Who are you when you play your best pool? Do you imagine that you are Efren Reyes or Shane Van Boening? What traits or attributes do you have? Do you possess a big break?
I’m 99% sure one trait is self-confidence. But what if there was a way to capture your alter ego and play like you want, whenever you want?
WHAT IS AN ALTER EGO?
We all play different roles in our lives, which require us to access different sides of ourselves. You might be one way with your friends and a different way when you’re playing at a tournament. With your family, you might be fun, happy and easy going, and at the pool hall, you might be intense, focused, and serious.
Your “Alter Ego”, can be used as a vehicle to bring out your best qualities.
For example, if you were to give a speech, would you want to be confident, well spoken, and have good posture? Or would you rather be bashful and afraid, with your shoulders hunched? Clearly you would want to be in the role of the person I described first.
WHAT PLAYER DO YOU WANT TO SHOW UP?
When you think about your next pool match, what player do you visualize showing up? Instead of visualizing those outcomes that you don’t want to happen (which will trigger fear and negativity), let’s create an image of the player you would want to be. Most likely you would want to be viewed as a focused, tough, good decision maker who is also both positive, optimistic. Thinking of yourself in this way in the future will help your subconscious create a different reality and trigger feelings conducive to a high-quality performance.
“ACTING AS IF” CAN MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE
Another way to think about the Alter Ego, would be a younger player imagining themselves as one of their idols while playing. If you played junior pool, I’m sure you did this. Did it change the way you feel? It did for me. But let’s not be naive, pretending you are Efren Reyes isn’t going to give you his skills. The Alter Ego effect is not about “faking it till you make it”. Pretending to be a master level player when really you’re a beginner isn’t the answer to all of your troubles. This isn’t about pretending to have skills that you don’t, it’s about tapping into qualities that already exist within you. By doing so, you gain more consistent access to the skills you already have.
DETACHING YOU AS A PLAYER FROM YOU AS A PERSON
Having an Alter Ego to maximize performance is not a new concept, especially in pool. Johnny Archer “becomes” a Scorpion. Efren Reyes becomes a magician. I believe that having a separate pool persona explains why the top players such as Niels Feijen (The Terminator) and many others, have had such long and successful careers. Whatever is going on in their personal lives, they are able to flip a switch to become their Alter Ego and play that role consistently.
FINDING YOUR ALTER EGO
Spend some time thinking about the player you want to be, when you are playing your best and write these qualities down. Next, find an Alter Ego that embodies those qualities. Some examples are:
A player that you create in your mind, give that player a name
An animal that embodies the strengths you would like to have on the pool table i.e. a lion, snake, bulldog, hawk, etc.
ACTIVATING THE ALTER EGO EFFECT
Now you have defined your Alter Ego you can also think of this as “putting your game face on”. Mental rehearsal is a great way to prime your mind to become that player you want to be before an important match. How do you want to play today? Visualization of yourself in a match/tournament, can “program” your subconscious to give you those behaviors during play. Create that vision of success and mental toughness.
By making it part of your pre-match ritual to activate your Alter Ego and choose to be the player you want to be, you’ll allow the best qualities you possess to come through and the effect will be more poise, confidence, and match wins!
