That title's kinda cringe huh. Well I will try my absolute best to not make this like a ProGuides video that probably has a similar title LOL.

Before I begin the guide, make sure you read through all of it. This is a mistake I've made in the past, where you just skip through the guide, look at the heading text, then just move on. This guide is prefaced with a semi-long tangent, but it's crucial you understand all of it. I also will most likely repeat information you have heard before, but I will try to dive deep enough to make you understand each thing's importance, how it works, and how to actually go about implementing the advice.

Being hardstuck is something everyone has heard, and the majority of people have experienced. Being hardstuck for too long WILL drain your mental, because it makes you feel like no matter how much work you put in, the improvement is not coming, which begins to make you think the problem isn't with your practice, but you. It happened to me a couple weeks ago, being stuck in Plat and feeling like no amount of time would help me get better. It was a struggle.

Thankfully, this is not the case.

So what might be the reason for you being hardstuck? (If your answer is "because I suck," you have some work to do on your mental my friend, which I'll try to help you out with in a bit). You'll understand more and more as you read, but essentially, it comes from not learning enough from each round/game, and not developing your thought process for making decisions in-game. The two culprits for this problem? Mindset and habit abuse (overly sticking to habits).

Step 1) Improve your mindset; playing-to-improve.

Now, I just said mindset, and I can hear you mentally groaning. Everybody who has ever tried to look up a resource to get better and stop being hardstuck has heard it. I got annoyed too when all I heard was mindset mindset mindset, but I promise you it is MUCH MUCH more complicated than what guides make it out to be and much more impactful.

Mindset is a lot more complex than the "growth" vs "fixed" mindset they teach you at school, or how much you get tilted. People/pros with good mindsets don't just have strong willpower, they think about the game in a way that does two very interconnected things; minimize tilt/frustration, and learn as much as possible from each round.

Now when I say tilt/frustration, I don't mean it in the very strong sense of toxicity or rage quitting. Most of you hardstuckers probably aren't like that. I'm talking about the smaller stuff, like being INTERNALLY frustrated with teammates, or reminiscing on the flaws of the ranking system as you lose your game. Avoiding tilt is very important for three reasons:

1. you enjoy the game more. remember, we are all particles on a gigantic spinning rock; don't take life too seriously, you need to enjoy yourself more.
2. you will be able to play the game more.
3. This is the big one: Tilt hinders your improvement.

Here is an example of how your mindset impacts your learning. (and let me preface by saying: this example is not something all of you reading would do, it's just adjacent to something you might/sometimes do). Bob is in a 2v2 on attack, and his teammate dies, making it a 1v2, and Bob loses. The round ends, and Bob immediately thinks about how his teammate died when he should've been playing with Bob, and then the next round starts. Because of Bob thinking about his teammate, the flaws of the round were put onto him, and Bob didn't reflect on what HE could've done to win the 2v2, and hence didn't absorb the new information about what to do in a 1v2 next time. Was a big reason why the 2v2 was lost that his teammate died? Yes. But does thinking about that help him succeed in his goal of ranking up? No. After that, some might say "well his teammate losing the round gets them farther from winning the game, and therefore furthering Bob from his goal of ranking up. However, this teammate is not in Bob's control. Thinking like this is a mindset that is called playing-to-win. If you play ranked to win, then there will be factors outside of your control that hinder you from winning, which will cause you frustration and shift the blame to other factors outside of your control, hindering your improvement. We want a mindset that puts everything in our control, while also bringing us closer and closer to fulfilling our ultimate goal: ranking up. This is where the play-to-improve mindset comes in. If you play ranked to improve, all the factors are in your control. A teammate screwing up and throwing the round does NOT hinder your ability to improve in the long run.

Does that mean if you take this mindset into a game tomorrow, a teammate throwing a round will not frustrate you? Absolutely not. A mindset is something that you constantly work on, and one that will fluctuate at times, and you will have to take care to keep it in check.

