Slumps are never fun to deal with. But, the reality is they happen. To understand why slumps happen and how to work through them first start by understanding how you get into them. Then once you've understood that, it is simply a mental game you play against yourself till you feel confident enough to conclude you are no longer in the slump.

So, what is a slump? To a Counter Strike player, this can me a lot of different things. From bad timing or position to terrible sprays, slumps come in many ways. Their longevity depends on your mentality to beat it, meaning how to break your current autonomous routine in game. Similar to driving a car, we fall into routines that we do without thinking too deeply. If you have a place you drive to daily, sometimes you get there and don't really remember the drive or at least turning at the specific streets to get there. The same thing happens with Counter Strike. As you play more and more, you develop routines and habits. When the habits form and we don't think too much about them, they become automatic without us realizing. This is where slumps form. From routines comes consistent habits, from habits comes predictability.

The reason why doing the same thing over and over again will lead to a slump is because enemies adapt to how you play. From my own experience, playing a completely different position than what I have been playing recently is the best way to break a certain routine. If you play well at A - site but have been trained over by enemies consistently, then play B - site for a while and come back with a fresh look. Even not playing Counter Strike entirely will have the same effect because you force your mind to break the routine it's used to. The effect is similar to you switching your location of the place you drive daily. Once you can't just breeze through the drive mindlessly, you pay better attention to where you are and what streets to turn on. That attention to detail in Counter Strike helps improve your game sense which in return helps you climb out of a slump.

It is nearly impossible to prevent slumps because our minds are wired to produce the most efficient routines for problem solving. If you find you are in a slump, that's completely normal. Everyone goes through them eventually and probably will again. In order to work through them faster, there are ways to change your mentality to think more 'oustide the box'. A huge part of slumps is the mental challenge. If I find myself in a slump I keep these 3 things in mind:

1. Changing settings won't work.

No, it is not your crosshair, FOV or resolution that has made you worse. You may see temporary improvement because of the sudden change in routine but as long as you keep the habit, you will see the same result. Instead of trying to create the best crosshair the world has ever seen, go into an offline server and spray at a wall. Focus on proper counter strafing, peeking angles with better crosshair placement and improve your sprays with all of the guns. The reason why professionals are so good is not because they have the best viewmodel or crosshair, it is because they have mastered and continue to perfect the very basics of Counter Strike like aim, positioning and so on. What their crosshair looks like is irrelevant to their skill and is a matter of personal preference. The same shows for you and in your game. Your settings are aestetics, your willingness to improve is where skill comes from. If you are in a slump, don't change any settings because you will only further confuse your mind when trying to focus on different visual settings than normal. This is not considered "breaking the routine" because you are only changing how things look, not how they act.

2. Bad games happen.

One game where your performance wasn't at its best doesn't justify being in a slump. Taking a break entirely from Counter Strike to cool down is usually the best way to handle having a poor game. Hopping into another one right away with doubt already in your mind from last game can affect future performance. In my own experience, I find it best to watch a game I did poorly in to see why I did so bad. This is very useful in identifying what part of your playing style needs to be fixed. Simply being aware of a certain habit can be enough for you to change it. Watching matches is a powerful tool that I don't think enough players take advantage of. The key to constructively criticizing your own match is looking at each round as objectively as possible. For each death, I come up with a reason (not an excuse!) for why I died and how I could have played it better. Do this enough and in game you will see how your decisions like when to peek will change drastically over time.

3. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

Practicing something wrong does more harm than good to you. Pay attention to certain habits while in Death Match, they can come back to bite you in competitive games. One of the biggest ones is reloading right after each kill. Normal habit to have while in DM, terrible one to have while in competitive play. Picking up things like that will allow you to not let certain things from DM spillover to your MM games. Something you can add to your pre-game routine is going offline with bots and practicing head shots. It may not help with your spraying all too much but even forcing yourself to think deeper about aiming for the head will help you in game.

The key to getting out of a slump is to keep moving forward. Just because you are not playing your best right now does not mean you will never see improvement. Focus on improving the basics, they will get you further in Counter Strike than the best pop flash in the world. Eventually slumps become less frustrating and turn into timeframes of improvement. You can learn a lot from them assuming you keep a positive outlook and take advantage of what I said above. Even professionals get slumps, so don't give up too quickly!

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