Let's talk first a little bit about the past. After I graduated, I started to play poker "professionally" right away. That was at the end of 2010. I first played full ring on Pokerstars and 6 months later, I headed to Thailand with a bunch of virtual friends; I say "virtual" because we talked on a forum but the first time we met IRL was at the airport. In total, I stayed nearly 5 years in Thailand; 2 years in Bangkok and a little bit more in Chiang Mai (more on Thailand in a next post). I've always enjoyed my life there but to be honest, i always gave my poker life the minimum. Let me explain, I always did what's necessary to survive decently but never, for example, saved money. In other words, I was in a "maintenance" state of mind instead of a "creation" mindset. But well... Still, a lot of fun :)
In those situations, it's not really about "if" you will go down but more about "when" you will... Well, it started at then end of 2014. The big downswing starts and stays with me for a while, feeling a little bit more comfortable every day, week, month while I feel worse and worse. During the process, I'm totally losing my A-game and accumulated emotions are building up. I'm forced (financially broke) to come back to Belgium in the middle of 2015 and 3 months later, my father, after a long fight against cancer, tragically passed away.
I think it's an accurate assumption to say that 2015 have been the worst year of my life so far. I'm not used to react accordingly to such bad circumstances as i always had what i would call an happy life where I always found a way to make it "ok".
But i'm tired of being "ok"... I want things to be different, I want to be great, I want to succeed in what I love to do and I want to reach my goals. With resiliency, I want to use the toughness I'm confronted to, to grow (as a man and as a poker player). I want to use this year difficulties to improve myself in the same way I want to use the toughness of 2015 games as an opportunity to grow as a poker player.
I want to live a balanced life. Do what's necessary to reach my goals and in the same time, find the time to do what I love with the people I love. I want to develop good and healthy habits (a lot more of that in future posts) and I want to build a future for myself.
You can't convince other people that poker is a real job if you don't approach poker with a professional mindset yourself. And in my 5 to 6 years of poker, I honestly think I approached poker with a solid and consistent work ethic for about 6 months in total. I want things to be totally different by creating a solid work ethic, taking back the control of my mental game and improve as a poker player. I want to be able to make enough money to go back to Thailand, to decently live there and to save money every month on the side to consider some investments in 2017.
I honestly think this blog will help me to achieve that and i'm convinced of the benefits of writing about your journey during the process. Changing your life is a hard thing to do, hopefully this blog will make it a little bit easier.
Enough talking for now, time to consider actions ! Here is what i commit to do from now on and until i have good reasons to make adjustments:
-Grinding 6 Zoom tables (66% 50NL and 33% 25NL), starting from the bottom.
-Play 6 days a week, 4 sessions of 1 hour a day (not much but i need to start somewhere and to set a goal that is reachable, for starter).
-Everyday, work on my Mental game or my tactical game.
-Work out everyday (more on that later).
-Being less results-oriented by not checking results until November 25th at least.
-Meditate everyday (more on that later too).
-Not letting this blog die, even if nobody reads me.
I wish you and myself the best of luck.
"Not letting this blog die, even if nobody reads me." I read it !
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