Motivation

[jomatty]

i find getting broke is a great motivation to put in more hours. everyone who chimed in seems to never run bad but i think that trying to get yourself in a position where a prolonged losing streak will not break me is a good motivation(although i struggle with it too).
matty

[Yeti]

My motivation is retiring at 28 and playing golf, whilst in the meantime treating myself to some nice city breaks.

[Rotating Rabbit]

I know what you're saying edge.

And just making money for the sake of making money is very unfulfilling. I mean, what difference does a bigger number in your bankroll account actually mean? Does edge feel any happier that today the sum in his party account is 2k more than yesterday? Basically, no, unless the money is used for something more tangible.

Its all an illusion of the mind until unless you actually spend it. I never want to fall into the trap of making money for the sake of money itself, stockpiling it up until the day I die, what the hell is point in that? If you do that, your only fear is being poor, and the more you make, the more you're afraid of losing it, so you have to make even more to buffer yourself, and its a perpetual cycle...

And yeti, have you EVER seen a happy golfer? Most golfers are never ever happy because, rather like poker, its a game of mistakes, and everyone always makes them, and in golf then records them on a piece of paper! I agree big time with you on the travelling side though.

I'd rather be a character like in the series Lost, life these days is too artificial and fake.

[Yeti]

Heh, most likely I would get bored and follow another pursuit. But the thought is appealing.

[Rotating Rabbit]

[ QUOTE ]
I offered to buy about a dozen friends dinner for every month I miss 40k hands

[/ QUOTE ]

You're slapping yourself by treating your friends? Something seems wrong with this arrangement...

[sniperd]

[ QUOTE ]
The fundamental problem I have (and I've made a lot of money too) is that losing hurts far more than winning feels good.

[/ QUOTE ]

My problem exactly. I'm supposed to win, so when I do.. well, of course I did. When I lose my happiness is -100, when I win it's +10, when I win a TON it's +20. So, sometimes I just don't want to play because I don't want to risk losing. It's part of why I try and keep it as a hobby.

[luckOverSkill]

Hmmm... my personal opinion is that if people are too
fixated on the results then they're not playing for the
right reasons. Yes winning is important, no question
about it. But I think people have to step back and
think about why they are playing in the first place.

Are they playing because of the lure of money? Or
are they in it because they enjoy the playing, the
decision making, the reads, and so forth?

I know that there are people who can play four or
five ring games simultaneously, and that might be a
very profitable way to play, but for me I can't do it
long term.

Multitabling involves a mechanical element that takes
elements out of the game that you would see if you
played at only one table. I can see how multitabling
can get old after a while. Maybe a lot of the people
here are multitablers.

[Percula]

A couple of things come to mind...

Motivation is a double edge sword. One side is a positive, that pushes you to do something, in this case play poker. The other side is a negative, that prevents you from doing something. Generally the negative side tends to stem from some fear or dissatisfaction with the task or something closing linked to the task. At the end of the day, the moment, you have to have more weight on the positive side than the negative. Time for some self inspection...

It is normal for a person to start a new skill go thru a boon and then a fall, then slowly climb back to a level of success. When you first started playing poker, you likely did not think too much about what was happening, made more correct plays than incorrect or you wouldn't be here now. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] But the level that you were thinking at back then was no where near the level/depth that you think at now. So now, even though you are having an "easy" time of it, you are still having to work harder. This can be a negative motivating factor.

Lastly, I think personal competition for excellence is far more of a motivator than that of competing against someone else or someone else's definition of excellence. Being able to look back a session and honestly say "I made no mistakes, I played every hand exactly right", is a goal that even if rarely reached, is very satisfying and will help motivate you to play more.