Human's nature is one of the reasons for why poker players keep losing... and winning. I had a serious discussion about this with some of my poker playing friends (both in university, playing winning poker on mid-stakes). Since they're in school right now, it didn't take long before we came up with what we considered a great parabel that should explain at least a portion of why people will continue losing and winning.
When it comes to doing homework, there are two kinds of people. Some want other people to do their homework or help them with their homework, while others want to figure it all out by theirselves. In poker, even though we can see pros playing in both live and online cash games and that could be something to learn from, and we have our poker strategy and training websites (like this one), these two kinds of people still exist.
While there's nothing wrong with Jack (let's call him Jack) not wanting to copy someone's homework, or his willingness to figure those problems out himself, most will fail when they take this approach in poker. Human's nature, pride, will step into play and be one of its main characters. Jack's willingness to show others how he'll be able to survive by himself and doesn't need them becomes the ultimate goal. This leads to not fully concentrating on the actual object - playing profitable, winning poker.
There's nothing wrong with willingness to make it by yourself, but in poker you should just be worried about winning. Find a way to win, to beat your opponents. Any kind of "showing off" mentality can be lethal for your poker career already in early stages. We all have our own characteristics, but if you read this and now that you think of it, you do make some decisions based on how it looks like (without it being profitable in your head), please just stop it. It's killing your game. You'll lose money because of it.
You'll have to do a lot of work by yourself, don't get me wrong. But, it's a great way to learn by discussing poker with other players and reading about poker, even though there aren't many reliable poker resources available. Communication with other aspiring poker players is probably the best way to get better and worked greatly for me. Poker shouldn't be any "make it by yourself" competition, it's simply about learning how to beat the games and make as much money as possible while doing it.
If someone can't see the difference between these two goals, let me put it this way: if an NBA player wants to show off his skills to the crowd, not really concentrating on making points, he won't be able to do his best. He rather concentrates on dribbling his opponents than making points and that's where he goes wrong, and his focus isn't on the right thing. Even the best player in the world will lose the ball at some point, and imagine if this player wasn't the best in the world, he was just starting up - how many times is Jack going to lose the ball? A lot, probably, and that's even if he went straight for the points.
What about if Jack belonged to the other category, people who have no problems with copying someone's homework or getting significant help from other students? First of all, you should just find ways to win when you play poker. It really doesn't matter how you win (as long as you're not cheating). Still, if you copy someone's homework on regular basis, you'll never be able to get as good (or better) grades as the student you copied from does. Without putting in more effort to poker than what's absolutely necessary won't make you a great player. And basically, that means only playing poker.
Having a mentor, someone you can look up to and ask if you're not sure about something - that should be a huge help though. The point is to learn things by yourself, but getting assistance is never a bad thing. It's by learning yourself when you can really understand things and then it "clicks".
Our qualities either make us or break us in poker. I do believe natural qualities are a huge, huge factor and discipline being the most important one of them. And because of our qualities, we'll keep winning and losing. 2nd part: Why Losers Keep Playing.
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