Happy New Year everyone! I’m sure you’ve set brand-new goals and are eager to see them accomplished. This week you’ll learn what to do when things just aren’t going your way. There are times when we lose momentum. Nothing you try seems to work at all. You’re always one step behind the metagame somehow and you can’t figure out why. Believe me I’ve been there. Every day feels like another opportunity to just give up and quit. How do you pull yourself out of this rut?

There are two stages in every endeavor during which this “slow” time seems to occur. The first is when you’re starting out. Everything is slow at the beginning, right? You have your dreams, you’re full of energy, and you feel like nothing can stop you from achieving your goal. You make some measurable progress, but then you notice that you’re not getting there fast enough. You begin to get discouraged and your faith fades away.

The second instance occurs after you’ve overcome your trial and error stages. Everything is going great! You’ve won a whole bunch of tournaments and you never lose at all. You’re “hot” and everyone knows it. But after a while, your hot streak seems to fade. You’re not as good as you used to be. The rest of the competition is catching up to you. You’re not winning as much as you once did. At this point, you begin to doubt yourself. “Am I losing my ‘touch’?” “How did I win before if I can’t manage to succeed now?” “Am I just a ‘has-been’?” Insecurity sets in and nothing seems to go right. You’ve officially hit your decline phase.

This happens to everyone. We each have our down periods. Some last longer than others unfortunately. How do you break this spell and overcome the downs of life?

How to Stay Sharp

When you start anything new, you’re naturally full of adrenaline and high hopes of accomplishing great things. Everyone knows that “I’m the King of the World” feeling, right? It’s easy to see how people get burned out after a while. You just get tired. Your ambitions can take a lot out of you. Most people don’t know how to keep their momentum going and instead they burn out completely. You need a practical way to cope with and overcome the “downtime” quickly so that you can make some real progress.

The first step to curing this downtime is to embrace it before it hits. You have to be comfortable with the thought that things will slow down. You’re still successful, but you’re not hitting as many home runs as you used to. It’s important to come up with a backup plan. What if things go wrong? What if all my luck runs out? Be comfortable with the worst-case scenario because you might have to face it one day. After you’ve come to grips with a grim future, do everything you can to prevent it.

Let’s say you’re an up-and-coming Yu-Gi-Oh! duelist and you have a few Regional Top 8s and one or two Shonen Jump Championship Top 16s. You’re doing great! What happens when the metagame shifts and a set gets released that changes everything? Then what? Your winning streak may be toast my friend. You can stop this from happening though. The key is to not be afraid of change. If you’re faced with the threat of change, take it all in!

Right now, we’re all faced with a similar situation. The new set, Phantom Darkness, is steadily approaching and will change the face of this game. There are many powerful combos and tricky cards appearing in this set. New combo decks will emerge and new decks will appear in the metagame to shake things up. The new Duelist Packs are about to hit stores too. What are you going to do? What if your tournament-winning strategy doesn’t make the cut in the new format? A lot of work goes into preparing for a new format. It’s not as simple as preparing for the next major event. At least with a major event, you know what’s proven and what’s not. You can prepare accordingly. Here are a few steps to take to stay sharp:

1.      Carefully analyze the next set or Advanced list—seek to understand the major themes, the most powerful cards, and the most useful strategies. Determine how this new change will affect the current state of the metagame in a general sense.

2.      Get more specific—think about how the new themes or cards interact with the current decks and strategies. Do they counter them, enhance them, or do nothing at all?

3.      Test out your theories—the experimentalist is the one who keeps the theorists in check. Theories are just that: theories. Put them through rigorous experimentation to prove them right or wrong. Test out the popular theories too.

4.      Keep your skills up-to-date—ask other players of similar or greater skill level to watch your games and give you constructive criticism. Maybe you’re doing something that is hampering your success now or will in the future.

5.      Measure your progress in tournaments—keep a close eye on why you win and why you lose. Most players don’t do this. Even when you win, you should know exactly why you won. Don’t leave this to chance. You want to repeat successes and re-create the conditions that cause them.

Trumping the Start-Up Phase

What about when you’re starting out? How do you build momentum and catapult yourself to success?

At first, everything seems slow. You struggle and struggle, but you have a ton of energy to overcome that. What happens when that energy runs out? What do you do when the weight of your own ambitions crushes you in the process? This is where you have to stand your ground and keep going. Keep your sights set on your goals and change your approach. Most of the time, the bring-it-on approach can burn you out too quickly. Here are a few steps to take:

1.      Figure out what works for you and what doesn’t—pay attention to the factors behind your success and repeat them. This is how you keep your momentum.

2.      Take it easy—instead of trying to accomplish one big thing after another, try building up small successes. For example, you may have been placing high in high-level tournament after high-level tournament, but now your “groove” is starting to fade. Don’t put yourself down. Aim to achieve smaller goals like winning your local tournament. Keep building those small successes until you muster the energy and faith you used to have. This “small successes” approach works wonders when you’re first starting out.

3.      Keep moving and re-evaluate your goals constantly—let’s face it, goals change right? A funny thing happens when you try to go through Door A. For example, you’re bent on making that Top 8 with your own original idea. For some reason, it just won’t work. You take a step back and find out that a different idea altogether works much better for you. Funny how that works right? If you never tried to go through Door A, then Door B would have never presented itself to you.

I hope I’ve provided you with a few practical things to take with you on your journey toward your goals. You may be stuck in a rut, unable to get out of it. Perhaps you’re just starting out and your belief is starting to fade a bit because you’re not getting the results you wanted right away. Don’t worry: you’ll get where you want to go if you keep moving forward.

Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year!