EPTAround the time that I wrote my last blog, in July of 2014, I was constantly depressed with very low self-esteem. There was a lot of things which I wanted to do but never had the confidence or motivation to do so, which caused me to miss out on many opportunities. My mental health deteriorated as time progressed, and my attitude reflected this. I hated my life, almost all of the time. I would lash out as those closest to me sometimes, which would cause my self-hatred to grow more and more over time.
Prior to this time period in my life, a lot of things had happened which had caused me to end up the way that I was. My parents had just divorced a few years earlier, I was forced to move to many different places and schools, suffered from childhood obesity and had trouble making friends because I made myself feel like an outcast. The combination of all these unfortunate circumstances caused me to constantly dwell on how unlucky I was, rather than figuring out ways to better my circumstances. This mindset definitely reflected in my Starcraft “career”, as I had been seen balance whining and complaining very often in the past, rather than changing things which I had control over in order to solve the problems that I was having.
Fortunately for me, through support from my family and friends, I was able to start changing for the better at the start of my senior year of high school. It all started with my one my closest friends, who offered me a ride to the local gym so that we could work out together on the first day of school. From there it became a regular thing, to the point where we would go and work out almost every day. Over the next few weeks I started to feel the benefits of consistent exercise which included higher energy levels, higher self-esteem, less stress, and weight loss.
Not only did a consistent schedule of working out lead to me feeling happier, it also caused me to perform better at Starcraft. I won Breaking Out, signed my first contract with a team, was able to play twice on stage in an IEM open bracket, and had a lot of other good results. However, even after all of this happened, I still did not have the confidence to back my ability both inside and outside of Starcraft. It caused me to develop chronic anxiety in which I would always worry about what other people thought of me, causing me to choke under the pressure of competition. At the start of 2015 I had very few notable results. This fact coupled with my horrible performances in the WCS qualifiers at the time caused me to not believe in my ability and skill, and instead worry about what everyone else would think if and when I lost.
This created a vicious cycle in which I would constantly set myself up for failure, especially when it mattered most. Unfortunately I went on with this mindset for most of 2015, up until very recently. This mindset was different from the one I had had prior to my brief streak of success both inside and outside of Starcraft at the end of 2014. Instead of dwelling on things that I could not have possibly had any control over, I began to concern myself with things that I could improve. This change of character definitely reflected in my tweets at the time, as I went from balance whining in tweets to tweeting about more neutral and positive subjects in my control. Overall, this new mindset was definitely an improvement, but was still not good enough to be competitive in Starcraft. Luckily, I continued to exercise during this time, which caused me to continue my weight loss as well as improve my general health and fitness.
In April, I failed to qualify for WCS again, even more horribly than the first time due to my mindset. Regardless, I had finally built up enough self-esteem to ask a girl out in person for the first time, but was rejected. Rejection, in conjunction with my poor performance in the WCS qualifiers, caused my self-esteem to plummet again. But rather than pitying myself, I channeled the passion from the negative emotions that I was feeling into positive things, such as exercising more, getting serious about my diet, getting a driver’s license, and earning/saving enough money to buy myself a car. I started to get constantly complimented on my weight loss by my friends and acquaintances because of this, and started rebuilding my self-esteem. I had a few good results in May and June, but once again failed to qualify for WCS, performing even worse than I did in the two previous sets of qualifiers this year. In terms of performing in WCS, I seemed to have hit a wall where even though I was growing steadily more confident in my life, I could not transfer over my success to WCS.
At this point I realized that I needed to make changes to my mindset, but was not sure how. Around this time I also saw a post about a thing called “The Sandbox”. It encouraged using deliberate practice in order to improve at Starcraft, but it was a concept that could be used to improve at essentially anything. The idea of it interested me, so I reached out to Jakatak, the person who would run it. As I became more familiar and integrated into “The Sandbox” I began to improve faster than ever, with less of a time investment using deliberate practice. It allowed me to focus on improving my weaknesses thus rounding out my play very well.
After a little while, I told Jakatak about my mindset issues, especially in WCS, and he got me in contact with a few different professionals in the area. After talking to them for a bit, they made me finally realize that I was my own greatest enemy. They also made me realize that it was petty to care about what other people think and that I was putting myself under a lot of unnecessary mental pressure. But most importantly, they made me understand and realize was that success could not be guaranteed through hard work and dedication.
Now this may sound stupid to a lot of you, but I thought that if I put enough effort into practicing and preparing, I should be able to do anything. This created a mindset for myself where if I did not perform to my expectations based on the amount of effort that I put in, I would think that it was solely do to my shortcomings as a person, causing me to make myself feel incapable. After all, I had been able to overcome the greatest challenge of my entire life, which was childhood obesity. I went from being fat for as long as I could remember, to dropping over 70 pounds and building a lot of muscle through hard work and dedication. Because of this, I was not able to interpret failure when I had put in so much effort as anything other than me not being good enough as a person.
I realized that success came down to three factors: practice, preparation, and luck. Advice from professionals helped me realize and accept that I was actually capable of doing anything, but that part of success comes down to factors that I cannot control, and that I should not see my failures as personal shortcomings, but that I should see them as learning experiences. This outlook may seem counterintuitive considering how much I just talked about the importance of bettering one’s self, but in the end, in order to have success, it really comes down to a combination of working hard and accepting uncertainty, but not letting it stop you.
This improved mindset really showed at the BasetradeTV tournament in Toronto, where I was able to have one of the best, if not the best performance of my Starcraft career. I felt like I was playing absolutely amazing. I trusted my ability, accepted whatever emotions I was feeling and let myself play and do what I had practiced in those various in-game situations. Rather than thinking “What is everyone going to think if I lose again?” the entire time while playing, I simply thought “Winning is uncertain, but my practice and preparation will go a long ways.” and cleared my conscious mind, letting myself play at my best. Even though I lost the series, through believing in myself, I felt like in terms of my mechanics that I was playing phenomenally. My lack of game knowledge in those situations is where I fell short, but this can always be improved through practice and studying pro matches.
While there is always the chance that something may go wrong and cause you to fail when you want to succeed, realize that there will be more opportunities that are just as important. Also placing an importance on physical health helps increase your productivity in many areas of life, which may allow you to work harder and stay dedicated to your goals.
TL;DR: I grew massively as a person through life experience and wisdom from others.
