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By Adi, July 1, 2009

Ever had a lot of “pressure” during a match? Knowing that everyone in your team was watching with their hopes on you? Or maybe playing for slightly more money than you feel comfortable? Did it make you shoot differently than you would ordinarily have? Did it feel different than, say, a casual game with a friend after a few drinks?

Did you start feeling strong emotions, maybe a little jittery, maybe a little excited?

Now the real question – Would you call these strong emotions a bad thing? Do you associate them with choking and wish that you could be rid of them?

I don’t – at least, not any more.

What is the difference between fear and excitement? To me, both are the exact same feeling inside my chest, my breathing changing, my heart beating faster, adrenaline and blood pumping, and a strong sense of anticipation. The only difference between fear and excitement is how we decide to label them – If we decide the situation is bad or unwanted, we call it fear, if not, we call the same feeling excitement. But there is no real difference between the two.

All it really is, is the subconscious mind saying “this is something new that I haven’t prepared for or experienced before. I need to focus more, so I am going to pump some adrenaline and increase the body’s focus so it can do everything that it needs to”.

It is not a bad thing. It is what your subconscious mind believes you need at the moment. Even in extreme situations like car accidents, the subconscious mind gives the body exactly what it needs, an extra surge of focus and strength to get out of the situation safely.

So if this is such a good thing, why is it so distracting? Why do we choke when we have these strong feelings? Why do people freeze up during moments of extreme pressure?

Well. Simply put, instead of using that period of intense focus to complete the task at hand, a lot of us tend to waste it in fighting our selves with thoughts like -”Crap!! I’m feeling scared. Now I am definitely going to choke. I have to push away these feelings and become confident again”.

The fact is whatever feelings your body experiences at any time are exactly what it needs to feel at that moment. Instead of fighting the feelings, the simplest thing to do is accept them, and understand the message they are sending. It is so much more constructive to think “Yes. My body is in adrenaline mode. My subconscious mind knows I want to win and is helping me. I am now going to be able to use my super focus. All I have to do is take my time, and win.”

A friend of mine came up with an interesting concept. He defines a whole new emotion (like happiness and sadness) called resistance. People have this emotion when they believe that something is wrong with their current situation and complain about it instead of accepting the present moment as it is – “I should have won”, “The equipment is crappy”, “That noise is distracting”, “Why do I always have all the bad luck?”

And this emotion of resistance stops us from appreciating and enjoying the current moment and gets us inside our head arguing with reality instead of accepting it. It is this resistance which has us complaining about the bad roll we got on the previous shot or a shot we missed. It is this resistance which tells us “I shouldn’t be feeling scared and tense right now. I need to do something to FIX MYSELF so that I can play my normal game”. It stops us from using the boost that our subconscious is providing us to help us. We start complaining about or resisting the situation when we should be thanking our subconscious for the extra help.

Over the last few weeks I have been winning a very high percentage of my matches, even with very skilled higher handicapped players. One thing common about all of these tough matches was the state my body was going through at the time – Extreme adrenaline and focus. My team mates kept trying to calm me down because they didn’t realize that I was actually playing better because of it. The fact is, ever since I stopped labeling them as bad, I look forward to these moments because of how well I play during them.

People say that the only way to learn to handle pressure is a lot of experience in high pressure situations. The reason this works is because after experiencing it a few times we begin to accept and appreciate the heightened emotions as a natural part of our body and are no longer distracted by them. People who continue to fight their emotions instead of learning to accept them continue to “choke under pressure”. But the few gifted ones who learn to work in-spite of stress, pressure and emotion, reach new levels of success and inspire everyone around them. In times of crisis, these people become the heroes.

Would you like to be in the first group or the second? It is completely your choice.

Comments (9)

By Adi,

When I first started playing pool (billiards), I considered myself an average player. I could never be sure if I would make the next shot, and running two or three balls in a row was a big achievement for me. I read books on aiming systems like the ghost ball system, and different drills. However I still saw a clear difference between “easy” and “difficult” shots and trying advanced things like position play would make me miss my shot.

Some time back I heard the term “subconscious-competence” and about the subconscious mind. This is the same thing that allows us to walk without having to logically plan every muscle that needs to be raised to take each step – We just look at where we want to go, decide we want to go there, and then automatically end up there. It is also responsible for the times when we might get distracted while driving, thinking about all kinds of other stuff, and suddenly realize that we have reached home without remembering any of the turns, traffic lights or other cars on the road.

I don’t think that we were ever really meant to be conscious learners. The conscious mind can handle about 5-9 things at a time after which it zones out. The subconscious mind can apparently keep track of EVERYTHING, including things the conscious mind wouldn’t even dare try.

The only thing the unconscious mind really needs is
1. The initial desire or thought from the conscious mind – Creating the goal
2. Trusting signals from the subconscious mind – following your instincts
3. Allowing the subconscious mind to learn and train itself for the goal – Allowing mistakes to happen without labeling or judging them and not getting frustrated by them
4. Getting out of your own way – Letting the subconscious mind do everything instead of trying to take over the wheel while it is doing its work.

Three months ago, I wrote down in my notebook, a thought addressed to my subconscious mind – “I refuse to aim. You do it otherwise we both miss”. For three whole months, I did not aim.

