Introduction
Everyone has had the experience of playing extremely well some days and extremely bad on other days. It's very easy (and common) to blame those shifts on yourself. Many people take those shifts in performance personally which ends up causing them a lot of frustration. Here, I will introduce the concept of the inchworm as a model to help you understand those fluctuations a bit better. I will then end off with ways that I have used this concept personally to help pull me out of slumps.
Inchworm
The inchworm concept was first introduced by mental game coach Jared Tendler so if you want a more detailed (and better) explanation, I would recommend just reading this. I will only give a short summary (in my own style) for those too lazy to read something long.
Unlike in video games where your level is static, in real life your level is more on a spectrum. When you're doing well, you play at the top end of this spectrum and conversely when you're doing bad, you play at the bottom end of this spectrum. If you were to plot this out on a chart, it would end up looking something like a bell curve.
When you improve in your skills, this range just moves forward. When you improve your strengths, only the front of the curve will move forward. This only ends up flattening out the bell curve so your performance becomes extremely good when doing well but still equally as poor as before when doing bad. Therefore, by improving on your weaknesses you can reduce the range of performance you play in. By improving at your weaknesses, you also make it easier to move your entire range forward too (just like how an inchworm has to get its back towards it's front to move forward).
How I use this for slumps
The first way I use this knowledge is to stop blaming myself for poor performances. Most people when they start performing poorly only add fuel to the fire by getting frustrated and taking it personally which only leads to even worse performance. By accepting that my performance lies within a spectrum, I stop this cycle and can then move forward when I inevitably do start playing poorly. Here I will point out, I am not saying that these periods are not frustrating nor that I don't get frustrated as that's unrealistic. The goal is simply to acknowledge the reality rather than try fight against it.
When people start playing poorly, what many tend to do is continue trying to play what they normally were able to play (or even worse, things they could play when they were playing at the top end of their range). Doing this only makes things worse as you will start getting frustrated by the extra (and at times seemingly random) misses. What you should do instead is drop the difficulty down (and down a lot if you have to). After doing this, I personally just like to think of it as extra basics training. Just like how many athletes spend lots of times working on basic movement patterns, I do the same but just to a longer degree when I'm doing poorly.
Using this methodology, I've had plenty of experiences where I eventually end up performing at the upper end of my range even though I was playing extremely poorly! By playing those easier maps and just building confidence actually hitting notes like you normally do, you can slowly ramp the difficulty back up. Just to be clear though, doing this is not for the sole purpose to start performing well. If you drop the difficulty with the intention of getting back to performing well, you will be disappointed. The goal is simply to just play as playing something is generally better than doing nothing at all. The outcome of playing well is only a happy accident of doing this.
The final thing I do with this knowledge is simply to stop playing altogether or reduce the time I would normally play. As I mentioned earlier, these periods are going to be frustrating, there's no way around that. Some days you just won't be in the right mindset to push through these periods and that's okay! Today might not be good but tomorrow may be.
Hope this guide helps
Everyone has had the experience of playing extremely well some days and extremely bad on other days. It's very easy (and common) to blame those shifts on yourself. Many people take those shifts in performance personally which ends up causing them a lot of frustration. Here, I will introduce the concept of the inchworm as a model to help you understand those fluctuations a bit better. I will then end off with ways that I have used this concept personally to help pull me out of slumps.
Inchworm
The inchworm concept was first introduced by mental game coach Jared Tendler so if you want a more detailed (and better) explanation, I would recommend just reading this. I will only give a short summary (in my own style) for those too lazy to read something long.
Unlike in video games where your level is static, in real life your level is more on a spectrum. When you're doing well, you play at the top end of this spectrum and conversely when you're doing bad, you play at the bottom end of this spectrum. If you were to plot this out on a chart, it would end up looking something like a bell curve.
When you improve in your skills, this range just moves forward. When you improve your strengths, only the front of the curve will move forward. This only ends up flattening out the bell curve so your performance becomes extremely good when doing well but still equally as poor as before when doing bad. Therefore, by improving on your weaknesses you can reduce the range of performance you play in. By improving at your weaknesses, you also make it easier to move your entire range forward too (just like how an inchworm has to get its back towards it's front to move forward).
How I use this for slumps
The first way I use this knowledge is to stop blaming myself for poor performances. Most people when they start performing poorly only add fuel to the fire by getting frustrated and taking it personally which only leads to even worse performance. By accepting that my performance lies within a spectrum, I stop this cycle and can then move forward when I inevitably do start playing poorly. Here I will point out, I am not saying that these periods are not frustrating nor that I don't get frustrated as that's unrealistic. The goal is simply to acknowledge the reality rather than try fight against it.
When people start playing poorly, what many tend to do is continue trying to play what they normally were able to play (or even worse, things they could play when they were playing at the top end of their range). Doing this only makes things worse as you will start getting frustrated by the extra (and at times seemingly random) misses. What you should do instead is drop the difficulty down (and down a lot if you have to). After doing this, I personally just like to think of it as extra basics training. Just like how many athletes spend lots of times working on basic movement patterns, I do the same but just to a longer degree when I'm doing poorly.
Using this methodology, I've had plenty of experiences where I eventually end up performing at the upper end of my range even though I was playing extremely poorly! By playing those easier maps and just building confidence actually hitting notes like you normally do, you can slowly ramp the difficulty back up. Just to be clear though, doing this is not for the sole purpose to start performing well. If you drop the difficulty with the intention of getting back to performing well, you will be disappointed. The goal is simply to just play as playing something is generally better than doing nothing at all. The outcome of playing well is only a happy accident of doing this.
The final thing I do with this knowledge is simply to stop playing altogether or reduce the time I would normally play. As I mentioned earlier, these periods are going to be frustrating, there's no way around that. Some days you just won't be in the right mindset to push through these periods and that's okay! Today might not be good but tomorrow may be.
Hope this guide helps