I’m not playing well

I’ll bet you’ve heard the phrase “I’m not playing well.” I’d like to argue that never happens. Maybe you are sick, injured, or tired? Or most likely your opponent is playing well.

If you are sick, injured or tired, the best players in the world are sick, tired or injured much more often than when they are perfectly healthy and they manage to compete at a high level. Being good isn’t about how good you are on your good days, it’s about how good you are on your bad days. That’s because you’ll have a lot more days when things aren’t perfect than when they are.

If your opponent is playing well, it’s important to acknowledge that. If you think the reason you are losing is because you aren’t playing well, then you will think that if you wait a little longer then magically you’ll start playing well. The problem with this line of thinking is that you should be thinking about what your opponent is doing and how to counter their tactics. You should be thinking about how to make your opponent not play well.

Players today spend too much time thinking about themselves and how to make themselves play better, not about how to make lives harder for their opponent.