[FASTLARRY]

Motivation is the key to pool sucess

Motivation 9-26-04 one page by Fast Larry Guninger cr, all rights reserved.

If you are having motivation problems, you are probably having performance problems as well. Motivation is the energy that makes everything work. Self-motivation is an important and powerful source of positive energy, and without it, performance withers.

The first thing you must be able to do before any important match is get real pumped up. You have to want to win real badly. You need it, desire it and will go out and take it from the other guy. You have to get motivated to go win.

You need some quiet time before any match. You can find a chair in the corner where you can sit and close your eyes and meditate for a few minutes in order to focus your self and all of your energy towards your next mission, crush and destroy your next opponent coming up. If the place is packed, then say I must go to the rest room for a minute, enter a stall, sit down and meditate with your eyes closed there in private. It may be a little stinky, but that will work.

You must motivate you in pool. You do not have a coach or a group of team mates behind you as in most of your room or tourney matches you are on your own. If you don’t pump you up to win, nobody else will for you. Most around you are rooting for you to lose. You must learn how to program your mind into a tightly focused winning machine.

When you are in the leagues, the captain and the entire team should learn how to be a positive cheering section and support each player in every match win or lose.

Motivation comes from you, so if you want to begin winning more, begin motivating you to become more aggressive and to want to win more than you have in the past.

So many pool matches come down to that single critical shot or situation in a match where the one who wants it the most, wins, and the one who does not care or has a bad attitude will lose.
:-) :-D :-o :-o :-P

[pooh]

IMO, motivation problems can come in several forms.

1) the player is not motivated to get better, so does not work to get better. For some it is a night out with friends, so pool is not that important to them, just an activity.

2) The person wants to get better but is stuck, does not know how to get unstuck, loses confidence, is in a rut, and with noone to help them, they give up.

The number two player needs someone to help them to see why they are not getting better. yeah, there might be something wrong with their game or it might be their mental game. So, the real reason becomes, then, why is their performance suffering.

Without knowing how to get out of that rut, what they need to do to improve, IMO, pep talks will not do them much good. Once they find out what they are doing wrong, whether mechanics or mental aspects, only then do internal pep-talks make a significant difference.

If I am disaggreeing with you here, it is with respect, or perhaps we are seeing the same side of the same coin but saying it a different way.

Cheers

Laura

[FASTLARRY]

Opportunities multiply as they are seized." - Sun Tzu
Quote from Buddha " What we think we become
:-) :-D :-D :-o :-P

[9BallroadPro]

I'll buy into this motivation stuff, with out that, you are nothing but a loser, a dead end bum.

[Black-dot]

Would it surprise you to know that attitudinal changes can occur mid-match?

They sure can...

It can happen on the spur of the moment... the time when the underdog says "Yes!!" and springs to the table and starts shooting like there's no tomorrow...

The power of that moment will not be lost on the opponent, who sees a revitalized energy taking hold... And he well knows that as long as the match is on, anything can happen........

Seize the moment, spring into action, captivate your own heart, demoralize your opponent, and bring home the bacon....

[RoadRunner]

That has an enormous effect on the upper dog when the lower dog makes a move on him, he does not expect this. He expects you to fold and go, not charge and come at him.

In every match where players are close in skill there is that thing called crunch time. That one place in the match, or that one shot, where making it or missing it means victory or defeat. Winners see it, smell it, step up to it and take it.
Losers choke it every time. :-P

[FASTLARRY]

Even in a horse race when they come around the last turn, most fall back, one hits a gear and goes out front to win. When I played matches I used to say to my self, there is a true champion inside you, let him come out, throw it now into high gear, peddle to the metal and go for it.

[mojomike]

Please motivate me, I am a lazy bum and dont wanna practice. I am even too lazy to read all these articles. Do I have any hope?

[paco1076]

Mojo,

You get what you pay for. Always. If you don't want to "pay" for a good game with hard work and lots of time, then you won't reach your true pontential. If this is fine with you, good luck to you. If you want to be the best, you have to practice perfectly and become the best. It almost has to be a passion.

Of course motivation can happen in the middle of a match. Watch any football game and you will see one team take control of the game. At any point during that game, the other team can stand up and say that this game is theirs and take it. It is all in what you have made your mind up to be. Don't let yourself be fooled. Only you can decide if you are motivated or not. Only you can decide if you are ready and willing to do what it takes to get the job done.

Craig