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Notes on Mental Toughness
Being "at peace" with discomfort is one of the keys to mental toughness, in my opinion. All discomfort consists of is not accepting reality. That's it. Examples of this could extend as far reaching as waiting patiently in a long line or as immediate as not scratching an itch on your nose. If you're impatient in that long line, it's because you can't accept the fact that in reality you're not first in line at this particular moment. If you absolutely have to scratch that itch, it's because you can't accept the fact that at this particular point in time, something is causing your nose to itch, and if you just wait patiently, the itch will eventually go away.
So you just got in all-in preflop with KK against T5o, and the board comes T5552. The pain that you feel from losing comes from an inability for your acceptance of reality to keep up with the present moment. The faster you accept the fact that you lost the hand, and perhaps more importantly that it's okay and how things are supposed to be, the faster it will stop hurting. One day after enough practice, you won't feel any pain in the first place because you will be accepting reality as it passes through the present instead of having to wait until it's in the past.
So you just posted a hand in the Beginner's Circle here on FTR and want to know if you played it well. And someone told you that you played the hand like shit. If you can just accept that fact without having your ego involved, then it won't bother you at all. Instead of focusing on how your feelings got hurt, you should focus on how you could have played the hand better.
And I post this in this forum for one important reason -- the faster you develop a tough mentality, the more you'll be able to enjoy poker, and the more you'll enjoy the learning process, which will lead to getting better faster.
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