The psychological aspect of speedrunning

Speedrunners like to discuss how to improve, usually mentioning the importance of practice, methods of practice etc. However, I feel like runners rarely talk about the emotions and feelings you have during a run, and how they affect your performance/enjoyment. So in this pastebin I'll try to explain what mindset I think is ideal and how to reach it.

Apathy/calmness is the key. Being strongly emotional while doing a run is really counter-productive to how well you play. That's why it's best to try to prevent yourself from becoming emotional in any way, shape or form while doing a run. Obviously this is easier said than done, but it is possible to control it to a certain extent.

First, you gotta understand how emotions work. I'm no psychologist and I definitely don't have any research or anything to back this up, I'm purely speaking from experience. Also, this may sound vague, so bear with me here. Imagine a scale that goes from 0 to 100. At 0, you're totally calm and apathetic, and at 100, you're REALLY worked up, e.g. really angry/sad/overly happy/screaming/crying/laughing really hard. You probably think that strong emotions like anger and laughter are polar opposites, and that there should be seperate 0 to 100 scales for all of these seperate emotions, but in my experience that's not the case. They all share the same 0 to 100 scale. So when I talk about being "emotionally worked up", it doesn't matter which emotion you're feeling: only its intensity matters. When you're feeling intensely emotional, it's easy to slip from one strong emotion into another.

Don't get me wrong, being emotional can be good in day to day life. It can make social interactions feel more meaningful, it can make casual games and anime and stuff feel more immersive etc, but when speedrunning (or doing anything competitively), being emotional is really distracting. Most emotions during a speedrun are things like anger from messing up a trick, or being nervous from being ahead of your PB. Personally, when I feel those emotions, I play far worse and I get tricks far less consistently.

So; how do you control your emotions? For starters, on the 0 to 100 scale, it's easy to climb towards 100, but it's nearly impossible to force it back down to 0. "Calming yourself down" is really hard. Therefore, preventing yourself from becoming emotional is the best way to control your emotions. The best way to do that is to recognize what kinda things make you more emotional. In my experience, it's mostly dependent on what I say. When you say something like "argh this is so fucking annoying", it functions like a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you mention an emotion out loud, your mind (subconsciously) starts to imagine what it feels like, and you're more likely to actually feel it. It's how the human mind works.

Likewise, swearing actually makes you angrier. I know that sounds like it shouldn't work that way, but in my experience it totally works that way. When swearing during a run, try to notice what kinda effect it has on the 0 to 100 emotion scale.

The solution? Talk less. When you're starting to feel emotional, a lot of things you say will just fuel the fire. Try to notice which things you say affect your 0 to 100 scale. When you're aware of those things, you can avoid saying things that make you emotional so you can remain as calm as possible during your run. For example, screaming "god DAMN it" makes you angry and silently saying "dang" does not.

Also, I've noticed that loud game audio makes me more emotionally invested in the game. Having relatively quiet game audio prevents that.

There's more reasons to not get emotionally invested in your runs, especially with individual attempts. You gotta realize speedruns are inherently disposable and they can die in the blink of an eye, so thinking "I like this run" inadvertently sets yourself up for greater disappointment when you fail something later on. I know that rating how good/bad a run is is fun, but try not to do it while still doing the run. It's best to only do that after you've finished to prevent the emotional investment some more.

That's my take on it. You may disagree, but this is what I've gathered from personal experience. I know this pastebin may seem really redundant for some people, but thinking helped me improve and hopefully it can help someone else.