Modeling: shortcut to excellence

When i first started playing Counter-Strike i had only one thing in my mind: whos the best player and what team hes in. It is simple, i like gaming because it is very competitive. In my opinion, you can't start playing any competitive game without having in mind whos the best on it. You want to know it because, in order to be 'number one' you'll have to beat them, so this is important information. Essential id say. Now that you are aware of 'where you need to be' its much easier to start working. You know where you are and you know wheres the finish line.

What i first did in order to get closer and closer to be 'the best' was watching the best. I watched tons of games and demos. I reviewed them with my team, and i told them it was pretty easy: let's do what they did. Watch them. Analyze them. Do it. It worked, pretty well id say. At first, we didnt know how 'doing what they did' was working for us, we just did it and got good results, so we kept doing it. I always saw 'this' as a shortcut.

What is 'this'
I didnt know this was stated already, but it is. It is called modeling (NLP). You can google it for a bit but to make the story short it is about using others experience/skills to help you achieve something. For instance a skill: dancing, painting, singing, and finally, healing.

Kids are natural modellers: the first time you were brushing your teeth you probably didnt need anyone to tell you how to do it. You saw your parents brushing theirs for so much time you just repeated it: and it worked. A child has the potential to learn anything. To learn a language, people serve as a model from which to learn from. And so on.

"If you know a person who performs extremely well or even exceptionally in a particular setting, and you would like to be able to have the same degree of grace and agility, presence and panache then Modelling is perhaps the ellegent method for aquiring that skill. "

The modeling process
So, in order to get this going the first step would be to find someone that has that skill you want. Someone that does what you need to do better than you. Then, you will have to watch it in action. Observation is pretty much everything you need. Do what they do. You'll have a 99.9% success rate.

1. Find a model, hero or idol.
2. Watch what they do and analyze how they do it.
3. Knowing why they do what they do will improve your performance: you know why this is working, you have more information to work on now.
4. Try it out!

Modeling and World of Warcraft
If you have a friend that plays a sport, or its just a big fan of some sport, and you ask them about the best players or they favorite ones they will probably know what to answer. If they watch the F1 they'll probably talk about Michael Schumacher, Alonso, Massa, Raikkonen. For golf it'll be Tiger Woods. For soccer maybe Messi, Pelé, Maradona, Kaká, Xavi. If it's tennis you'll hear about Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Sampras. And so on. You need heroes, everyone does. You need to be pointed out where you have to move, you need to see the finish line so you know what way youll be following.

One of the best things of modeling, besides it is 'easy' and it works, is you will have the opportunity to meet amazing people; it is good to point out that 'modeling' is all about observing and analyzing ONLY the person's attribute you want to improve on yourself. You don't care if they are lazy, short, tall, fat, you focus on their skill, and nothing else. However, as attitude is the key on achieving important things in life, you will be most likely reading/watching about a great person. They're often talented in what they do because they have a great attitude. You'll learn more than just that skill.

You can't be competitive in this game if you dont know where you are standing. You need to know about the best. They're #1 for a reason. Find it