There are a lot of players that put a ton of time into their game and stop getting better. They play leagues, do drills, spar with friends, and yet the years roll by and their results haven't changed. When this happens they either resign themselves to accepting the status quo because they didn't have enough god given talent, or they redouble their efforts at the things aren't moving the needle. What is it they are overlooking?
Career management.
When you start playing pool the path towards improvement is a paved highway. Smooth sailing! Every time you pick up the cue you get better. Finding an instructor is as easy as going to your local pool room and hitting balls with someone because every person you play has something to teach you. Then you get a little better. Most of the easy progress has been made. You are keeping up with your peers or beating them. You aren't learning new things every day. It's starting to become a gravel road, then a trail through a jungle. Before you know it you develop habits of what to practice, who to play, how to think, and that trail disappears and you are lost and stuck.
The underlying concept of career management is this: The game isn't just played on the table, it encompasses anything and everything between where you are and your goal. You have to look outside the four rails. The game has changed, if you don't change with it you will be stuck in the mud.
For example, I have a deep distaste for social media. I'm not on Facebook or anything else. Outside of AZBilliards I'd rather just stay off the grid. But here's the problem. How do I find out about tournaments? I posted about this in the past and most people said FB was the way to go. All of my peers are linked in with other people that direct tournaments, run pool halls, or with organizations that are spreading flyers and notices left and right. As a result of this I have missed many, many tournaments I'd love to play because I didn't know about them until it was too late. Last year when Des Moines, IA, had a big tournament I didn't find out about it until I saw an update thread on AZB. This happens to me again and again!
I practice enough and only get to fly to a few tournaments a year. The only way for me to improve is to find regional competition that can push me. So if someone was coaching me and I asked them what I should practice to get better, their answer should be "Put the cue down and for 1 hour a week get on FB and look for tournaments". That's it. Name one other thing I can do for an hour a week on the pool table that will benefit me to the extent that finding an additional 4-5 good tournaments a year would?
Maybe you think this applies to me because I'm a 'top player'. But it's not true. I've seen many, many examples of people in the 5-600 fargo rate range that are totally stagnant yet who pump hour after hour into working on fundamentals and sparring in their local pool rooms without improvement when the solution is with how they are managing their career. Several of the students I've worked with have told me one of the biggest things we did together was to help recognize, budget, and plan around some of the obstacles in their life that were interfering with their progress. I might elaborate more on a Cue-it-up podcast episode as I can spit them out without having a thread turn into 5 pages. But the end result was when we really look at their goals and whether their behavior was moving them towards their goals they realized the two didn't really match up. Off the table. Not on the table.
Bottom line, the world is full of disappointed pool players that thought if they worked hard enough on the table the world would beat a path to their door and it would all just come together. Or that since the road started on the table it should stay on the table so they don't have to adapt. But when you accept that there is more to pool excellence than excellent pool and decide to incorporate off the table obstacles into the game, then you will not only have a chance to hit your goals, you will find it's easier than you think.
Career management.
When you start playing pool the path towards improvement is a paved highway. Smooth sailing! Every time you pick up the cue you get better. Finding an instructor is as easy as going to your local pool room and hitting balls with someone because every person you play has something to teach you. Then you get a little better. Most of the easy progress has been made. You are keeping up with your peers or beating them. You aren't learning new things every day. It's starting to become a gravel road, then a trail through a jungle. Before you know it you develop habits of what to practice, who to play, how to think, and that trail disappears and you are lost and stuck.
The underlying concept of career management is this: The game isn't just played on the table, it encompasses anything and everything between where you are and your goal. You have to look outside the four rails. The game has changed, if you don't change with it you will be stuck in the mud.
For example, I have a deep distaste for social media. I'm not on Facebook or anything else. Outside of AZBilliards I'd rather just stay off the grid. But here's the problem. How do I find out about tournaments? I posted about this in the past and most people said FB was the way to go. All of my peers are linked in with other people that direct tournaments, run pool halls, or with organizations that are spreading flyers and notices left and right. As a result of this I have missed many, many tournaments I'd love to play because I didn't know about them until it was too late. Last year when Des Moines, IA, had a big tournament I didn't find out about it until I saw an update thread on AZB. This happens to me again and again!
I practice enough and only get to fly to a few tournaments a year. The only way for me to improve is to find regional competition that can push me. So if someone was coaching me and I asked them what I should practice to get better, their answer should be "Put the cue down and for 1 hour a week get on FB and look for tournaments". That's it. Name one other thing I can do for an hour a week on the pool table that will benefit me to the extent that finding an additional 4-5 good tournaments a year would?
Maybe you think this applies to me because I'm a 'top player'. But it's not true. I've seen many, many examples of people in the 5-600 fargo rate range that are totally stagnant yet who pump hour after hour into working on fundamentals and sparring in their local pool rooms without improvement when the solution is with how they are managing their career. Several of the students I've worked with have told me one of the biggest things we did together was to help recognize, budget, and plan around some of the obstacles in their life that were interfering with their progress. I might elaborate more on a Cue-it-up podcast episode as I can spit them out without having a thread turn into 5 pages. But the end result was when we really look at their goals and whether their behavior was moving them towards their goals they realized the two didn't really match up. Off the table. Not on the table.
Bottom line, the world is full of disappointed pool players that thought if they worked hard enough on the table the world would beat a path to their door and it would all just come together. Or that since the road started on the table it should stay on the table so they don't have to adapt. But when you accept that there is more to pool excellence than excellent pool and decide to incorporate off the table obstacles into the game, then you will not only have a chance to hit your goals, you will find it's easier than you think.
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