I think a lot of the, eh...lack of faith in this thread is not because people don't think you can do it, but because they think you won't.
This is gonna be kind of a long post. I rant a little. Ok, a lot.
This isn't the first time I've seen something like this over all of the various communities that I've been a part of. A newcomer appears and they make big claims - they'll be #1 in a year, they'll win the next big tournament, etc. They've got it all planned out - the schedule, the logistics, the equipment, everything. Maybe they've even got promise, talent even. They stir up a lot of hype and attention - both positive and negative, as you've seen here.
Six months later, they're gone. No one even remembers. Every time.
If you don't want to read the rest of this post and just want me to get to the point, skip the entire next section separated by bold dashed lines.
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Let me tell you a story, to help explain.
I'm currently a graduate student at a fairly difficult engineering college, and I was an active member of a fraternity during my undergraduate career. There's a lot that goes on during the recruitment and pledge processes to decide who initiates into a full member and who doesn't, but we have one hard requirement - a minimum of a 2.7 GPA during the pledge semester. Without that, even if they're the greatest guy on the planet, we can't let them initiate.
The ones that don't make that 2.7 GPA are typically given another chance as a pledge, but they're required to show us how they plan to boost their grades first. They usually make elaborate schedules and plans - study hours, tutoring hours, weekly meetings with their professors, the works. It all sounds great on paper.
Over the four years as an active undergraduate member, I saw maybe 20 of these "holdover pledges" - people that wanted to stay, but didn't make the 2.7 GPA cutoff the first time. All of them made a plan like the one I mentioned above. All of them were really excited about it, pumped up. And so were we, because these were good people we wanted to initiate.
Of those 20, exactly 1 ever made it to full initiation. One. The rest were, as they say, "tears in rain".
Why?
Have you ever made New Year's resolutions?
Lots of people make them. The stereotypical one is to "lose weight", but there are others - find a job, get good grades, quit smoking. They might even plan it out. An exercise and diet plan, with monthly goals to "lose X pounds". Or maybe they have their resume to go, and they're going to try and "land X interviews" per month.
But they lose interest. They lose the drive as the moment fades. They start "forgetting" to go to the gym. They put off writing the job application until tomorrow. They decide they can miss just one homework assignment, because there's a lot more and one's not so important. They figure one cigarette every once in a while can't be so bad, because hey, they've been clean for 2 weeks already. And within a couple months, I'd say most people have quit altogether.
And then you can probably guess what they do next year, at New Year's.
So why?
In the end, it's really simple. Words are cheap. Inspiration fades. Following the plan is hard, and deviating is easy. And no one but you is there to keep you on track. No one cares but you. As soon as you stop caring, the whole thing is as good as dead.
And it's hard to keep a habit. Because in the end, that's what you're really trying to do - form a habit. It's not as simple as checking a box, or unlocking an achievement in a game. Your goals are long-term, and even once you've hit them, you can't just go back to what you were before. You need to maintain that, and that means you need to keep working for as long as your goal matters to you, even after you've reached it.
But quitting is that simple. As soon as you've skipped the first homework assignment or smoked the first cigarette, it's all over. You'll fall all the way back down to the bottom, a lot faster than you came up. Gravity's a tough mistress.
Granted, osu!'s not the same thing as dieting or kicking an addiction. But the idea that it's "long-term" is the same. You've got the motivation now. You've got drive, passion, a vision. You can see the peak of the mountain. But what about next week? Next month? Next year? What happens when you graduate and suddenly you have to start worrying about the future? Or maybe something happens in another hobby of yours (assuming you have more than osu! in life) and you suddenly want to devote more time to it?
Even if we keep it strictly in context of osu!, what about walls? What happens when you play for 3 months and you don't get better? What happens when you find you can't reproduce plays you did last year? I could totally play that one song with HR last week - and now I can't! What? I practiced all that time and I somehow got worse? It's easy to think of time in 6-month or 1-year chunks now, and figure you'll get better on average, but it's way different to experience that frustration in the middle, and start wondering if you're hitting a ceiling, or just doing something plain wrong.
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I'm really rambling now, so I'm going to wrap this up by going back to what I said earlier. Words are cheap. Really cheap. Cookiezi never claimed he was going to be #1 in a year when he was still unknown, to my knowledge. Neither did rrtyui. Neither did anyone I can think of, either in this community or that of any other hobby. They did their work silently. They didn't say what they were going to do, and how there were going to do it. They didn't follow someone else's 12-step program to do it. They just did.
And look, I don't know who you are - I get that. I know nothing about you, or your life, or your character. Maybe you really do the stuff you say you'll do, even if it's 5 years out. Maybe your determination will carry you through to the end. Remember, even if only one out of those 20 people got to initiation, there was still one. Maybe you're that guy. I don't know. I'm just speaking from experience here. Statistics. And I don't want you to waste your time doing things that won't help. I don't want you to bitterly quit 6 months from now just because you weren't where you said you'd be. I know the joke around here is that osu! is an addiction and we all secretly wish we could quit, but I would rather you still be playing next year, and having just as much fun as you are now, no matter how good or bad you are.
So that's my advice to you. Can you beat Cookiezi? Of course you can. Cookiezi is just clicking circles. Everyone here is. There's no thermodynamic law of the universe preventing you from clicking circles. Don't sit at the drawing board all day theorizing. Don't tell us you can do it. Just go do it. Your rank will speak for itself.