What is Psychology(and it's implications to Counter-strike)?

Psychology is a very misunderstood topic, but it is simply the study of our mind and our behaviour. In terms of Counter-strike this is very important, most guides and articles often focus on the physical aspects of Counter-strike, such as aim, cross-hair placement, movement and grenade strategies.

While these are all very important for becoming a good Counter-strike player, I would argue that Psychology is just as important, if not more important than all of these factors. I believe this simply because Psychology covers motivation, feelings, well-being, optimism/pessimism our mental strengths and weaknesses and a lot more which are entirely relevant to Counter-strike. These factors are the mental drive to your physical game, if you join a match with low motivation and a pessimistic outlook on how the match will go, you are already putting both you and your team at a disadvantage.

For example if you have the mental attitude of something along the lines of 'What's the point in even playing we're going to lose anyway' then you will be putting yourself at a disadvantage entirely, a mis-conception I have come across regularly with Counter-strike players is that they feel like they have to play regardless of whether they feel like they want to or not. I have no clue as to the cause of this but don't ever feel as if you have to play, there is never a scenario where you will have to play no matter what. If you don't feel like playing, then don't, or at least play something more relaxing like the famous bhop_ or kz_ servers.

I will be covering three key psychological areas (there are many more) : Motivation, Positive Psychology, and Optimism and Pessimism.

Motivation

"You can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets"

Motivation is simply external and internal factors that stimulate your desire to play well. If you feel un-motivated then chances are that you don't really want to play, some players might gain motivation from jumping into Counter-strike and just playing as if it were normal to them, but most players (including myself) do not simply just 'get motivated'. I can't simply tell you how to 'get motivated' simply because of individual differences, everybody is different.

However, I would recommend that if you feel de-motivated, that you do not play Counter-strike as it is likely things will happen that will destroy your motivation even further like losing, and if this happens it means that Counter-strike will begin to become a stress factor. Once this happens you will just create the mental association between Counter-strike and stress, instead of associating Counter-strike with fun and enjoyability you begin to associate it to things like being angry and stressful. As I stated earlier, if you do not feel like playing, do not play, this is healthy for your mental well being and your game ability, you will feel better if you do not play when you don't have the right mindset. Everyone has something that can motivate them, for me it is simple youtube videos like the following:

But as I said, everyone has their own methods of self motivation, exercise is also a big one to use and can increase your body temperature too.

Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology is a very new field in Psychology that is currently still emerging. It is a Psychological field in which focuses on looking at the positive aspects, making people happy and seeing the good things as opposed to the typical clinical approach where you focus the negative factors about yourself and attempt to fix them. Positive psychology focuses on the strengths of a person and aims to make them even stronger and I believe this to be a much more effective approach rather than telling someone they're bad at something.

An example of this is professional Titan player KennyS, I have watched countless games of him picking up a rifle and missing some very easy kills, but this doesn't affect him, instead he has the attitude of "Okay, I'm not great with rifles but I'm amazing with an AWP so I will just keep AWPing" rather than "I suck with rifles I should use them more to get better with them". He is a prime example of someone that focuses on their strengths in order to get where he is now.

If you can use an AK well but not AWP very well, then don't assume that means you have to try and balance your skill out between the two types of weapons, you should focus on honing your ability with the AK rather than worrying about your AWPing ability. If you are a great tactician then focus on being the in-game leader, focus on what you are good at rather than patching up what you are bad at. With that said there are obvious exceptions, if you are bad at cross-hair placement you will still need to work on that, along with other basic elements such as aim and movement.

Optimism and Pessimism

This ties in very strongly with motivation, if you are motivated you are more likely to be optimistic but none the less, optimism and pessimism have a far greater impact than people realise. When people think optimism, they think individualism - they think about their optimism and pessimism and how it affects them which is entirely normal. However most people don't realise that external optimism and pessimism is far more influential than internal optimism or pessimism, a pessimist is far more likely to feel positive surrounded by optimisms and vice versa.

A couple of words can have such an affect of the mental minds of the people involved, for example saying "gg we've lost" can shatter an entire game. Four words can completely de-motivate your team and make them unwanting to play, which has the after effect of them playing worse than they normally do. It is hard for a pessimist to become an optimist, but is possible through learned optimism. There has been many scenarios I have been in where optimism has made me win, or pessimism made me lose. An example is a 1v3 I was in, I was on 2hp and the situation was impossible - The bomb was dropped, there was 40 seconds left, but all my friend kept saying was '2hp is only a number' and 'You've got this'.

Now I know this is a ridiculous thing to say as hp is a very important factor, but I just took his words and just played and I did win the round. Had he of been like 'Whatever just save you'll die anyway' I think I would have either saved or gone for it and died. What I'm saying is that if you are a pessimist, don't plague your teammates with it, even if you think you've lost already and can't win the game do not verbalise this, even if you will lose because it makes your teammates feel like crap. There's never a need for verbalised pessimism, just keep it to yourself.

Of course it's better to try and be optimistic but as I said, this can be very difficult for some individuals but being verbally pessimistic is so psychologically harming, you can even lose friends because of it as this is what happened to me, we would lose the pistol round and I would say in-game 'gg we've lost'. I've changed since then, but people really don't understand how negative it can make the entire rest of the game feel. If you want to know if you are a pessimist/optimist I would recommend this.

My suggestions of when NOT to play

A lot of people feel like Counter-strike is a great game to 'wind down' with, but this is definitely not true for the vast majority. For example you have a fight with your significant other and think that playing Counter-strike will take your mind off of it, it doesn't. You will play Counter-strike with your attention being devoted into thinking about the fight you had with your significant other and you will play significantly worse. As a result of this you will anger yourself even more and maybe say something to someone you'll regret (This only applies to Match-making or other serious game-types, kz_ and bhop_ are very recommended for moments like this).

Other times in which I would recommend you not playing would be: Death of someone or something close to you, school/University assignments and projects due within a couple of days that are incomplete and when you are tired/exhausted. Obviously there are more situations in which playing Counter-strike is not recommended but I'm hoping common sense and trial and error will help you detect those moments.

Conclusion

Never underestimate the ability your mindset and psychological ability can have. Sometimes it can be the difference between a win and a loss, be it you making someone else more positive and giving them a more positive attitude allowing them to win a clutch or you finding a way to re-motivate yourself for the next game to play just as well as the last time, if not, better.