Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

I lost $1,113 this week and I didn't play very much. The games have been very tough lately and my confidence is struggling because of it. It is probably one of the worst feelings in the world when you lose confidence in your poker game, because it seems like you can't do anything right. You know you aren't playing your best and there is just nothing you can do about it....or so it seems. I am choosing right now to make a concerted effort to get the negative thinking and feeling sorry for myself out of my game. My buddy and soon to be roommate, Nick, is always getting onto me for making negative comments on the golf course or when talking about poker and he is right. There isn't really anything positive that can come from negative thinking. It is easy to think positive when you are running well, because there isn't much to deter you from thinking that way. I am going to try to start thinking about it in a different way though. I am not going to let my results dictate my thinking or mood, but I am going to start letting my thinking or mood dictate my results.

This line of thinking got started today on the golf course when I noticed myself lamenting about being behind a small tree that I wasn't sure I could hit it over. I caught myself thinking about how I just knew my ball was going to hit the tree and end up a horrible shot. I decided I was going to get rid of that mindset and told myself that there was almost zero chance the tree would affect my shot. I hit the shot with total confidence and knocked it to about 6 inches for the tap-in birdie.

Edit: After re-reading this I realized I made myself sound like I am in a horrible mood all the time and constantly whining about running bad. I really feel like I am a pretty positive person most of the time and complain WAY less than normal poker pros. In fact, I think most of the people that I converse with on a daily basis wouldn't even know if I was on a horrible downswing or not. I just think it would be beneficial to try to cut out the little bit of negativity that sometimes creeps into my game.