05/14/2026
Make the Cubl a part of that preparation it will help!
Pool is not a high speed reaction sport.
You don’t have to return a 100mph tennis serve. You don’t have to dodge a knockout punch. You have time. You have stillness. You have silence.
And that is exactly what makes it so stupidly difficult.
Every football player knows the feeling of stepping up for that penalty. Every basketball player knows what it’s like standing alone at the free throw line with the game on the line. That moment of silence before the action, that is where doubt lives.
In pool that moment happens on every single shot.
Before the match even starts the doubt is already there. Every time it is your turn at the table. Every time you get down to aim. You doubt the contact point. You doubt your stroke. You doubt the decision you are about to make. And sometimes you doubt whether you deserve to be at the table at all.
The game is almost entirely in your head.
There is a book called The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey. He was a tennis coach but what he discovered applies to every sport, and I would argue it applies to pool more than any of them.
His idea was this. Inside every player there are two selves constantly fighting each other.
Self 1 is your conscious mind. The critic. The overthinker. The voice that talks during your pre shot routine. The voice that says do not miss this. The voice that reminds you of the last time you missed this exact shot. The voice that questions your contact point when you are already down on the ball. Self 1 is always trying to control everything, and that need for control is what destroys your game.
Self 2 is your body. Your instinct. Your muscle memory. The part of you that already knows how to play pool because you have put in the hours. Self 2 does not need instructions in the middle of a match. It needs one thing, trust.
The problem is never Self 2. Self 2 already knows what to do. The problem is Self 1 refusing to get out of the way.
Gallwey found that peak performance does not come from trying harder or thinking more carefully. It comes from quieting Self 1 so that Self 2 can do what it was trained to do.
So how do you actually do that at the pool table?
First, make every decision before you get down on the shot. The contact point, the speed, the position play, all of it decided standing up. The moment you get down is the moment thinking stops and trust begins. If you are still deciding when you are already on the ball, Self 1 will eat you alive.
Second, give your mind one simple thing to focus on. Not your stroke. Not the score. Not your opponent. Pick something neutral and present, the sound the cue makes through contact, or watching the object ball all the way into the pocket. This keeps Self 1 occupied with something harmless so it stops interfering with Self 2.
Third, stop trying to silence the doubt by arguing with it. You cannot win that argument. The more you tell yourself to stop thinking about missing the more you think about missing. Instead, acknowledge it and redirect. Yes the doubt is there. Now focus on the contact point. That is all.
Fourth, let go of the outcome. This is the hardest one. Pool players are obsessed with making or missing. But the moment you become attached to the result your body tightens, your stroke shortens and Self 1 takes over completely. Your job is to play the shot correctly. Where the ball goes after that is the result of your preparation, not something you control in the moment.
Fifth, trust what you have built. You have practised. Your body has done this before. The match table is not the place to rebuild your technique. It is the place to trust it. Get down. Commit. Pull the trigger.
Pool will test your mind more consistently and more ruthlessly than almost any other sport. There is no momentum to carry you. No teammate to cover for you. Just you, the table, and the silence.
But the player who learns to win the inner game does not just become a better pool player. They become someone who can perform under pressure, trust themselves in difficult moments and stay present when everything around them is noise.
