Master PLO and a talented author this year is absent from the world series of poker, but he again took up the pen. They chose and translated two of his spiritual lifting columns.
How to finally get away
Original
Let’s say you caught a powerful downswing at $60,000. But they did not despair and did not break: they worked on the game, played with high quality. Gradually, the excuse began – and now you are already in the minus of “only” $30,000 from the peak. This is quite real, just earned $30,000 – but how victory is not felt. What are the victories? You are still in the red.
keep playing. You win another $12,000 – great, it remains to “recapture” $18,000. This is progress, but the vibe is still the same – it’s not a gain, it’s just a way to excuse. You just get out of the hole.
And then BAM, a new session, several terrible ranouts and – $15,000. “Oh my God, it will never end. I’m still in Downstrike. The excuse is far away again…”
Fun fact about downstrikes
They only exist in your head. I remember a great paragraph from the book Mental Coach Tommy Angelo:
All my upstriks and downstriks (no matter what scale they may be) had one common feature: they took place only in my head, and not in the real world. And it’s the same with yours. This is just a mental balancing act, like any reasoning about the past and future. Everything happens exclusively in the present tense. How can you have a “unsuccessful streak” in the present tense? Obviously not. The streak exists only as long as you believe in it and think about it. And only one distribution is real – the one you are playing right now.
In general, you strive for an excuse only as long as you are obsessed with this idea. Therefore, victories are not felt by victories as long as you are “minus from the peak.”
Something needs to be done about this
My main (and proven) way of dealing with downstrikes, I call it “resetting the water mark.” It’s about a line that remains, for example, on trees after the river overflows the banks and then returns back – the line shows what the peak was. In finance, this term (High Water Mark) is also used: if the hedge fund profit sags, then before the manager begins to receive a commission again, he must first return to the previous maximum.
In poker, we also often evaluate our successes along the same line. Started the session, won $1,200, then $1,000 lost. It seems to have earned $200, but at the same time you are – $1,000 from the peak. Won $80,000 in a year, but it was + $130,000 at the peak – it turns out, downstick for $50,000 … and it seems to me, the most important skill of a strick player – learn this water mark discard.
I teach my students to set long-term goals. This helps them to plan their career development, learn good habits, and stay motivated. And I explain to them that the goal of “get off” is very unsuccessful and demotivating. It only puts pressure on a person, and the path to such a goal does not bring pleasure. When you cut a minus from $60,000 to $18,000, neither the body nor the brain receive enough positive signals. And this is not the mindset that a professional player should have.
As I argue
So I ended up in a particularly unpleasant downstrike. I take a short break, overestimate the situation from scratch. I try to forget about the peak, I look at the current bankroll – and I guess what options, games, limits are available to me. I think that even this period of Strika taught me something – and I became a more experienced and hardened player.
Then I update goals and plans. Here is a very important point: one of the most disgusting things that streaks bring is the feeling that the goals set earlier are now unattainable. But this does not mean that in the new circumstances it is impossible to update the plan.
Review the goals, take a step back, forget about the “peak profit”. Think about how profitable it is to invest time and energy in the current situation, and what you will do next in different scenarios. You don’t get away, you’re not stuck anywhere.
And now for work
You lost $60,000 from the peak – everything, forgotten, passed, reset. You have goals, plan and tools. Your current bankroll is a zero mark. Start playing, try, everything works out. Won $10K, $20K, $30K. Super. At the end of the month at the checkout and completely + $42K, just amazing. And before you would think: “It remains to smear $18K.” Do you feel the difference?
Then, for example, for some time it does not add up, you lose $15,000. But you don’t think: “Well, that’s it, this crap has begun again, this streak will never end.” Nothing like that – you literally just won a lot, these memories are fresh, you are confident in yourself. And streaks are just an integral part of the game, they do not require any “excuses”.
So next time, after losing a few buy-ins, try to remember this my advice. All event chains (including downstrikes) exist only in your head. As the wise Tommy wrote, only the distribution that you are playing right now is really real.
Yes, it may take some time to win back the money you have previously poured out. But you can “get off” right now. Instantly.
Why am I still a procrastinator
Original
Today I will share with you something ashamed – and I hope it will benefit you.
When I first gathered my current training group and started teaching, I prepared for each call for several weeks. Then – a few days. Then… yes. In this course, I teach people useful habits, discipline, structured work, responsibility – and myself, like the last gouging, I sit rivet slides on the night before another call.
And it’s not because I don’t care – no, I try very hard to make this course as cool as possible. The project is really important to me. But you still can’t plan your classes in advance. I scolded myself for laziness, for lack of discipline – but in the end I realized that this was not the point. Understood where procrastination comes from. At the end of the article, we will return to this, and now we will talk about how motivation generally works.
“I must”
So you decided to go in for sports and get in shape. Let’s just say it’s not the first time. The same story was always repeated: for a few days (maybe weeks) they tried, and then they scored.
And if I ask why you need this sport at all, you will probably answer something like: “It’s useful. I want to look better and feel good.” fair. But are you really motivated by such arguments? Will they force you to get up early in the morning in a random February Wednesday and stomp into the gym through darkness and cold?
For most people, the arguments “because it’s necessary” and “because it’s useful” don’t really work. This is not a motivation, this is an obligation – and you won’t go far on it, sooner or later the gasoline will run out.
And what to do?
In my opinion, there are only two options. The first is simple – to score. If you don’t care about any activity at this stage, then maybe you shouldn’t kill yourself. We all have a lot to do, we can’t do everything. Setting goals is cool, but if you still don’t get to some of them, why bother again? Eternally unfulfilled tasks will only infuriate and break the desire to do anything at all.
