3 words that lead to a better performance…

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When SnookerZone first started playing handicap snooker, the first emotions he felt were fear, doubts about ability, fear of wrong techniques, and generally the fear of not being worthy on the table.

Over the past 15 weeks, they have slowly eroded away and these emotions have been replaced by positive feelings of…

Confidence
Acceptance
Focus

Every week has been a learning curve. We have not gone in with the attitude, “if I lose this game, I’m giving up!”

We have gone in with the attitude, “What can I learn from this game and take forward for next week?”

Each week we’ve learned huge lessons…

How to overcome difficult opponents or ones you should beat but end up not beating!
How to overcome our own fears by facing them and accepting them.
How to tackle setbacks and good and bad luck
How to keep ourselves focused at all times and on the game.
How to play when not playing well…

All these kinds of things we’ve learned from the past 15 weeks – and more.

One of the biggest issues that we’ve found is recurring is the fear and the doubt in your own technique.

Trust your technique, they say…

Trust it…

While it’s true, it’s also true that when you’re not playing well, that is an easy fear to fall back into.

The doubt that you are doing something wrong. The doubt that you’re not worthy. The doubt that you just ain’t cut out for it.

The truth is that you are what you think.

How do you trust your technique? By keep doing what you’re doing. And accepting that some days, you will play badly. Other days, you will play well.

Often, when a professional has a good run in a tournament, the common cycle is if you have noticed, is they then lose in the first round the next time and have a howler. It will happen to you.

It’s happened to SnookerZone during the 15 weeks. You go on a good run one week, and then on another week, you end up having a howler…You may even have a string of howlers. But like said before, it’s learning from those howlers and coming back stronger.

Snooker is like life…

It’s sport. Life. You have to deal with it by accepting it will happen and that sports performance goes in cycles…

SnookerZone takes these four letters and has turned them into his own watchwords…

B = Belief

E = Enjoyment

A = Acceptance

P = performance

If you notice, the three words before performance ALL lead to a better performance.

If you believe in yourself and your own ability, if you enjoy what you’re doing, and, if you accept things happen, good or bad, it will lead to a better performance!

Try it out and see how it goes.

If you take one thing from anything you do, it’s training your brain to accept that things happen and you can’t control everything. Sometimes, we need to stop forcing things we want and just let the universe run its course. The universe will reward your efforts – but you must be patient.

For example, for weeks at the tournament, we weren’t getting past the first round. Then, we reached three quarter-finals. Then, a semi-final. We didn’t force trying to get to this point. We just turned up each week with the attitude that this a learning experience and that there’s nothing we can do if we lose. But there is something we can do after the match! We can learn from it, and go next time with our new knowledge and hopefully implement it!

If you can accept that, you are on the way to conscious competence. Like anything, you have to practice and build a new habit. Building a new habit is like building up muscle memory in your cueing…

Be brave. Be accepting. Be confident in yourself. Stop overthinking things…

Just play…