Shifting Gears Means Shifting Mentalities

It's very difficult to go from one way of thinking to another. To "change gears" and think in a completely different way. If you are preventing exploitation, you only really need to be making sure YOU aren't giving away any tells, or give off a fake tell often enough to make up for it. So the focus is inward.

But if you are exploiting you need to be thinking outwards. What is opponent doing? What information are they giving out? do I have any tells? What are my opponent's hand ranges? What percentage of hands do they play in each position? What percentage of hands do they raise with? What percentage of hands do they call a 3bet with? What percentage do they continuation bet and so on. ANd in turn, what's the best response to that? How aware is my opponent of me? How vulnerable should I risk being to counter exploitation?

Shifting gears is one of the most difficult things to do because it is enherently going to require not only a change in mindset but a change in emotion, without letting either emotion paralyze you,. If you think too tight, you may end up looking for reasons to fold. If you are too loose you are looking for reasons to call or raise. That natural outlook is okay as long as it is controlled and for the right reasons.

You also have to be aware enough of either strategy and how to impliment it and have a rough idea for what cards to play in those situations.

Not easy. I don't have a perfect memory nor do I have enough time to look over a ton of charts even if I was playing at home where no one could see what I am looking at. Somost of the work must be done in preview and review. Study up before tournaments nd afterwards. The more comfortable you get with a style, the more you can look back and investigate and see how close you are from "correc". Are you having a tendency of being too tight or too loose? You can make counter adjustments pretty quickly without having to play millions of tournaments. That is the goal of all the preparation. Also to make the game logical and mathematical and structured rather than emotional and chaotic... without abandoning intuition.