The second option is to try to find a deep and personal interest in a business that naturally does not attract you enough. There is an excellent exercise for this, which I do regularly. The idea is super simple: we take the business that we plan to do, and ask ourselves what it will give us. We make a list of buns, and then we ask ourselves the same question for each of them. And we do this until we get 0 reasons or more.
Why so much? Because 3 or 4 will sound too abstract. For example, why do you need sports?
- There will be more energy.
- I will live longer.
- I will feel more confident.
Okay, but let’s be honest – does this really motivate you? Do you experience vivid emotions by looking at these formulations? If not, then it is clearly not possible to force yourself to suffer for such goals. Therefore, you need to tinker with this exercise until you really feel something. Until it ceases to be a story about abstract health, but will become a story about you personally.
For example, you are a poker player who wants to do the same sport. We start painting. We have already found out that good physical form will allow:
- have more energy.
- Live longer.
- increase self-confidence.
Excellent. We take the item “I’ll live longer” – what will it give?
- I will see how my children grow up. I will find out what kind of people they will be at 30, 40, 50 years old.
- I’m going to their graduations and weddings. I will support them in important moments.
- Perhaps I will see my grandchildren and have time to be an important person in their lives.
- More years of life – more opportunities for the implementation of interesting projects, a chance to realize ambition.
Already better. We continue:
- I will take an active part in the fate of my loved ones.
- I will have more time for what I want to achieve.
- And more energy! There is a difference between “Alive at 80 years old” and “full of energy in 80 years” …
- I will be able to leave behind myself, help loved ones.
Now let’s move on to the argument about “more energy every day.” Why is she to you?
- More strength to play with children: run, wallow, do something cool together. not to be one of the eternally tired fathers who just to lie down.
- I will become more productive, I will be able to work more and better.
- I will play sessions with a clearer head. less fog in the head. There are fewer situations where emotions intercept control.
- So, I will have more money. Solutions are better, less errors = higher winrates.
- That is, I will go to my financial goals faster.
- I’ll raise the limits.
- I will feel confident at the tables; I will feel proud of my achievements.
Now about “I’ll be more self-confident”:
- I’ll stop being embarrassed to take off my t-shirt on the beach.
- I will become more attractive to my beloved woman.
- My relationship will be happier and healthier, because I will feel good and stay in a good mood more often.
- I will feel more calmly during tournaments, in restaurants, at events, and anywhere, because I will not complex about my own appearance.
We don’t stop.
- Self-confidence will allow me more boldly to take on new things, to share ideas with other people.
- A happier relationship with his wife means more happy children.
- I’ll sleep better. And when you sleep well, everything in life becomes easier.
- I will demonstrate to children the charms of a healthy lifestyle. Maybe that’s enough for them to live longer!
- less worries about impending old age.
- More energy and more energy for something cool – travel, activity, work projects.
- There will be more chances to create something that is not ashamed to call a legacy. Something that will outlive me.
- I will be a happier person. good husband. good friend.
- less guilt. less unfinished tasks.
Okay, I’m finishing. But you can continue on (and I recommend to continue).
Do you understand what the idea is?
Compare everything written above with the phrase “You have to play sports because it’s useful.” Well, complete crap, who is it for? And my exercise made it possible to do sports story about you personally. It connected this with children, career, ambition, money, wife, legacy. And somewhere in the process of compiling this list, you will definitely switch from “need” to “I want, I dream.” No longer obligatory – now these are the goals that light fire in your eyes.
True, the fact that the fire in the eyes will ignite does not mean that it will burn endlessly. You will have to remind yourself why you are doing all this, re-reading the lists, updating goals. It’s hemorrhoids, but it’s worth it. It’s like with a swing: you can push off well and then swing great, but only for a while. At some point, you will have to push off again.
So do not throw this list with targets in a distant box, let it hang or lie somewhere in a conspicuous place. Look at it once a week. Remind yourself what and why you are doing.
Let’s get back to my procrastination
If I like to conduct classes, why is it so too lazy to prepare for them in advance? At some point, I finally understood. I don’t need additional motivation – it’s really important for me to teach people something useful. It’s interesting to work with people. I don’t want to let them down. Yes, and to be good in their eyes, what is there, it is also important to me.
So why doesn’t all this motivate me to prepare in advance? Yes, because the choice is not worth between “do something cool” and “disappoint everyone”. The choice is between “make now” and “make later”. At the same time, I am an experienced procrastinator, and I have known for a long time that just before the deadline, I will definitely turn into Superman, who will do everything in the best possible way.
That is, the option “to do later” does not cost me anything at all. So, there is no motivation to do earlier. Moreover, I am also sure that working in such an emergency mode, I give out better content. The idea “not to do everything at the last minute, so as not to stress” will not work – I, in general, do not really worry, I like everything. So in this area I’m still a terrible procrastinator, yes. But it is important that this is my conscious choice.
The finale of the text reminded us of blogger Tim Urban, who loves to talk about this topic. He not only once spoke about motivational life hacks (and the truth of the fit) with Liv Bori and Igor Kurganov, but also gave a lecture on procrastination within the TED project (this is one of the most popular videos on the platform, 61 million views). We translated both of these conversations within the framework of one article last year – read if we missed it.
About time “I do not live, I follow my own life development.” How to deal with procrastination? Read
Popular blogger and writer Tim Urban told Liv Bory and millions of YouTube viewers how to organize working days when there is no one to do it for you.
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