Going Pro: 8 Tips on how to be the best like MYM, fnatic, SK...

 

vilden, from the old SK

 

How do people become the best in their field? Genes? Talent? Maybe just luck?

 

Don’t believe those for a second. They’re just an excuse for being mediocre.

 

So, what’s the answer? What makes people succeed? This is not just about CS: it's about life.

 

- Choose empowering beliefs

- Motivate yourself

- Set goals

- Delay gratification

- Manage your emotional states

- Find success models

- Take consistent action

- Keep evolving

 

The techniques in this article apply to ANYTHING you want to succeed in. You can use these techniques to dramatically improve your abilities in any area of life from Counter-Strike to finance to relationships. It would be tragic if you got great at a computer game and nothing else.

 

Why do most people not make it?

 

People say gamers are geeks, but geeks are meant to be smart, right?

 

According to David Sheff, author of "Video Games: A Guide for Savvy Parents":

 

”By playing video games, children gain problem solving abilities, perseverance, pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, estimating skills, inductive skills, resources management, logistics mapping, memory, quick thinking and reasonal judgements"

 

He obviously hasn’t been on theSGL forums.

 

My favourite in-game quotes:

 

                "I'm changing my name 'cos I play better with this one; I think it might be psychological."

 

You think?

 

                "If you move your mouse really fast when you no-scope, it's 100% accurate all the time."

 

                "Oops! I pressed my kill bind again by mistake. Sorry."

 

                “If you type exit in the console, it gives you 16k money.”

                Muppet has left the game.

                Numbskull has left the game.

idrinkpaint has left the game.

 

"If you flick the crosshair up really fast when knifing, you always get a headshot. It's got... like... a physics engine!"

 

                "If you fire an AWP right in the middle of your jump, it's 100% accurate."

 

                "You can shoot grenades out of the air."

 

This isn't Duck Hunt.

 

But just having cl_ue set to "1" isn't enough to bring you success.

Choose empowering beliefs

And purge limiting ones

 

Don't swallow this crap about talent. Anyone can achieve anything. Human beings are amazing. Take control of your mind and create the life you really want. First, find out what your limiting beliefs are and weed them out:

 

Examples of limiting beliefs:

 

"I'll never be able to do that"

"I'm too old"
"I'm too young"

"I'm too poor"

"I'm not smart enough"

"It won't work"

"I tried before and it didn't work so I know it won't ever work"

 

Use Tony Robbins' pain-pleasure principle (described in the next section) to eradicate these. You brain keeps the beliefs you have because you get some kind of secondary pay-off for having them. Avoiding rejection means you will never succeed, but your pay-off is that you won't feel rejection. All you need to do is associate massive pain with keeping the belief and great pleasure with discarding it.

 

Ask yourself, "What is this belief costing me?" List all the things you're missing out on because of it. Really feel the pain. Then ask yourself, "How would my life be better if I didn't have this belief?" Make a powerful declaration that you are no longer willing to accept this belief.

 

If memories of past failures are affecting you badly, keep replaying them in your head with clown music in the background and you'll soon find yourself unable to take them seriously again. When you hear a voice of doubt in your head, "this is not going to work, you're going to look stupid", imagine that the voice you hear is the voice of Goofy.

 

 

As hypnotist Steve Piccus says, it's hard to take criticism from Goofy.

 

Embrace empowering beliefs, realise their profound truths and become excited and enriched by them.

 

Examples of empowering beliefs:

 

"I can achieve anything"

"My desires can and will be realised"

"I am an exceptional person"

"Anything is possible"

"Anyone can do anything they put their mind to"

"If they can do it so can I"

"Failure is feedback"

 

You could also try affirmations. Affirming is a form of self-hypnosis (autosuggestion). You simply repeat a statement to yourself to internalise it into your subconscious mind. Buddhists call them mantras and have been using them for thousands of years.

 

Many people are scared by the idea of “self-hypnosis”, yet they don’t realise they are being hypnotised every day, mostly by advertisements. Why not take control and put something useful in there?

 

Another trick is asking yourself questions which pre-suppose something positive, this has the effect of changing your focus. Ask yourself:

 

"Why am I going to succeed?"

"What is it about me that makes me so successful?"

"Why are women so attracted to me?"

 

 

Dating expert Josh "Swinggcat" sees himself as "a giant sausage that women are always trying to molest". How's that for an empowering belief?

 

Motivate yourself

 

People say they want things in their life, but they tragically never get them even though they could have. Why? They don't try. They are too afraid that trying will bring more pain than not trying. Their dreams blur into a hazy fantasy, never manifesting themselves as a fulfilling life experience. They soon find themselves 70 years old swaying in their creaky rocking chairs filled with regret. Do you want to be like that?

 

 

Anthony Robbins dedicated his life to unlocking the secrets of the most successful people in the world. He describes a simple principle driving all human behaviour: the need for pleasure, and, primarily, the need to avoid pain, which overrides the former. Like lightning, which follows the path of least resistance, all behaviour will follow the path perceived to produce the least pain. This is exactly why people procrastinate about anything and everything. But is this pain necessarily always working against you? No!

