Finding Confidence
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Late last night, I lied in bed with wifey Kim, turned on my side to get whatever light I could from the nearby lamp while I read a book. Wifey Kim was tired and trying to sleep, but I just couldn't close my eyes. I knew I was keeping wifey Kim up, so I turned around and decided to engage her.
"I hate sleeping," I confessed. This was nothing new, and something I have said many times before. This time, however, I went a bit farther. "When I go to sleep, I can't help but think. There's no TV, book or radio distracting me, and I just think, and its never good."
Wifey Kim nodded in understanding. She was tired, but I had already started following a mental trail that I just couldn't stop chasing.
"I'm nervous about work tomorrow." Tomorrow, being today, consisted of a trip to New Jersey with the Boss Man to depose a nurse involved in one of my client's injuries. "I've been dreading work lately," I continued. It was true too. Every night this week, I've been dreading the next day's work. It isn't that work has been bad. Quite the opposite. Things have been quiet, almost too quiet. But part of it was a seeping sense of self doubt, not dissimilar from the one I have been experiencing in poker since the three buy-in loss at Salami last week. In fact, I silently wondered if the poker self doubt was really the starting point of the work self doubt. "I need to get over myself. I need to re-find my confidence."
There it was, the answer to all of my problems. I needed to re-find my confidence.
As a kid, I dealt with bouts of depression. I remember one in particular. My first real girlfriend Melissa told me that she didn't love me anymore. I was 15 or 16 at the time, and it crushed my world. I was miserable for months, and sulked around highschool with the hair combed down over my face, akin to a sloppy pre-Clooney Caesar's cut, and a long trenchcoat, akin to a pre-Columbine depressed dumb kid (in my case, never Goth). I was like this for months, depressed, miserable and mentally isolated from the world. And then one day I thought to myself that all I needed to do to stop being depressed was to stop being depressed. Like hitting a light switch, suddenly I was no longer depressed (ignoring, of course, the long term implications of depression that would rear its ugly head again, but never as bad as that first extended bout).
I thought about that after saying I had to re-find my confidence. And then I thought, the only way to be confident is to just be confident. And again, like a light switch, I changed things. I decided that I had nothing to worry about at work. I was on top of all of my cases and the only thing causing this self doubt was myself. I decided that the same is true for my game. I have the abilities, and self doubt does nothing to help me, so I had to shed it from my being. I have re-found my confidence.
After all, I've always felt that 90% of confidence is merely acting confident. The rest will fall into place.
WSOP Circuit event his weekend, baby! In less than 24 hours, I'll be with Roose on our way down to the Boardwalk, and I'm glad to say that there will be a few bloggers meeting up as well.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 3:03 PM,
1 Comments:
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At 9:29 AM,
23skidoo said...
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Nothing like a shot of confidence right before a big tournament! Have a good time this weekend.
