Why is it important to focus on the process rather than the outcome?
When playing, you should not focus on outcomes you desire or fear or on how things are going in the moment or in the past. Your focus should instead be on the process of planning and executing each shot to the best of your ability, giving each shot your full attention, one shot at a time. A well practiced and purposeful pre-shot routine (PSR) can help a lot with this. The PSR is something you should trust to help you deliver your best performance even when you are nervous and under pressure.
from Tanner Preuss (in Facebook post):
Don’t Let the Result Define You
It is easy to tie your identity to the outcome of a match. You win and everything feels right. You lose and suddenly your confidence, your belief and even your view of yourself as a player starts to shift. One result begins to carry more weight than it should and before long you are no longer just playing the game. You are judging yourself through it.
The problem is that results are never fully in your control. You can prepare, you can train, you can execute your routine and make strong decisions, but once the balls are in motion there are variables you cannot account for. Rolls happen. Momentum shifts. Opponents play above their level. Sometimes the game simply does not cooperate.
When you attach your identity to something that unpredictable, you are putting your confidence on unstable ground.
The players who grow and sustain confidence over time understand a different approach. They measure themselves by what they can control. Did I stay committed to my routine? Did I make decisions based on reality instead of emotion? Did I give full attention to the shot in front of me? Those are the questions that matter because those are the things that actually belong to you.
When you shift your focus this way, something changes. A loss no longer feels like a reflection of who you are. It becomes information. It becomes something you can learn from instead of something that defines you. At the same time, a win does not inflate your ego beyond reality. It is simply confirmation that your process held up.
Your identity as a player should not rise and fall with the scoreboard. It should be built on the habits you bring to the table, the discipline you show under pressure and the consistency of your approach over time.
Because results will always fluctuate.
But who you are as a player is something you build, not something you leave to chance.
from Tanner Preuss (in Facebook post):
When You Know You’re Playing Well… but the Score Doesn’t Show It Yet
You walk back to your chair after a rack and something feels right. Your decisions have been solid. Your speed control feels good. You are seeing patterns clearly and executing your routine the way you practiced. In many ways you know you are playing good pool.
But when you glance up at the scoreboard, it tells a different story.
Maybe you are down a couple racks. Maybe your opponent caught a couple rolls. Maybe you broke dry at the wrong moment or got hooked on a key ball. Nothing catastrophic has happened, yet somehow the score does not reflect the quality of your play.
Frustration begins to creep in because your brain wants the scoreboard to validate how well you feel you are playing. When it doesn’t, a dangerous thought starts forming. You begin to feel like something has to change. You start thinking that maybe you need to push harder, shoot a little more aggressively or force something to finally swing the match your way.
The discipline in those moments is not about playing better. It is about continuing to play the same smart game that got you into that rhythm in the first place. When you know you are making good decisions, the worst thing you can do is abandon them simply because the score has not caught up yet.
Good decisions compound over time.
One smart safety leads to a mistake from your opponent. One patient pattern turns into a clean runout. A match can swing quickly once the opportunities begin to align with the way you are playing. But those opportunities only arrive if you stay committed to the process that is already working.
The scoreboard is often delayed information. It reflects what has already happened, not what is about to happen. If you start chasing the score instead of trusting your approach, you allow frustration to rewrite the plan.
Strong competitors learn to separate performance from the immediate result. They understand that a well played rack does not always end with a win, just like a sloppy rack sometimes ends with a lucky victory. Over the course of a match or a tournament, the players who consistently make better decisions usually see the results catch up.
So when you find yourself playing well but staring at a scoreboard that says otherwise, resist the urge to panic. Stay patient. Stay disciplined. Stay loyal to the choices that are giving you control of the table.
Because in pool, the score does not always tell the truth in the moment.
But over time, good decisions have a way of correcting the story.
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