Mindset and Smash Ultimate. 4/13/22 – 4/19/22

Genesis 8 was this weekend and a lot of my friends went. That meant locals were pretty light on the top talent. I went to one local, Games Ahoy, and I got 3rd. I made it all the way to the winners’ finals beating some good local players and then I got utterly run over by Super, the Diddy Kong. I’ve done so much better against Super in the past but recently he’s had my number. He’s known for camping but this time he rushed me down and I was simply overwhelmed. I had a plan to take him on if I made it to grads but Lt.L ended up reverse 3-0ing me with his Terry in losers finals. Obviously, I’m not happy about losing but I am glad he took a set from me. He’s a great player and it was only a matter of time. Kinda wish it was in another scenario, but it is what it is. I feel like I’m getting back to a level I’m happy with, but I’ve been too busy to really give much attention to my performance in smash. I’m hoping to attend ESF this week, Colorado’s biggest weekly, so I’ll try to prepare for it and see what I can do. 

This week I’d like to talk about mindset. I want to discuss this because it can help with improvement but also keep your love for the game alive. Many people burn out from smash and other competition-based hobbies and mindset is key to maintaining your love for the game. I don’t say this lightly, but I think I have one of the best mindsets for maintaining a passion for Smash. It wasn’t good for improvement but I am working on that. You can read about how I’m trying to improve that here. The piece I’ve linked is about mentality in Smash. While mindset is a part of mentality, I want to cover different aspects of mentality related to mindset in this piece.

So what is “mindset”? Well, I’m going to use the definition given by SBF in his video “How To Improve Your Mindset In Smash Ultimate”. “A set of beliefs that influence how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation.” The situation we will be looking at specifically is tournament play in Smash Ultimate. 

I think SBF’s video does a damn good job at explaining what I want to cover this week. I’ll be commenting on different sections of the video below. I’ll timestamp the quotes I’m responding to. 

0:16 “No one has the perfect mindset…” I agree 100%. I have an obsession with being perfectly logical and that had manifested into a mindset where I wouldn’t get that angry at smash which is good, but it also didn’t help me improve. While I still handle my emotions towards the game well, I do let myself get more upset and that’s because I want to win. It’s natural to be upset when you don’t win, and when you don’t get upset you can lack that drive to improve. I’m working on that balance because I don’t want to let myself get angry at the game or take out my anger in unhealthy ways. I’m learning it’s a struggle and I don’t think it will ever stop if you’re an active competitor. We’re always battling our minds so we can be happy, and achieve the goals that make us happy and it’s hard to know how much of yourself you wish to put into these goals. The more you put in, the more upset you get when you lose. 

0:34 “Don’t set too high expectations for yourself.” This one is dangerous. While I think it’s important to not assume you’re going to beat someone who is vastly better than you, you shouldn’t let that stop you from trying. You should want to beat someone who is better than you. That’s the whole point of improvement. For the longest time, I didn’t care about beating people seen as better than me. I would just accept that I was going to lose and try my best, but not truly believe I could win because I wanted to avoid the disappointment of not achieving that goal. It’s logical for your happiness, but it’s not logical for your improvement. That being said, don’t be super upset when you lose to someone you’re not expected to beat. Don’t let that ruin your day. 

1:04 “Make sure your expectations are realistic…” Again, I think you should desire more. Always keep your drive up, but try to avoid letting a loss bring you down especially if you’re not supposed to win based on seeding or rankings. 

1:42 “Thinking you shouldn’t have lost to a certain player.” This one is one that personally has always pissed me off and I covered it recently in last week’s consistency piece. Don’t act like a protagonist. People in brackets aren’t NPCs. They’re people. Their skills can fluctuate just as much as yours, and believing you should always beat someone or lose to someone is such basic self-absorption and not realistic. 

2:19 “I can’t beat this player.” I‘ve touched on avoiding this idea a lot already. Don’t believe it. 

3:00 “Having a scrub mentality.” I agree with everything said about this topic from SBF. Excuses are so silly when you’re trying to genuinely improve at something. Everyone has access to the same tools in Smash Ultimate. There is simply no excuse for you losing that has anything to do with the game. It’s all on you and potentially outside factors like your controller or distractions, but even those aren’t legit excuses. 

We all know a person who blames their controller. If there is a serious issue with your controller, get a new one. It’s not a legit excuse if you say it all the time. I have actually directly had a controller incident lose me a set. I was using a spare controller that I had because my other one was out of commission and I lost a set because instead of up smashing, I jumped and up aired. When I lost I didn’t immediately bring it up because that to me always rings as an excuse and I never want to discredit someone who got a win on me. He outplayed me simply because I didn’t know the controller’s jump sensitivity and that’s fair in my book. Even when you feel like you have a legit excuse, it’s not going to change the result. Keep it to yourself. We all agree to the terms by which we play the game just by sitting down to play, so whatever occurs from there is completely fair. Stop making excuses and instead try to find out what made you lose.

3:51 “Play to improve.” This is some of the best advice to give. While the end goal is to win, losing will happen. If you’re playing to improve, you’ll learn a lot more than if you’re just focused on winning. Your goals in smash will almost always come back to improvement, so make that your focus. 

The rest of the video goes over topics I’ve covered before, but I think it’s always good to keep refreshing on these on these concepts. 

To review. We’re always working with our mindset. Don’t expect results you haven’t worked for, but don’t let that keep you from trying your best. Understand that we’re all trying to improve at the same time so if you start losing to someone you haven’t lost to before, that’s ok. Don’t believe you can’t beat someone you haven’t beaten before. Everyone is human and nobody is unbeatable. Always go in trying your best and if you lose, try to determine why you lost. Nothing is too hard to overcome in this game, so excuses and complaining won’t help you truly improve. 

Again, I think I have a really good mindset when it comes to handling losses and I think I’m on a good path to improving my mindset towards how I view sets against players who are better than me. I hope this can help other people and if you think you have a better way of tackling these concepts, let me know on Twitter or even on Discord. ICYoyo#7413. Thanks for reading!