4. mind doesn't go blank and some stupid thought pops in my head right as I start to stroke through the ball. It's not necessarily doubt. It can be "I'm shooting well tonight" or "I need to eat a good steak."
One thing that helps me is I try to take a final three strokes and shoot in a consistent sequence... 3, 2, 1, POW!. If I'm in motion, my mind is occupied and engaged and I am continuing an activity as opposed to getting on the shot, taking practice strokes and thinking of the shot itself as a distinct action.
"continuing an activity" is the key. Gonna start a thread about that when I get around to it but that conscious mind butting in wrecks many a run. If you start an action with it silent it will probably remain silent during the action.
The trick is to make the entire inning at the table one continuous action. You have planned it out before you got down on the first shot, why should you now plan three balls, shoot a ball, plan another ball, shoot a ball, plan another ball ... on and on! All of this chatter in between shots kills flow. Flow is nice. The zone is better but often flow is a precursor to the zone.
One of the things to do is to build the think standing, act bending over, routine. Best to start engraining this when practicing alone but when you are down on a shot treat verbal thought like any other interruption, stand up! If it means stand up three times before little more than a tap in do it. You are creating a conditioned reflex and it takes a little time and consistency to do that. After awhile you will be standing up before you even realize why. That's OK, much better than verbalizing thought and forgetting to stand up.
When practicing set up three ball roadmaps for starters. You just want to make these balls without a thought between shots. When you can do this six or eight times in a row then add a ball or a little more difficulty.
This is a new thing and will be tiring. Take a five minute break every fifteen minutes. These breaks are as important as everything else, don't skip them. Sit down with good posture, drink a few swallows of something, rest. At first you will have a hard time taking these breaks too. Change is awkward at first, any change. After awhile you learn to change gears and rest sitting in the chair.
What you are doing is training the mind. That burns a lot of energy and can look silly to an onlooker that knows you can play far better than these runouts you are practicing. You will be moving up rapidly until you hit a plateau and slow down a bit. Plateaus in learning aren't really real, they are just periods of slower learning after which you are often rewarded with a period of rapid improvement.
One continuous action for an entire inning is one of the Holy Grails of pool. Well worth chasing.
Hu