Why do you feel obligated to meet 625? Before you knew the scope of it, it really just seems like a random #.. why not change the goal to "150 hours in Q4?"
625 hours was arbitrary. When I was figuring out how many I wanted to shoot for, 500 just seemed like too few and 1000 way too many. I played around with a couple of numbers from another challenge I’m working on concurrently, and came up with 625. It sounded fine, so I just went with it.
I think you perfectly hit the number of hours that would suit me quarterly, 150. But that will just be a guideline for me in the future, I don’t plan on another PG&C after this challenge. I’m hoping for the future that I’ll have created a habit to just go play poker when I have an opening in my schedule to do so.
It makes a lot of sense to change my goal to 150 hours for this last quarter. There’s no prize at the end of 625, and no one is holding me to it. I would be able to avoid some sacrifices I would have to make in order to reach the goal, but the reality is, it’s really only that way because of my own doing. I slacked off during the beginning knowing that it would be harder on me down the road. Well here I am now, what am I going to do about it?
bip!, you forced me to think about it, and I really appreciate that. When it comes down to it, I’m not ready to admit defeat. I’m not ok with conceding failure when I set a goal for myself that’s still possible and reasonably attainable. After reading your post and initially being very tempted, I thought about it for a while and I’ve now let my family know that I’m going to be less available for the next three months.
It felt significant and I wanted to make note of it for future reference. A couple of days prior to this, I had, for me, a relatively big win. At the end of that session though, I did not feel I was playing my best and when I got home, I was only moderately happy despite the amount of financial gain. I am used to this, and have come to expect only a moderate amount of joy from winning. That’s why, when I came home from the session where ‘I made no mistakes’, it really stood out how I felt. I was pumped, I was excited, and it was a lot of fun. (I did win this day, but only a small amount.) For the longest time I’ve found poker to be lacking in terms of a source of positive emotions for me. At best, it’s been moderately fun. Is it possible that I will be able to draw greater satisfaction out of the game in this fashion? I have always tried to have making the best decisions be my goal. So it does make sense to be able to find satisfaction in that. I think the biggest factor in all this has been the mitigation of negative emotions. I’m still succeeding on that front, and I feel it’s making so much else possible.
Absolutely. It's a really rare thing to play that sort of session.