You probably won't know until you stop asking that question. Check out this vid

There are so many ways to attack this. I'd prefer a conversation with you because there is so much in here, man. So much in what you have said and even more in what you have not said. For now, a few thoughts on what you said:

Is there any point in aspiring to become a high stakes pro when the passion for the game is not really there?

Is there? We can't answer this for you. The answer is inside you. What do you think?

I mean my sole purpose of improving the game is just those extra $$ added to my hourly.

Your values will effect how you feel. If your sole purpose is extra money. Can you see how that's probably not going to ignite you with passion? That's not the most meaningful purpose (it's just a shitty learned social pattern: money = happiness or money = freedom). And I've been there, man. Playing poker and feeling completely unfulfilled for similar reasons. My purpose now is so much bigger and so much more meaningful for me and that gives me so much energy, it gives me so much flow in my daily life. (I'm getting high as fuck off my own neurochemicals baby!)

"There are many reasons why experiencing flow is beneficial. Perhaps the most important is also the most obvious: quality of life depends on it." -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

And some quotes (might be paraphrased, taking this from my Evernote, and it's been a while since I created this note) from Steven Kotler in Rise of Superman.

"In flow, we are so focused on the task at hand that everything else falls away. Action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. Performance goes through the roof. In flow, every action, each decision, leads effortlessly, fluidly, seamlessly to the next. It's high-speed problem solving; it's being swept away by the river of ultimate performance..."

"Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Ned Hallowell, "Flow naturally transforms a weakling into a muscleman, a sketcher into an artist, a dancer into a ballerina, a plodder into a sprinter, an ordinary person into someone extraordinary. Everything you do, you do better in flow, from baking a chocolate cake to planning a vacation to solving a differential equations to writing a business plan to playing tennis to making love. Flow is the doorway to the 'more' most of us seek. Rather than telling ourselves to get used to it, that's all there is, instead learn how to enter into flow. There you will find, in manageable does, all the 'more' you need."

"Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel our best and perform our best. It is a transformation available to anyone, anywhere provided that certain initial conditions are met."

From a quality-of-life perspective, psychologists have found that the people who have the most flow in their lives are the happiest people on earth.

What kind of life do you want?

I’m very bad at remembering hands after each session, so I virtually cannot get any sort of reads on people (might be due to the fact that I rather scroll my phone instead of paying attention to the game).

What is that costing you? Like really. Slow down and think about that, right fucking now. Long term in your life. You have a choice. One path in life is to be the guy who'd rather scroll his phone instead of paying attention and another path is to be the guy who's engaged and in flow with what's he's doing. Who would you rather be? You get to choose.

Due to this issue, friends suggested me to approach a more GTO based style, as that would be less mental consuming for someone who’s facing my problem.

Again, what do you value? Do you value easy over deep meaningful work? What about solving the problem rather than avoiding it? Problems are dragons. Slay the dragon and you get the gold. You have the choice to slay the dragon. Or you can avoid the dragon and find a "less mentally consuming" path -- and to that, same question as before: what does avoiding dragons (as a way of life) cost you?

This is about poker, but it's about life. How you do one thing is how you do everything.

Do you choose to go on the Hero's Journey? (as a way of life--because if you're avoiding the call to adventure here...again, how you do one thing...)

Or do you choose to refuse the call to adventure?

What kind of life do you want? Who do you want to be?

Look inside yourself.

"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there." -Robert Pirsig

If you'd like to explore this more deeply PM me.

And thanks TuttiFrutti, you got me going this morning and inspired me to finish up some writing. Maybe you will find that writing useful too: How To Play Poker (or Life) Perfectly

I think passion for the game surely helps. But like if you have passion for other things but use poker to engage in those passions. Will that not in turn flow back to the drive to perform well at poker (your "job")?

If the passion isn't there, the high stakes realm isn't too necessary to think about. Poker isn't an easy way to make a living and those who can actually profit consistently from the game to earn a living from it can be somewhat of privilege in a type of way. Avoiding the ordinary 9 to 5 to play a game that you're good at is something unique. If one who is a winning player who is making a living solely off of poker, there has to be passion. Something to drive you to be better day in and day out and something that makes you excited doing this. With high stakes, better players tend to appear that you'll be playing against so you're gonna need some drive to stay on top of your game. Overall though, if poker has given you the type of life that you've wanted, that ideal lifestyle can be your inner drive to establish a passion in order to maintain doing the things you love to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ky8PDLBRw

Why are you playing poker? How is that different from the girl who read 30 books in 30 days?