The Road To Pro #1 — Finding a new team
Ouff ! Already 1 month since i launched this project. Times went by so fast that i almost forgot to write a blog. Finding a free spot where im calm and relaxed every month will be a challenge but im dedicated to this whole documentation thing =)
So first, after launchin my whole Road to Pro project, i went straight to work. I had 2 big goals in mind before the end of the season ; to Join a semi-pro team and to reach the top 1% of Overwatch players on the ranking ladder.
The first one was pretty easy for me, i’ve always been a grinder whatever the game i play so i simply jumped on my daily grind routine ; 2 hours of aiming drills, 6 hours of ranking followed up by a break, another hour of aim drilling to finish with try out sessions to find a team. Of course there’s the usual dead days where nothing seems to happen and it looks like the improvement curve isnt goin up, but anyone that is into self-improvement will tell you these days are necessary to improve.
Troughout this month, i’ve had one real hard plateau, i was streaming late at night without any viewer. I’ve had 2 team refusal in the morning, not much food left in the pantry and my moral was pretty low. Every game i played that night felt like a burden. While i was trying to drown the negative voice in my head with rap music, an old viewer of my stream came in to write something i dont think i’ll ever forget
The moral boost i got from that simple message told me a great lesson in self-esteem ; Its even more important to believe in yourself in the hard times, thats what makes you pass trough them. And 2 days later, i was done with my first goal
Now since my goal to reach the top 1% was achieved, i had way more time and focus to attack the second one for the last part of the season : Finding a team.
I’ve already received invitation to multiple teams at that point, but since i’ll be playing this game for a big part of my day-to-day life, i knew i needed to find a group that would be more than 5 other player trying to become pro too. I needed to find people i could .. vibe with .. ya feel me ?
In the 30+team tryouts i did, only 2 of them really matched with my personality, and only 1 of these 2 teams had the skill level i was looking for. I scheduled a tryout with them and performed really well for my own standard but they also liked another guy so they brought us 2 back for another round. After a week, i was told by the manager that the team chose the other guy ; What a bummer.
So i bottled up my ego and scheduled more tryouts with other teams. At the end of the week, i had 3 team that wanted me to join them but the problem was ; i didnt want to. I still had that perfect team vibe in my mind and none of these team matched it. One day, i was browsing the teamtryouts on the Competitive Overwatch discord server, and the team i really liked were once again looking for someone. It was for a different role this time, but since i really enjoyed that team philosophy, i chose to go out of my comfort zone and tryout again. I spent a full 3–4 days training the heroes required for that role and then rocked the tryout once again. I really felt like this time, my performance would make them choose me, but i was wrong once again
After 2 failure, i decided to stop trying out for teams and to focus on improving my individual performance until a team could simply not refuse my skills. Training for the role they needed really widened my hero pool so i had a lot of work on my plate. Only after 3 days being back on the daily grind, the team manager contacted me again
And that’s where the story takes a weird turnaround. The team captain told me 2 of his member left only to learn an hour later that the whole team disbanded. I was kinda sad first since i did all that work only to join a team that exploded a day after, but i was left with a pretty interesting opportunity ; Me and the team captain had the same vision and the same concept of a ‘’Good Vibe’’ team. So me and him went back to the drawing board to create a brand new Team Roster. We already managed to find 2 other teammates at the moment im writing this, and i hope our new this is gonna be up and running when i’ll come back to write the next blog.
In the end, this whole month really teached me the power of the words ‘’Keep Going’’. I was extremely close to simply surrender my 2 goals and take a small break, but if i had done that, i wouldnt be in the situation i am today, with my 2 goals accomplished and with opportunities in front of me. Who knows, maybe your goals are closer than you think they are, you just got to push a little bit more every day.
See you next month my friend, and dont forget ;
Hard Work, Good Vibes
