Shunryu Suzuki was a Zen master from Japan who did a lot of work to bring Buddhism to North America. A number of his talks were put into a book named “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”, which centers around maintaining the idea of shoshin (beginner’s mind). Here is an important quote for those who study and work towards improving at poker:

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. It is not like going out in a shower in which you know when you get wet. In a fog, you do not know you are getting wet, but as you keep walking you get wet little by little. If your mind has ideas of progress, you may say, “Oh, this pace is terrible!” But actually it is not. When you get wet in a fog it is very difficult to dry yourself. So there is no need to worry about progress.