We monitored and evaluated our game, or at least certain parts of it. We analyzed the spot, trying to understand it better by consulting the solver or your database, or in the case of it being mental; yourself and your thought processes. All of this to eventually discuss your findings with other players to get a different view on the situation. Now its time to process that information.
Anytime you get new information that can improve your poker game, it enters the realm of conscious incompetence, meaning that you are aware of a play being better than the other, but you do not possess the knowledge and experience at a high enough level to always make it, especially in your B and C game. Everyone has experienced this, you are in a spot, and there is this voice or feeling that points you out on a certain play being better than what you wanted to do, but you cannot access the knowledge completely. This will create a lot of noise in game, and it is because you have not processed the information leaving you frustrated, in doubt and possibly chocking the spot.
Another big problem occurs when you do not understand the phases of learning, is that you will start to expect a certain level of play to come out based on what you saw and heard, instead of what you actually processed and/or mastered. If those expectations are not realistic you will get frustrated and have more swings in the way that you are playing, the gap between your A and C game has grown.
What to do about it? After you have received new poker information you have to sit down and process it. What can I implement now, how am I going to use this information in my default strategy and what do I leave for later? Winning in poker is less about playing every spot perfect, and more about avoiding big errors, so have a default play in spots that cannot be bad and look to slowly upgrade your defaults plays is the way to go. Then if in game you do find yourself in a nice flow and you see the better play, then by all means make it and you will start to notice this happening more often and eventually becoming your new default. You have learned the spot to the level of unconscious competence meaning that you do not have to think about it anymore as it has now become natural to you.
So, do you skip this step in the feedback loop? And do these problems sound familiar? Sit down and process new information handed to you and understand that something new cannot be expected to come out every day straight away.