 

You can use this principle to gain leverage on yourself. Associate more pain with the behaviour you do not want to exhibit (non-action, procrastination) and more pleasure with the behaviour desired (consistent action towards your goal). How can you do this? Simple. Get some paper and write down all the things you would miss out on if you didn't carry out the necessary action to get closer to your goal. Focus on what you would feel: regret, remorse, sadness, loss, hurt. Then write down all the things you would gain from taking action. Focus on these feelings: pride, joy, confidence, sense of achievement, happiness. See the difference? You need to get emotional about this because that's what drives your behaviour!

 

Set goals

 

It's that school cliché again. Remember the SMART acronym for goal-setting?

 

Specific                    Be clear about exactly what you want to achieve.

Measurable             Find a way to see if you have achieved it or not.

Achievable              Don't demand the unfeasible: e.g. don't aim to control other people.

Realistic                   Start with small goals and work your way up.

Time-based             Set a time limit on your goals.

 

The evidence is all around you: people who are goal-oriented are far more successful than people who aren’t.

 

Delay gratification

 

We all recognise this scenario:

 

You beat a lower skill team.

 

                "These tactics are good."

                "Actually, I think I like CS now. We're getting better."

 

You lose to a higher skill team.

 

                "Those tactics are sh*t. They don't work."

                "I played so f***ing sh*t, I'm quitting CS."

 

 

What's going on here? Someone is too emotionally attached to short term outcome or instant gratification. You will never really succeed until you learn to delay gratification and focus on the long term. The best Poker players in the world don't win every hand, even against poor opponents. They win in the long term by playing a solid game and not playing "on tilt" (emotionally: i.e. p***ed off). This relates to the next point:

 

Manage your emotional states

 

The highest levels of performance are dependent on your emotional states. You can instantly change your emotional states using "anchoring" from a practical division of Psychology called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Get yourself into a desirable state by thinking of a time when you last experienced it. For example, think about a time where you felt awesome, let that feeling take over your body and cause your body to move in a way like you would if you felt unstoppable; breathe like you would if you were the sh*t. Give your brain a unique stimulus to associate with that state: for example, put your hands high above your head and say, "yeah!”.

 

This all sounds embarrassing and stupid, but you're conditioning your brain in a useful way. From now on, when you want to experience that emotional state, just put your hands up above your head and say, "yeah!" in the same tone and you will instantly feel unstoppably powerful. Professional teams know how to get really hyped up by shouting, “COME ON!” and, “NICE!”. I suggest you read more on anchoring so you can create even more powerful anchors.

When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts and feeling bad, pinch your nose and make a duck quack or a noise like a fog horn. Sounds immature but it's a great pattern interrupt. The more you interrupt your negative thought patterns, the harder it is to return to them.

 

Find success models

 

Find the best in your field -- people who have already achieved excellence -- and model yourself on them. Use their actions as a guideline.

 

Consider David DeAngelo's theory of "How to Get Really Good at Something":

 

Find the best and imitate them until you get consistent results.

 

Learn how to make finer distinctions until you can clearly see why each approach works. Rank things. Create a value system. Know the importance of different things.

               

Learn to create variations of great ideas and combine the best elements of the best ideas. You can refine something that's already great a lot easier than starting from scratch.

 

Innovate. Create your own ideas.

 

Take consistent action

And develop the necessary skills

 

The most successful people (top businessmen, top professional athletes) don't go from zero to hero overnight. They put in the practice to install the necessary skills. Find what skills you need and then get them by spending a period of time every day practicing them. Consistency is key. Better to do an hour a day, every day than four hours on some days but none at all on others. Don't put anything off. If you want something, start working towards it NOW. The longer you put it off, the less likely you are to do it.

 

The road to “someday” leads to the town of nowhere.

 

Keep evolving

 

 

Once you get really good at something, realise it's not the end. There is no ending; even after the end of your life, you can be a positive influence on your children and theirs and future human beings. You can solve Noughts and Crosses, Connect 4 and even Checkers (it took one man 18 years), but you can never solve the game of life -- you can always get better. Be a man. Find your path, get on it and stay on it. Chase your dreams and live the life you really want.

 

Conclusion

 

You now have a concise formula based on the discoveries of people who have dedicated their life to studying what makes people exceptional. Remember the eight tips: Choose empowering beliefs, motivate yourself, set goals, delay gratification, manage your emotional states, find success models, take consistent action and keep evolving!

 

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve

 

"The world is just quantum soup. It's a radically ambiguous, ceaselessly flowing field of all possibilities. […] King Midas knew how to create gold. We are like King Midas except that we can create ANYTHING we want."

Dr Deepak Chopra

 

                “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

What would you do if you had no possibility of failure? As Tony Robbins says:

 

 "Live with passion!"

Article by: Sebaceous