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Hello TL,
It's been a while since I posted any sort of update on my 'Diamond or Bust' blog. Mainly because I've been focusing on practicing with these few sparring partners I have on my friend list (yes, I have very few.. heh) and been somewhat grateful for the change from cheesy Bronze to more regular games, which last more than six minutes of lousy cheese. It's been a while since I had any friends playing SC2, as these on my EU account got sucked in by WoW so they don't play anymore and I have to play on US to get some friendly games done.
So having these two guys to play with, it was so refreshing change. The game gets so much more awesome when you have friends to practice with, as I personally don't feel up to facing just random faces at battlenet all the time...so my time I spend by playing SC2 is usually dependant on if my practice buddies are online - wish they'd be on more, so we could play like 8 hours in row... nom nom. But, this is where I hit roadblock. One I cannot even post replays for, because the roadblock is not ingame based, more like, mindset based.
Roadblock?! My own mindset!
These few friends, who I've been practicing with are all platinum and diamond level. The most significant one being the Zerg friend I mentioned, going under alias 'Noobert'. Me and him go way way long together, knowing each other from one totally stupid web-based wargame for last 5 years. When he found out I play SC2, he was happy to have someone to play with and likewise, it was good to see an old friend to play. Other my sparring partner is a student of Loophole, Coolhite. We've played quite few games together lately. He's basically my Terran practice buddy.
Last night, we got together as usually, me, Noobert and Coolhite. Of course, I hoped to have an awesome Friday evening with them, while sharing games, practicing and aiming for improvement. Being Friday, I also chilled out with some ol'good wine. I seem to be more relaxed after I drink some amount of alcohol, so why not to do it, especially if it's Friday, weekend ahead of me and no need to wake up early in the morning.
I couldn't be any more wrong. The evening turned out to be terrible. I was getting slapped around in my games, moreso than usually. That's when my wrong mindset kicked in. I went all negative on myself, bashing myself so hard... I guess if I am good at anything, then I'm very good at BM'ing myself. Now, don't get me wrong. I wasn't throwing this attitude for actual losing. Hell, they are platinum level players, and if they actually played 1v1 more, they'd be easily diamond level players, so losing to them doesn't bother me. It's another thing. I am result-orientated person. While I do not expect myself to win against them yet, I expect myself to be able to narrow the skill gap between them and me, slowly but steadily. But, this is something I do not see. Or I am not able to see. I am left confused, sad and disappointed with myself. Haven't touched SC2 since last night because of this.
Of course, me and Noobert engaged in heated conversation afterwards. Really heated one. I said some stupid crap again, out of anger and frustration. He's really good friend of mine and I know he doesn't mean anything bad to me, but I believe he's way too nice to me, in a way he tries to tell me I'm getting better when I am not. I mean, how would you feel if someone would tell you that after getting literally obliterated, having done nothing in the game, basically? But, GG to me, I managed to piss Noobert off...
Noobert: When you get your head out of the dirt, I'll play with you again.
Until then - I refuse to acknowledge you even exist because you are spitting on everything you worked so hard for.
And I refuse to talk to anyone or even acknowledge their existence if they have the self-esteem of an annorexic woman.
BabyToss: i'm not the invincible hero, the person who believes in themselves you believed me to be. I'm sorry.
Noobert: It has nothing to do with that.
You have zero self-esteem.
You refuse to see any improvement.
It's basically bottom line of our conversation (and also the least heated part, iirc) and we haven't spoken to each other since the conversation happened. I do not want to act like that, but I'm also rather lost as to how to approach this. It's clear that my own mindset may be the very thing preventing me from progressing further.
How to improve one's mindset?
Yes, that's the big question, the one I do not know answer for. I truly wish to improve my game and if it takes to improve my own mindset, so be it. Although, how to see the positive stuff? How can you say you have improved? I honestly cannot tell with my own games. Not when I get slapped around without even landing a scratch on my opponent. How to find the good, positive stuff, even when the game seems like utter shit? Generally, how do you guys keep the positive mindset up? How to keep the motivation high when you reach even the darkest moments of your game, when you feel like giving up (and realizing you can't, because you love the game too much afterwards..)?
I hoped that my first roadblock would be something else, really. Something like this simply cannot be fixed by me just sending replays and you guys trying to give advice, so I'm sorry if this sounds silly or stupid. I just needed to get this off my chest, because it's been bothering me all day long. I'll be grateful for any insight you might have to share with me.
