Remember when you first started playing Smash with your friend?  You just received the game for your birthday and you couldn't wait to show it off to them.

"Dude!  I did not know I could pop up Snorlax from a pokeball!  Hilarious! Oh-- watch out for the tornado!"

There were almost no preconceived notions of how to play.  You didn't sandbag out of some misguided sense of sportsmanship or boredom.  You didn't stick to a particular character out of pride or "loyalty".  You may have identified with one character but you didn't feel tethered down with "have-tos".  All that existed was enjoying the game and playing, and everything was built on top of that.

The Psychological Shuffle

Our Smash Habits begin to form from when first pick up the game, even if it was just for fun.  Unfortunately, not all of our starts were truly high-level competition, so we have picked up some things that were not useful along the way. Rolling may have cut the chase when we were playing with our neighbors, but now it may be a horrible habit for us, and our goal is to drop it.

Yet, even though we know it's "wrong" we still do it.  As children, when we were told that something was wrong, we sometimes still did it anyways.  Somewhere in our brains, we were hardwired to believe that eating crayons was a damn good idea because the pay-off (whatever that pay-off was) was worth being scolded for.  You can't just say no to the gooey taste of Burnt Sienna Brown.

The solution is not beating yourself up over making a mistake; the solution is to look for a solution.  By gently suggesting to yourself that there may be a better alternative, you take off on the right path.  Self-realization is the key to moving on, and that's where you'll need your strength. 

Smash is Project Management for Nerds 

It's not about over-thinking a problem, or dropping it all together, but rather examining what put you in that position to execute a bad habit in the first place.  Why do you like to roll to the left?  Did you notice that he likes to run past you?  Why not try hitting him out-of-shield instead?  That seems nicer, right?  Yum... damage.

The process that "drops" habits is actually the process of adding more habits so that you'll have more to choose from.  Making better choices comes from having better ideas of what your options are.  Better ideas come from avoiding the things that cloud your judgment in the first place.  And well, once it all falls into place?  Maybe, just maybe, you'll be a better player.