Hello everyone,

I am Yungda, 23 years old from the Netherlands.
I have made a journal in the past that I quit after a while. It was named 'making dreams come true'. It's a bit of a naive mindset look back. Now that I have matured more I don't believe in dreams anymore. I believe in goals and having a solid plan to achieve it, hence the name. The purpose of this journal is to keep progress on my development as a poker player. Since I believe a lot of you are going through the same journey so there might be things you can relate to.

Why do I play poker?
I am fortunate enough to be born in a first world country, financially speaking I there are way better opportunities than poker. That being said I want to use poker as a self-development tool, overcoming childhood traumas and becoming a better person through the process.

What are my current goals?
I am in a challenge where my goal is to be able to put in 4k hand volume a day or 80k hands in the month. Keeping my hours what you would consider normal working hours, since a balanced approach is going to be the most fruitful in the longrun. The amount of volume is very challenging for me and this week I am working to the 4k hands a day. But so far the volume has exposed a lot of mental and strategic leaks. Overcoming these are part of the first week's goal, so I will be able to consistently put in the volume.

Volume goal august: 70k hands
Daily volume goal: 4k hands
Study goal: Maintaining study routine

What can you expect from the journal?
I will be doing this at 25z. This is lower than I normally play, but I am going outside of my comfort zone and expect a lot mental/strategic leaks that I have been avoiding. There probably won't be any graphs, maybe at the end of the month to keep the journal focused on the process rather than the 'sick graphs with the sick red lines'. Also this journal is going to focus on the mental part of poker instead of the strategic part. Also the discussion will be kept to a macro level.

Enjoy the read!

Day 1

The first mental leak was exposed when firing 4 tables of zoom. Anxiety came up, because when playing so many hands it is impossible to completely think through a hand. In the past I played 2 tables, I overthought my decision. The underlying belief was that if I have considered every possibilty I won't make mistakes. But the reality is that my thought process is always evolving and making mistakes is part of the process. It doesn't mean I am bad at the game or that I am unworthy as a person. Afterwards the session went pretty well and didn't encounter any new obstacles. I ran out of the timeframe I gave myself in a day unfortunately, so I did not reach my volume goal.

Results day 1: 1587/4000 hands

Day 2

Learning from my mistakes from the first day I started earlier with the grind. The first two sessions went well without any issue. I got in around 2k hands and the morning hasn't even ended yet. I did not wanted to neglect my studying, so I got a good study session in as well. But then I got hit by a wave of fatigue. With effort I got in another 500 hands, but I did not felt good about it. My thoughtprocess was non- existent during that last session, so I ended it there and reflected on what happened. After the reflection I was happy it happened. Because the tiredness exposed weaknesses in my game. I have been really focused on getting better and better, completely neglecting that what I have learned I also need to practice. So not only do I need to work on improving my thought process. I also need to become efficient in my thought process. If you are wondering what I mean with thought process. It's what I refer to everything that goes on in your head when making a decision at the poker table.

Results day 2: 2608/4000 Hands