Shoutout to
Noobert - I'm sorry man for acting like idiot. It's just the way I am. Guess I'll stay a big idiot forever.
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Noobert - I'm sorry man for acting like idiot. It's just the way I am. Guess I'll stay a big idiot forever
There you go again. Try typing the opposite of what you think, that might help. You could also get some lab work done at your next doctor appointment to check for chemical imbalances which could be causing this behavior.
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when you lose, check out the replay and find out what you did wrong and what you could improve on. If you keep your mind in check like "ahhh I see that I made this wrong move", or check the rep and say to yourself "So he only one because of a build order build, I'll rape this guy".
Now if it's really a losing streak, I suggest stop playing for at least a day and start owning the next day. You should relax your mind into not thinking that you're stupid or a weakling. Mostly, just check your losses through reps and tell yourself so this is what I need to improve on once you found the exact problem to your game.
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United Kingdom3685 Posts
Find something concrete that you can improve so there's no room for argument. For example, if your macro is lacking, pick some random time in the game like the 10-minute mark. Now, play a standard macro game and then check how much money you had at that point in the game. Let's say you floated to 1k minerals. Now, play 50 more standard games ONLY focussing on improving your macro by spending your money and check the replay each time to see how much money you have at the 10-minute mark. If at the end of the 50 games, you only have 400 minerals at that point, then your macro has obviously improved. There is no room for argument. You HAVE improved.
Note that this is just an example and you can do this with whatever you want. Another example would be I want to make sure I constantly produce workers, and instead of choosing a time like 10 minutes, I check how many workers I have by the time I make my first push.
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On January 09 2011 14:16 Frozenhelfire wrote:There you go again. Try typing the opposite of what you think, that might help. You could also get some lab work done at your next doctor appointment to check for chemical imbalances which could be causing this behavior.
I made an account for two reasons, one to tell BabyToss something and another to tell you something.
You have absolutely no idea what went on, what was said, how we speak to each other, or anything of the like so don't comment on somebodies mental stability when you have no idea at all what has happened to cause what was said. She posted a fragment of the conversation and you jumped on it like a dog in heat. Perhaps in the future, you won't assume to much and make yourself out to look like a complete moron. Who knows? We can only hope.
Secondly, BabyToss. You know how I feel about you, and what I said to you that day. I stand by what I said. You are improving faster than most players at the Bronze level that I have played, and for that you deserve to realize that instead of beating yourself down constantly after every single game you lose. When I first began to play with you, you didn't use Force Fields at all and now? You use them constantly, and in every battle - even if they are not needed. That's improvement. There is much more you do well, but there are still things you need to improve on like Scouting. You know what you need to do, so get it done and you'll be one step closer to what you desire to do.
And no, I won't play Incontrol again. I don't want him to stomp on me any harder than he already did. Nervous FTL. <3
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
jana I wouldn't say anything you haven't heard. I do not believe in cutting people out just because they have low self-esteem but this is a game of scales. You are at the (or near it) bottom tier of this game. Expecting to have it all figured out or learn especially faster than most is unlikely and an unrealistic expectation. I can tell you that a LOT of this game is played in your head and if you are getting down on yourself at the bronze level it would only get worse if improvement was actually possible.
Take a deep breath. Acknowledge that you are bad, will lose, have lost and CAN learn from it! If you do those things you will progress and grow as a player/person. If you do not you will quit/forget this game and the process will repeat with your next hobby.
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Hi BabyToss. I've actually done a lot of thinking about this kind of thing in my 32 years, and I think I can help. Of course, in the end, I can only help if you believe I can help, and you don't pass my ideas off as nonsense or silliness.
You see, this argument with Noobert (hi Noobert) originated from the fact that you don't trust our opinions of your game-play. You are a little arrogant, which is not a crime in itself (god knows I have some arrogance), but it makes you think that you know better than us how good your game is. You tell yourself that we are just patronizing you, blowing smoke up your skirt to make you feel better about yourself. I don't think you really believe that though, because I have always been very straight forward with you. I've never really coddled you emotionally while coaching you, and I've even been a little blunt with you from time to time.
