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dtiffin

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Chatham | Ontario | Canada

Are you focused?
August 30, 2010, 5:34 pm

 

Hi everyone,

This is my first blog here, and was looking for something really great to talk about. When no profound ideas came along for me, I decided to quit stalling and just write about what's on my mind lately.

So, lately I've been digesting a bit of reading material of the self- help / improvement type. I've been thinking about how I can best use this knowledge to help my poker game. In one of Tony Robbins books he talks about the average persons reason for failing or falling short of goals is because of a lack of focus, determination, and inability to stick to plan to the end. When he began to talk about people that start with some lofty goal or dream occupation, make a go at it for a while and then just kind of drop it or get distracted by some other interest, it hit home. I realized that this might be a problem I had but just didn't want to admit to myself. After all, here are some the things I've spent time trying to master.

Playing guitar, drums, bass, and doing vocals. Learned to golf (fairly well). Learned how to record music and work in a home studio. Draw and paint various artwork. Learned to play Texas hold em.

So, in all these I've seemed to get pretty good at, but never quite good enough for anyone to say to me Holy @#!! this guy is really good at Golf, music....etc....he should be famous or wealthy!

So, perhaps it's time to break the cycle, and get focused and determined and have a goal in mind. I gotta tell ya though. It isn't easy, life has a way of constantly distracting you from a main goal, especially as a working class family guy. I'd really like to hear from some of the pros here, and like to know if they went through similar stages. Best of luck at tables all, hope all of you run hot!

 

DWT

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Comments (5)
  • Member
  • Post
  • widgewilliams
  • I know you wanted to hear from some of the pros here, which would rule me out but the subject of your post is one I have an interest in. I want to say more than I'm going to but I'm at the girlfriends and she is about to serve up tea. So for now I'll be brief. "I gotta tell ya though. It isn't easy, life has a way of constantly distracting you from a main goal, especially as a working class family guy." Essentially I would say that statement is one of either three things. It is either an excuse for giving up on whatever it is you are doing, or it is suggestive that you do not really value what it is you are doing, or that what you are doing is causing some kind of conflict with the other things you value. I'll respond further when I get the chance.
  • dtiffin
  • Thnaks for the response/interest. Look forward to some more input from you, regardless of poker ability. I guess sometimes a person needs to ask themselves some tough questions from time to time.
  • filobetto
  • Here's a thought, hope you don't mind me butting in. Getting easily distracted while pursuing some form of interest or goal is probably a common trait to alot of poker players. We like immediate gratification. Poker gives us that. With other things in our lives gratification doesn't always come so easily. So, we start looking at the next thing and the next. Pretty soon we have all kinds of unfinished stuff. My point is, you are not alone with this "problem". I'll bet a lot of other guys here, including me have some of the same issues.
  • As a working class family guy it might be accurate to guess that you work between 40-70 hours a week in a low-medium paid job that offers only limited opportunity financially both presently and in the long-term. Assuming you get 8 hours sleep a night then you only have between 42-72 hours a week to eat, bathe, travel to work, fulfil domestic obligations, spend time with the family aswell as any other obligations and to find time to do things for oneself. It isn't really alot of time at all. Deciding to commit some of that precious time to learning a new hobby, developing an existing skill, learning a language etc etc while that tap is still dripping, or when your son needs help with his homework, and to also maybe commit some of the precious monthly income towards that can be difficult, and can lead to subconscious feelings of guilt and selfishness sometimes. Combined with that is the fact that if you give yourself the belief that you are committing that time and money in order to one day becoming wealthy or famous you might actually be deluding yourself, setting yourself up to failure and in reality merely distracting yourself from your present situation, which can create problems of it's own. Now, while it is perhaps unlikely that you will one day wear a WSOP bracelet it is not so unlikely that you could become a poker professional earning more than you earn now while working fewer hours in the week which would free up more time for you to spend with your family and for that time to be of better quality. That certainly seems a worthwhile goal. One that certainly would appear to be attainable with relative ease with the resources found here at Outstanding Poker. So if that were to be your goal when would you achieve it? 5 years from now? Quite possible. So 5 years from now what would your life be like, and how would you go about getting that life? Break it down...4 years, 3 years, 2 years, 1 year, 6 months, 3 months, 1 month, 1 week, etc Break down your main goal into lots of little ones and just aim for them. Once you have those goals you just need to work out what you need to do to reach them. Make a wall-chart, plan to reward yourself with treats, any little thing that can keep you focused and moving forward. However silly it may seem.
  • dtiffin
  • Thanks filobetto, well said. Your right about all those things I'm handling, plus I'm single income. I didn't want to sound like I was whining (not that you are, just pointing out facts) so I didn't get into the details. You also have me thinking a bit, I need to realize I might have to work extra hard now, so I can have more time doing what I would rather be doing in the future. Also, writing things down is a great idea, I always seem to skip this step, although many self help books have recommended this step I seem to get "lazy" about it. Now I need to decide what to do right now....write things down...study poker videos...play poker...do stuff with family...hmmmm. Well this reminds of what a busy person being interviewed on the radio said recently. "It's better to be busy than dead!" A bit it extreme, but point made.

Are you focused? | Posted in: Blogs

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