Now, how would you go about implementing this mindset? Well, the beginning of mindset implementation is essentially fake it till you make it. This is the same, for example, in social situations. Let's say you want to be more confident or assertive. How would you go about doing that? You literally just tell yourself that you're confident and you just act how you think you would if you were confident until it becomes part of your personality. It's the same here. Jump in a ranked game, and after each death, think about what mistakes you made, and what you could've/should've done, AND when you see yourself blaming a teammate, or saying "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT/WHY ARE YOU THERE?!" or anything blaming an external factor, suppress the frustration and think about what you should've done. Let me tell you, suppressing that frustration IS HARD. but you just need to fake it until you make it. See how I wrote a gigantic paragraph just to tell you something that took 1-2 sentences? If I told you this in isolation, you might not understand what it does, the reasoning for it, the flaws with what you currently may or may not do, etc. Understanding it will give you motivation to implement it + help you adjust anything that you might find yourself struggling with on the fly, because a guide like this will NOT be able to give you a straight answer for every mini-struggle you have. Tangent aside, next section.

Step 2) Minimize your Ego

Before you skip over this step because you know you aren't an arrogant asshole, I know you're probably not an arrogant asshole, but that's not what I mean by ego. This step is connected to the last step in that it teaches you to stop caring about what's not in your control.

Ranked ego has many forms. You might think you are better than your rank. If you don't, you still might somewhere deep in the back of your head, and you're scared of acknowledging it. Maybe you express this ego, but you don't interpret it as ego. For example, you think you're better than your rank when you play in those unlucky comp games, or you find yourself becoming frustrated with your no-comm or "bad" teammates, smurfs, AFKs. All of this shit sucks, and it can become intolerable. We begin to attribute our rank to this, and we think "if only the conditions were better, I could rank up."

Just like what I went over in the last section, this ego will stifle your improvement, and you need to delete any "I'm better than my rank" or "No-comm teammates hold me back" thoughts, whether they are true or not, and focus on what you CAN control. you have to remember there is a reason that you are your rank, and that reason can be improved; you can learn a lot from the suboptimality of ranked, like how to lead your no-comming teammates, etc. Malding at your teammates will only deflect the blame off of yourself and make you think less critically on what to improve, making you improve slower.

Also remember the 60/20/20 rule; 20% of your games you win by default (maybe you have a smurf, someone having a good day, etc.), 20% you lose by default (AFK, teammates having a bad day, toxic people, etc.), and 60% you control. The numbers themselves might not be accurate but the point still stands, you CAN get out of your rank, do not lose hope, but do not ascend yourself past your rank either.

When you play ranked, remember that you're in your rank for a reason, you have things to work on, and some things are out of your control; your RR might decrease even when you're getting better, you can't take ranked games game by game, you have to play for long-term improvement. Focus on what you can control, and don't let teammates frustrate you.

Step 3) Experimental Sessions [stop habit abuse]

This is the second step to maximizing the amount of information you learn from your gameplay. Learning what you could've done better each round is important, but it only gives you feedback for what you're already doing. Essentially, it refines your skills. However, it will not necessarily break your subpar/bad habits, and it will not teach you about things you might not think about doing in a ranked game that might actually be the better play; when you play ranked, it is a more high-stakes environment. You will always try to do the play you think will be the best. However, what you think might be the best play might not actually be the best play, OR the best play might not be something you are capable of even thinking about. This might sound a little confusing, just bear with me.

To solve this problem, instead of just grinding ranked all the time, start your day with 1 or 2 unrated games where you do NOT care about winning, but just about experimenting. Maybe you'll play an agent you want to learn. In that case, you would just limit-test the absolute shit out of the agent; because it's unrated and winning doesn't matter. Maybe you're struggling with rotation on defense, so you try rotating faster than you normally would in a specific situation. Maybe you'll see a situation that you commonly encounter, and you'll choose to react to it in a way you haven't before. In a ranked game, you might be scared of trying it out because you don't know/think it's a good play, but realize this: what you think might be a bad play might not be a bad play when you actually carry it out, and doing it in an actual game might even help you understand why it may/may not be a bad play, thereby improving your game sense.

