and keep consistently practicing. Demetrius told me once that he made a list of everything that would make him better at pool and then sorted the list by cost and difficulty. I felt like I needed to do that same thing. I would start with consistent practicing and also try to knock off some low hanging fruit in the process. It was time to start looking into the future, and it was time to look into a reasonable and attainable future.
Lessons learned: I needed reasonable and attainable short and long term goals. I also needed to make a list of things that could improve my game and work on those things.
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