Three months ago, I wrote down in my notebook, a thought addressed to my subconscious mind – “I refuse to aim. You do it otherwise we both miss”. For three whole months, I did not aim. I just looked at the pocket I wanted the ball to go, and just shot the cue ball without aiming with any system… Talk about a crazy, unrealistic, leap of faith…

A few days after I began, when the first difficult shot went in without aiming, I was pleasantly surprised. I assumed it was just luck. Over the next few days as more and more people started noticing my consistent shooting “luck”, I started getting an ego. If I did miss, I forgot rule 3. I didn’t realize that when I missed, it wasn’t that my plan wasn’t working, it was just that my subconscious mind hadn’t trained itself for that particular shot yet. It took several days just to accept any misses and not try to control with my conscious mind.

Now days every shot is “easy”. I spend exactly 0 seconds planning the shot. I just look at the pocket, look at the ball, wait for that “YES” signal in my head, and shoot. It goes in on its own. I don’t aim or shoot. My subconscious mind does. I don’t take credit for the shots since I never really shot them. I saw it shooting some amazing shots which blew my mind. It was almost like my subconscious mind was a different person, who was shooting through me. And as it overtook me with its skills, it earned my trust and respect. I no longer dared to compete with it or try to take over the steering wheel again. I knew, that as long as I stayed out of it’s way, it would do the job better than I could have ever hoped to.

But this wasn’t the real shock. Now that I could shoot without shooting, I wanted to see how far I could take it, and what limits my mind had. My next goal was to run a table (run all 7 balls, and the 8 ball in one go without giving my opponent a turn).

Again, I wouldn’t plan it or think about it, just make a goal and trust my subconscious to do whatever was needed. Over the next few days, I found myself wanting to shoot one particular ball versus another, without any logical reason. I would just look at the table, see a particular ball and think to myself- “I like that one, that is what I will shoot next”. Trying to logically decide which was the best ball to shoot actually messed things up.

One week later, I broke and ran the entire table when playing with my team captain – or rather my subconscious mind did. Now days, running 4-5 balls is almost a regular occurrence. Three months ago, I would have laughed at that possibility.

I don’t even have to be paying attention to the table while I am shooting. I can be thinking about taxes or some movie I watched. In fact, anything OTHER than aiming the shot.

The funny thing is, I don’t even have to be paying attention to the table while I am shooting. I can be thinking about taxes or some movie I watched. In fact, anything OTHER than aiming the shot. The balls just go in on their own. I seem to get so zoned out, I lose track of time and place. I can now play entire pool games and not remember shooting even a single shot. Sometimes I don’t even remember the face of the person I was shooting with.

With the success in pool, I had to push things further. I now started setting broad goals for all areas in my life, just trusting my subconscious mind to handle it. Since then, I’ve had more synchronicities in my life than I can count. Accidentally finding about just the book I needed to read, talking to the one person who can help me with a project. All I have to do is stop wanting my goal or trying to get it. Just do what I feel like doing. My subconscious mind seems to take care of ensuring that I feel just what I need to feel to achieve my goal. Every few days I have to adjust my goals to make them harder and bigger. Frankly, I don’t think the subconscious mind has ANY limits.

I think some people call it being in the zone. Some people call it instinct. Some people call it muscle memory. Some call it trusting a higher power. Whatever you choose to call it, trusting your subconscious mind can let you live life the way it was always meant to be – effortless

–

PS: Based on a lot of feedback that I received, I wrote a follow up article – Aiming without Aiming Part II – How I really aim a billiards shot. For people who think that “this aiming thing can’t work” or would like more details on aiming technique, the extra explanation might help.

PPS: Almost a year after I started my experiments with aiming without aiming and the subconscious mind, I discovered the book The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey. This book talks about the same concepts of subconscious learning applied to the game of tennis and is without doubt one of the best descriptions of how to achieve subconscious competence. I found myself agreeing with almost everything the author said, and was amazed by the new ideas that I would have probably taken a long time to discover on my own. I guess there had to be a reason this book is already consider a bible for inner game and has sold millions of copies worldwide. If you found this article interesting and would like a more detailed explanation of the principles, I would strongly recommend taking a look at this book. You will find that the concepts can be applied to any game or sport that you wish to.

Of course, aiming without aiming isn’t a magic pill solution to billiards mastery. This is just one teeny piece of the puzzle. In fact trusting your subconscious mind is useless if you don’t practice and develop the perfect billiards stroke. You can test to see if your stroke needs improvement by using something simple like the bottle drill.

Of course, there is a lot more to pool than just aiming or running tables. Once you get good at aiming, bigger things start affecting your game and become more important – learning to control and use your emotions to get more focus and being in the moment, playing against more experienced players with defensive play or learning to face new experiences and situations that you haven’t faced before (in which case past experience and your subconscious mind can’t help you).

Since I improved my aiming, I find myself spending almost as much time on “inner game” as on “outer game”. I am still trying to figure it all out. But every time I discover another piece of the puzzle, I try to share it.

If you have any suggestions for books or resources that helped you in your own pool journey, please do leave a comment and share.