Ever since a month ago, my game is complete off. I'm playing constant c-game, and for context; my c-game is complete spew and bad. Also I'm sleeping really bad. I used to complain a lot in here about sleeping problems, fatigue or feeling foggy in my head. Now since a while I'm trying to not complain about it anymore, but just accept it and deal with it the best I can. But the problems are still there (they come in phases) - Right now feeling this "brain fog" and sleeping problems are the main issue. Also this restless feeling in my head that I talk about a lot, it's almost constantly there atm. It's so terrible for poker because with this storm in my head I get so rusty and impulsive. I snap decide all my decisions and I feel like I'm in a rush constantly. I've had this feeling my whole life, but it comes in phases.
I was wondering what was different from my last 2 months in Mexico. I take that time period as an example, because this was the 2nd time in this journey I managed to be a professional for 2 months straight and actually think about my decisions on the table and play focused poker - I still made mistakes and punted in emotion - but the acceptance was there (which in my case is part of being a professional). Right now I'm so incredibly inconsistent with performance, but also with tilting. I had another -20bi ($3.7k) tilt session last week that I felt so embarrassed about, I couldn't write about it in here. I still stick by some habits (running, meditating, taking breaks go for walks, studying, next month gym again), I go out everyday to do something with my roommate and I'm trying to build a social circle here in Vienna. I"m feeling good and I appreciate the position that I'm in. when I started: Something like Mexico or here in Vienna rooming with a poker player, was my initial goal when I was clicking nl2 2.5 years ago. And so I was wondering what's wrong, why is it so hard to just sit down and feel relax and do my job?
And so I came to the conclusion I'm just under a lot of stress, and rather than being kind to myself, I try to suppress it by ignoring it and pretending it's not there. I just moved to a new city to live with someone I only new from online. And even though I consider myself a social guy, in my day to day life I like to be a bit of a loner and be in my own world. And so this was a pretty big step for me. It was all a bit of a gamble if it would work out, if we would get along etc. But also we didn't have a plan in terms of housing after this month. All in all this was pretty stressful but at the time I didn't realize it. The first week I was pretty grumpy to my roommate, and I kept a lot to myself. And yeah this stress also didn't exactly result in good performance on the tables. But after the first night out drinking I realized we get along really well and that he is a really chill guy (and I already considered him my friend before we met because he was my main mate in poker). And since this was a bit of a gamble this was a big stress reliever for me. And today we got the green light on an apartment here, which again was a big stress reliever because we both just want to settle here and not live from month to month type thing.
Now long story short what I learned from this is to not be so hard on myself all the time. Not ignore obvious signs. It"s fine to be stressed out sometime and to take some time off to process the changes in my life. Now there is still a lot of **** to be done for the new apartment which is also a bit stressful, but hopefully I deal with this better and take some more time off if necessarily.
I'm reading back what I just typed, it seems like I rambled a bit without an actual punchline haha idk the 2 months of good performance I had nothing to lose and I genuinely didn't care. I was free and there was rest in calmness in my head. Now ofc stress is inevitable, but I want to start dealing with it better. And create some acceptance within myself and so create a bit of calmness and rest in my head...
Btw besides playing **** all the time the month is going well resultswise. A lot of rakeback $ which is normally not my style. And I'm not trying to reflect 24/7, but pretty crazy how I created something out of nothing. I"m now at the point where I can say all I need is a laptop and some internet connection and I'm good. And even if I keep stagnating forever, I see this already as an achievement. Because ofc you don't have to be genius to make like good NL200 money, but in those 2.5years I faced infinite obstacles and challenges but also grew as a person to get myself in this position