The most important aspect of the game and the least talked about. We will be exploring the world of positivity and its effects on your in-game mentality.

What Is a ‘Positive Mentality’?

Do you ever catch yourself raging or getting annoyed when dying? Do you find yourself making-up excuses as to how and why you died? Or do you even find yourself quitting matches because of how angry you are? If so, it appears that you may have a negative mentality and so in this article we are going to be discussing different strategies, mechanisms, and tips on improving your mentality.

What even is a positive mentality? Well, reader, a positive mentality is one that sees the positives in life, and most importantly Counter-Strike, and helps you shake off the negatives that you come across, while helping you find practical solutions and constructive criticisms, so it’s pretty important for healthy learning. Pretty simple, right? (No pun intended).

How Is This Important in the Mental Game?

With competitive games, come competitive attitudes and it becomes really easy to become tilted and thus play worse. This all, ultimately, contributes to the mental game and so it is important to avoid becoming tilted and to begin practicing a positive mentality. But this isn’t as easy as it may seem, so how, exactly, do we get a positive mentality? And how will it affect my in-game performance? Before we answer that question, it is crucial to understand the importance of this kind of mindset.

Firstly, it creates a healthy learning environment, as you will feel less set-back by mistakes and it will feel easier to spot mistakes and improve on them. To note, you shouldn’t overly-worry about dying in-game, if you make a mistake then be sure to laugh it off, look at what went wrong and then do something to fix the mistake you’ve made. Secondly, you will find yourself enjoying the game more and the more you enjoy the game, the more you will find yourself wanting to improve and play more. This, of course, means you can improve at the game a lot quicker.

Thirdly, you will, most likely, win more. Due to your new positive mentality, you will find yourself being more positive to teammates, which helps create a positive team atmosphere, which means you will find yourself feeling more motivated than ever to win. Results should follow.

This advice tends to be relatively universal but is still an incredibly useful and important aspect at becoming good at anything, especially a frustratingly-hard esports title such as Counter-Strike.

Developing a Positive Mentality

It’s a long and hard process but gaining a positive mentality is, arguably, one of the most important stages of learning. In a game like Counter-Strike, it is extremely important to be on top in all aspects, this includes mentality. You need to be confident. For example, if you don’t have the confidence to do what you want to do in-game then you’re going to struggle, if you know what you need to do in-game then you also need the confidence to pull it off. You also need be calm, composed and reserved.

Imagine this:

You’ve been fighting all year long, practicing, preparing and you’ve finally done it. You’re at the major grand final! You’re one round away from winning the whole event but, oh no, all of your teammates have died, you’re in a one versus five. Match point. What do you do?

Whatever you do, you must be composed, you must be calm and you must be confident in your decision-making. Otherwise, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to panic and whilst your average match isn’t anything close to the major grand finals, these traits are, most certainly, used in these moments and should be adopted by new players trying to improve.

(credits to /u/NitrooCS for the clip).

Becoming a composed player usually comes with experience, you can work on becoming calmer by just playing the game a lot, especially, in high pressure situations. I heavily recommend playing in a team environment from as early on as possible. This not only helps with your teamplay and your communication but you will begin to learn composure and you will get a multitude of opportunities to improve your composure. Playing game modes like retakes and executes will also help your clutching ability, as you will find yourself in, what would normally be, stressful situations but instead you are in a casual environment, so a lot of the pressure is removed. This will help you when it comes to the real thing.

Keeping Your Positive Mentality

Be healthy, be consistent. You could easily lose your positive mentality in the blink of an eye, if you’re not careful. Your practice and warm-up must be consistent, you shouldn’t play/practice too much so to avoid burnout and you must stay healthy. This means getting a good amount of sleep, eating a balanced diet (or whatever your dietician recommends), exercising enough (going for a short walk in between games can help both exercise and refreshing your mind) and make sure to stay well hydrated.

Not only will this help you play better but it should also help you feel better, which will, ultimately, lead to you feeling happier and retaining your positive mindset.

These tips are simple but effective. It is important to note that this make take some time and it is recommended that you slowly work these things into your routine for the best effect.

Winning the mental game

You’ve got your positive mentality, you’ve kept your mentality but how does this help you win the mental game. You will find yourself enjoying the game even when you’re losing, you can laugh at your mistakes, but you can also learn from them. You can focus and stay focused, instead of feeling tilted. This means you will be improving quicker.

Whilst you will be improving quickly, feeling happy and confident, your opponents may start to tilt. If they do, you’ve won the mental game. You’ve become resilient, you’ve remained positive and now your opponents have developed a negative mentality. You’ve won the mental game.



Final Notes:

If you don’t get it the first time, then try again until you succeed. Sometimes, your opponents are so much better that it doesn’t matter whether you win the mental game, but as long as you’re matched with players around your own skill then winning the mental game will put you at a serious advantage. Good luck out there, and make sure you have fun!

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