I have only won 1 tournament in the 20 or so that I have fished. I still like going out there and competing even when I get my teeth kicked in. I am a disabled Vet, so a lot of physical competition stuff I cannot do anymore, so the tournaments for me is great to feed my competitive side.
As far as how you are doing. If you take it too serious, I believe you could get tunnel vision very quickly (I had this happen to me). I did horrible for the first 7 or 8 tournament before I won. The tournament that I won, I used my strengths (Jerkbait, chatterbait, wacky worm) and dominated. Everyone else was using drop shots, spinnerbaits, and other baits who caught them decent. I also had the mindset that I just wanted to be competitive and did not care so much about the actual win.
I also never pre-fished or practiced. I studied mapping online, and google earth and just looked for spots that looked good, and went to fish them. After that, it was the simple stuff, docks, known rock points etc.