Why Poker Players Get Stuck After They "Make It"

When you start out in poker, you think you're going to blast through the games. Maybe all the way to high-stakes. At the very least, you'll become a really good winner.

Some players get quite far. But almost everyone hits a point where they get stuck. Stuck at a certain level. Stuck at a certain win rate. Stuck at a certain point in their poker journey.

Today I want to talk about how you get past whatever is holding you back. Even when it feels insurmountable. And this doesn't just apply to poker. It applies to every area of life where you want to keep progressing.

The Fuel That Gets You Started

When you first start, you have a lot of energy around your goals.

It might be survival energy. It might be the need to prove yourself. It might be having to pay the bills and make it work. Whatever it is, all that energy goes into one thing: I'm going to make this work. You play more, you grind, you study, you work on your game.

And if you really dedicate yourself, at some point that fuel gets your head above water. Maybe it's mid stakes. Maybe it's 10k months. Maybe it's a six-figure bankroll. Whatever it is, you get to a place where you're more comfortable.

That's when the real game begins.

Because from here, you either stagnate, go backwards, self-sabotage, or just cruise. The fuel that got you here has run out. To keep growing, you need something different. You need to go through three stages.

Stage 1: See the Story That's Keeping You Stuck

What keeps you stuck is your beliefs: the stories and narratives your mind builds as you go through life.

Every experience gives your mind evidence. Over time, it builds a neat little narrative around what you can and can't do. How much money you can make. What stakes you can play. What you're capable of.

The problem is that the narrative only uses reference points from your past. So it will always limit you.

Say you come from a background with no money. Poker changes that. You cover your costs, you're playing mid stakes, you've built a six-figure bankroll. Brilliant. But now the original drive, the I need to make it energy, fades. You start asking, "how much could I actually make?" And your mind already has fixed stories about that. What counts as a lot of money. What's "enough". What you're capable of.

If you only use past experience as your guide, you'll always land on the same answer: "I've never done more than this. This is a good amount for me."

Most players get stuck right here, at stage one.

Stage 2: Replace the Old Story With a New One

This is where you have to reinvent yourself.

You use your conscious mind to commit to a path you haven't yet proven with results. Instead of letting your mind look for concrete evidence, you ask a different question: who am I trying to become?

The work here is creating new beliefs that fit your new identity, the one moving you towards your goals. You stop focusing on who you've been. You focus on who you're becoming, and more importantly, on the daily actions that prove it to yourself, over and over.

Want to be a high-stakes player? Build the vision of that player in detail:

• How do they show up each day?

• How do they grind?

• How do they study?

• How do they look after themselves?

• How do they develop their mindset?

Get really clear on that version of you. That becomes your new model, and you show up as it, again and again.

Then go after the specific beliefs that have been blocking you.

If your story is "I'm bad with money": you've already proven otherwise. You built a bankroll. You learned how to grow it. So start acting like someone who's good with money. Save. Invest. Take it seriously.

If your story is "this stake is too hard for me": you've already proven, over and over, that you can move up. You can learn. You can adapt. You can grow. You are the evidence.

Instead of using your past as an anchor, you start using it as proof of your potential.

Lessons From The Gym

To show how this works, I’ll share my journey of transforming my body.

I used to be a very skinny runner, about 70kgs. I had been skinny my whole life and it was apart of how I identified myself. If I'd kept telling myself "I've never had muscle", that story would have held me there forever.

Instead, in my twenties I decided I was now a gym-goer who was building muscle. I committed to it. Four sessions a week. I didn't need to keep checking whether it was working. I just showed up as that version of myself.

Three or four years later, I was 90kgs with a lot of lean muscle.

The identity changed first. The actions lined up with that new identity. Then the outcome became inevitable. That's how you need to approoch your poker career: remove what's blocking you, align with where you want to go, and commit to that direction.

Stage 3: Express Who You've Become

The final stage is one I'm starting to step into in my own life.

At some point, all you want is to free yourself from the mind's wants and needs, and simply express yourself in the moment.

It's the financially free player who still turns up to the Tritons and plays the biggest games. The player who's been crushing online for ten years, has won just about everything there is to win, and still loves showing up for the Sunday grind.

They're not trying to prove anything. It isn't coming from ego, lack, or "I need to do this to get that." They're expressing their gifts. The identity is formed. They feel aligned with who they are, and they express it fully.

This Is the Path

I've framed this around poker, but this is personal growth in all areas of your life. The path always goes as follows:

• See it. Understand where you're blocked, become aware of the stories, and come to terms with them.

• Rewrite it. Build a new alignment with the version of you that's going where you want to go, and prove it with daily action.

• Express it. Once that alignment forms, live as that version of yourself. Not from ego or lack, but because this is how you want to show up.

Most players never make it past stage one. Don't be one of them.

Ready to Become the Next Version of You?

Getting comfortable is where most players quietly stop growing.

The fuel runs out, the old stories take over, and "this is a good amount for me" becomes the ceiling. Breaking through it takes more than insight. It takes a new identity, built through daily reps, with someone holding you to it.

I've helped 100+ players build a bulletproof poker mindset and become crushers in their games through the 8-week Poker Athlete training camp.

If you're tired of being stuck at the same stakes with the same stories, and you want to work closely with me to actually start training the version of you that moves up, you can apply for a place in my November group here.

Adam