How do you block out all the distractions from your personal life? Whether relationships, work, or other stuff going on that may be on your mind.
I've got a decent stroke, good fundamentals and knowledge of the game; but last night was the worst I shot in a long time and I just couldn't stay completely focused.
I go from being able to run racks one day to dogging every other shot the next day. I feel like I'm so close to stepping my game up to the next level and then last night happened and my confidence seems to be at an all time low now.
Any advice would be appreciated.
You'll probably get a hundred different takes on this, but here's mine. I call it "flipping the switch". I have a physical trigger that clears my head of everything. I can talk, BS, joke, tell stories, whatever I want to do between shots. When I go into my preshot routine, I instantly start to "quiet my mind". I plan my shot, my CB path and target and chalk my cue. When I tap that cube of chalk on the table, my mind is completely EMPTY. I can't really tell you what I do after that. I mean, I KNOW what I do, but only because it's a burned in process, but I have almost no memory of what's going on with the shot until I see the result of the shot.
When you have things going on in your personal life, you HAVE to be able to block them out during your shooting routine. If you don't, then they're going to creep into the game like little gremlins and upset everything you do. That leads to inconsistency.
I played last night... fun night we call it, where 7 or 8 of us get together and do everything from one on one matchups to blind draw scotch doubles (we play cheap on Wed night... it is, as I said, fun night). On Wednesday night, I tap that chalk on the table and turn off my conscious brain EVERY SHOT! I play "fun night" just as hard as I would a tournament.
Now, I know people who can shut their conscious brains off for the entire match. I can't! It wears me out. If I do this, then at the end of the first match of a tournament, I'm wasted! I feel tired, I'm worn down, physically and mentally. But if I just "shut down" from the time the chalk hits the table until the time the last ball quits rolling, then I'm fine. I can play long sessions, keep my "focus" throughout an entire tournament. It just takes less mental energy, in my opinion, to work my brain this way.
Learning to do this is easy. You just decide exactly WHAT you want your physical trigger to be. I'll tell you how I burned in my trigger. First, I sat at home alone, in my recliner, with a piece of chalk in my hand. I would settle my mind as much as I could, then pick a tiny spec on the wall. I'd focus my eyes intently on that spec, then tap the cube of chalk on the end table two times and lay it down. I did this every day... in a few days, I could tap that chalk and it seemed that nothing existed but that spec on on the wall. Then I took it to the table. I'd go through my preshot routine up to the point that I chalked the cue, then when I tapped that chalk twice on the table, everything disappeared from my mind and I'd execute the shot.
One important thing... when you develop a good switch and a good mental process, it's easy to fall out of it, especially if you miss a shot that you KNOW you should have made. NEVER, EVER put value on a shot. Don't think of missing as a BAD or EVIL thing... just consider it a result. Not a good result, not a bad result, just the result of your actions. If you put "good and bad" labels on it, then pretty soon, you're going to talk yourself into dogging easy shots. I love it when I'm playing someone and they miss an easy shot and say something like "I can't hit a bull in the a$$ with a barn door.", because I know they're setting themselves up to lose.
When i shoot a shot, make it or not, I simply nod my head, then either walk to my chair or walk to the next shot (hopefully most times it's walking to the next shot.
Now, I know this has probably been beat to death in pool circles, but find a copy of the book "The Inner Game of Tennis"... READ IT... SEVERAL TIMES! There is a lot of great "pool" information in the book and it covers the mental game from a great aspect.
Bob
