Your values are your core where you operate from.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
Gandhi

Have you neglected your values when setting (poker) goals too often?
Is your short term behaviour aligned with your long-term vision?

Let me know!

And ofc you can also post your most important values from the exercise here too.

Interesting video! I have been thinking about my values, and have a few questions.

How do we decide if we hold a certain value if our behaviour does not always align with that value? For example you want to be a healthy eater, but 10% of the time you give into temptation and eat something unhealthy? Or we want to work out but 5% of the time we can't be bothered?

What happens if there is a value we would like to have, but based on our current behaviour, we cannot say that it is one of our values? If we are finding it hard to attain that value, do you think that it may be against our core nature, or do you think that most/all values are obtainable?

"No one puts their shoes on to go for a run and decides to not go and just takes their shoes off."
-Goggins

Whether you are going for a run, gym, swimming, biking etc its the initial step that holds people back the most! Even if you tell people to just go 5 minutes or 10 minutes a day, to keep the goal short but be consistent to build a habit. A lot of people won't be able to achieve these short term goals because their mind is focused on the entire workout and not living in the present moment. The present moment is just to put your shoes on and the other steps will come, but you just have to take that first step.

For poker for those that struggle with volume maybe its as simple as just saying go play 20 hands when your goal is 1,000 hands for the day. Those initial 20 hands gets you started and on the right course and away from procrastination.

These are two things I'm working on. Just putting my shoes on to go work out and just opening up the poker software to start playing. I allow myself to make too many excuses with "I'll do it after this youtube video" or "I should eat something first." Then the excuses just stack on top of each other and all of a sudden its 7pm and I haven't accomplished anything. Just need to set your priorities for the day and take the first baby step to achieving the daily goals.

matlittle if that is the baseline you work with (that believe), than you also understand your doubt about "changing" yourself :)

Atomic habits is pretty good. But a bit hype.

Good question - I think so but not completely sure. I guess it depends on the person, and the value we are considering. I think that some values we are able to change, and others are hardwired into us.

Agreed. Some of them are so important to us and developed so early that they will never change. Those are often the most basic values like honesty or helping others.

Others are more likely to change depending on the phase of your life and the experiences you make. When you get married and have children your value of personal freedom could move to the background while family values become more important.

You can change the way you work with your long held values.

For example. Authenticity is important to me. But how I look at it and how I look at it in others has changed over the years.

When I was very much into hiphop in the nineties I would call some rappers fake mcs. That was until a buddy of me asked me: “what if they do what they do is being true to themselves? How can you know it’s fake? Maybe the rappers you call real are actually fake”. As a 18 year old kid that was a shift in what authenticity means, and over the years that kept developing.

So even if certain values are so integrated in who you are as a person, you still can work with it to be a better version of yourself.

Firstly this is a good amount of dense information here which is highly valuable.
I personally enjoyed how you broke down the aspect or approach to "Why do you play poker?".
I have worked with few Mental game coaches in the past, but this tabular breakdown, and understanding the intricacies of how to answer it was very helpful, even though I have briefly answered it in the past. Writing in multiple columns of the table gives a good understanding of what I am really doing.
I may still be struggling with how to define an action vs value to write in the table. I believe my table contents of
1. Personal Relationships / Family
2. Professional success
3. Physical and Psychological Health
4. Personal growth + Hobbies + Passion

is filled with Goals as to what I want to achieve or see myself in next 2-3 years time.
Will send you a PM to discuss this and maybe get some clarity on it.

Thanks T

Have you neglected your values when setting (poker) goals too often?
Is your short term behaviour aligned with your long-term vision?

Yes, when I started meditation, few years later I thought poker to be completely irrelevant. I still had like $130 left from my career on PokerStars and I went to $3/$6 NLHE 6max table or something and pushed it all-in and won the blinds.

Here I had neglected my original value of "being a good athlete". I thought money is evil and feelings of despair and negativity had taken over and clouded my memory of the original value of "the good athlete".

Correct way to deal with the situation would have been to withdraw the money and put good use to it, or, play on suitable stakes with the correct "good athlete" mindset in mind.