Your game sense is like a bubble; the size of your bubble depends on how many factors you take into consideration when reacting to something. For example: Fred is playing Omen on Defense on Ascent, and you are starting the round in bottom mid (where the big arch is). Fred hears steps in tiles. If Fred was Bronze in this situation, his thought process would be: hear steps in tiles -> throw smoke to block tiles. However, if Fred was an Immortal with a bigger bubble, maybe his thought process would be: hear steps in tiles -> how many? -> how many teammates do I have in the mid area with me? -> his final decision. As you keep playing, experimenting, and learning, your thought process of each little decision you make will lengthen, and the thought process will begin to be second nature, where you barely even think about it.

As your thought process lengthens and expands, you'll find that the amount of possibilities/plays you can do will also expand; the experimenting will help with that too, as you can try each play, scrutinize why it did or didn't work, expand your thought process more, etc. It's a feedback loop! Let me use Fred again, in that same situation on Defense on Ascent as Omen in Mid; the only play in Bronze Fred's head is throwing a smoke that is flush with tiles to block it off; but Immortal Fred is thinking about how many people are there and if he has teammates with him; let's say there are 4 enemies in tiles and Immortal Fred has a teammate by Cat with him; maybe his play will be to throw a smoke in front of the mid archway, lurk into it, and peek around it to isolate a 1v1 where he has the advantage, then fall back. This is why a lot of people are hardstuck; their thought process and possible reactions to situations doesn't expand, so they keep playing the same way, sticking to their habits. This method will help you expand your thought process when thinking of how to react, which will thereby increase your amount of reactions to a situation, and it will also teach you why each reaction is good or bad, improving you at the game more and more.

I would like to say that I got this experimental gameplay idea from Prosper, a very high quality gaming improvement YouTuber, who got it from Envy Jayne, an Overwatch Coach. They're both cool.

Step 4) Externalize your struggles (write/type goals)

As you keep playing, you might notice that some problems you have are especially hard to deal with. Maybe it's something within the game, like you don't know when you should use your Sage wall for maximum impact, or maybe it's something outside the game, like after you lose one ranked game, you don't feel like playing anymore. I won't be able to help you with every situation that pops up, but YOU can!

The first step is to externalize the problem; sometimes, a problem will keep nagging you, but you don't really do anything about it; maybe you're not sure how to deal with it, so you just brush it off, maybe something else. Whatever the reason, it's important you externalize it, because it will help you understand it better, and you will begin to think about how to deal with it. To do this, open up a note document (I recommend Evernote, but just use whatever you want/actually will do) or a notebook and write down any problem/struggle you're having.

Now, think of a goal you have that will lead your motivation to work on it and write it down. Make sure it is a goal that is specific, measurable, and the right amount of challenging. Maybe if your struggle is that your aim is bad, your goal would be to place top 3 in 2 deathmatches in a week.

Now, the biggest part; write down things you want to do to fulfill your goal, the behaviors. Using the deathmatch example, maybe your behaviors would be t play 15 minutes of Deathmatch before you play your games. Make sure these are achievable, and things you would actually do/want to do.

Finally, the last part of this is to write down the day you're writing the goal. This is because 1 week after you write each goal, you are going to rate how you kept up your behaviors out of 10. If you did each behavior to satisfaction, you'd give it a 10/10, and if you did worse than you wanted, maybe you'd give yourself a 3/10, then you would question why it didn't work out and how to better your behaviors so they work better for you; the key is to not just say "I'm lazy" and put the blame on willpower; willpower has a pretty low impact on why you do or don't do things.

Using this strategy will help you get the things you need to improve on improved, and it will help you think of better ways to deal with your obstacles.

Credit to eAthlete labs for this idea, they are another very high quality gaming improvement channel on YouTube, very underrated.

Conclusion

The number one thing to remember is that it's not you that's keeping you hardstuck, it's your practice. Even if you already know that, you can fall into the notion that your practice should be working, but it isn't, and in that case, you have to really scrutinize your practice methods and realize that there's a problem. Hopefully this guide helped, and if you have any feedback or tried anything I mentioned, let me know.