I don't think it serves anyone well to exaggerate or lie to make them feel better. By doing so, you only reduce their confidence in your words. When my girlfriend asks me if she looks good in an outfit, I give my honest opinion, because I know she's an adult and can handle me telling her I'm not a fan of a pair of pants she's wearing. Because of this, when I tell her she looks good, she knows it's true. The same is true with your game. If I say something about it, I believe it. I've always been straight forward about the strengths and weaknesses of all my student's play. I think in the end, you probably deprecate yourself because in the past it has lured people into giving you sympathy and attention, and when you feel bad about yourself, this is a quick fix to make you feel temporarily better.
You have to set aside your own opinion of your game and trust people who are much better at the game when they give their opinions. We know better because of our experience. There are lots of reasons that you can get beaten badly by people you are usually more competitive with, and most of them have nothing to do with you getting worse. Their play could have been much better in that game for one. They may have exploited weaknesses of yours that they had not found before. The point is that you are still a very new player, and you have to accept the fact that you aren't going to understand everything that is going on in this complex game. For now, trust our opinions. Your game has improved tremendously in the last month.
Changing your negative mindset requires much the same approach as improving your Starcraft game. You have to improve your understanding of the way your mind works, and use proven techniques to achieve the mindset you want, which I am assuming is a more positive one. Why do you want to change your mindset? From your blogs I can gather that it's because you believe your negative mindset is holding you back, not only in Starcraft, but in other aspects of your life as well.
That belief is actually the seed from which your new positive mindset can grow, and it shows that you have in fact already taken the first step towards becoming a more positive person. You recognize the fact that negative thoughts will help to create negative results. Why is that? People experience things differently, and the difference comes from their mindset. When you fabricate a negative image of yourself in your mind, that image acts as a filter for your senses, restricting your ability to see the truth.
In addition to hampering your senses, your negative mindset will impair your ability to have success in the future by creating negative visualizations. People often hear elite athletes talk about "visualizing success." This isn't some beatnik idea to sell self-help books. Successfull people refer to it because it has real power. When you visualize something positive you want to happen, your mind will subconciously work to find things you might not otherwise notice that can help you achieve those results. In a way you create a new filter for your mind that allows helpful thoughts to be directed towards your conscious mind from your subconcious mind.
I recently told you during a session that I didn't want to hear you insulting yourself anymore. I said that you might not be able to help thinking it, but you can certainly help from typing it on your keyboard. I made it clear that no one believed the things you were saying about yourself. The reason I asked you to stop typing these things about yourself in chat wasn't just because I was tired of hearing it. The first step to becoming more positive is to pretend to be positive.
You can carry out the act fairly easily. When you have a negative thought, don't speak it out loud. Don't type it in chat. In your mind, tell yourself that the thought you just had is not true, and that you're only thinking it because you are frustrated. Over time, pretending to be positive will actually make you more positive.
When you aren't using your brian to think positively, doing it takes more work. Your brain has to use lots and lots of neurons together to think of something it's not used to thinking. Through repitition, more efficient neural pathways are built and strengthened that allow your brain to do less work to think those same things, making it easier. This is the same reason I often make use of drills when I'm coaching Starcraft. By getting a student to repeat things that I want them to do in their game over and over again, it becomes easier for them to do.
Words and thoughts have power. Saying and thinking negative things about yourself makes it true over time. Use this to your advantage and flip the script. Say and think positive things about yourself, even if you don't believe them, and over time those things will become true. Trust my opinion of your game and listen to the things I ask you to do to improve. Accept that you will lose a lot of games of Starcraft, and tell yourself that it is necessary to improve. Assume the role of an actor playing a positive person.
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Thank you people. I'm going to do my best to get rid of that negative attitude, for the sake of my own improvement in StarCraft2 as well as for the sake of my personal life.
Loop, I admit that it is hard for me to trust other people, when it comes to judging my game-play, although, it's not out of arrogance. Without me going into details, I didn't exactly have many people I could trust in my life in past, for very long time. It's only changed when I met my current significant half, and that's sadly still far less time than when I couldn't lean on or trust people around me. It takes time to trust in others again, so please don't think I'm disregarding you because I see it fit or that I know better than you. I am putting effort into trusting people more even in my real life now, so bare with me, please.
Geoff, yes... eventually, the same mindset I have drove me away from my hobbies I otherwise loved so much in past. It's mistake I do not wish to do again. We should learn from our mistakes and I hope it's something I'll overcome this time.
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