Playing better pool is between my ears?

I practice stop shots, draw shots, power draw shots, follow, running follow, kill shots, banks, pinch banks, play the ghost, and as important as all these are-playing my best pool is in my head. I've been reading some material on the importance of a pre-shot routine and it's really helped my game tremendously. I started with one and it's now evolved into my greatest asset. About a month ago I went and played in a tournament in Ft. Collins with THE BEST players Colorado has to offer. I played well and finished just out of the money, being beaten by the players that finished 2nd & tied for 12th in a 64 man field. This was the first use of my pre-shot routine. What I mean by pre-shot routine is doing the exact same thing every time and clearing my head before I get down to shoot. If I'm thinking about what I want to do, I can't do it and neither can you...confused??? So I started with lining up my shot by pointing my stick at exactly where I wanted to hit the cue ball, back to my cueball and did this as many times as needed. Now I was ready to get down on my shot and I thought that I stroked it best with exactly 4 warm up strokes so I would count these 4 and then fire. This could at times be a lengthy process and thought I needed to tweak it. So after some research I found a column by a doctor/poolplayer he stated in a nutshell that we need to have all the info "input" in our brain and then stop thinking about it and produce the results. So the problem with my pre-shot routine was when I was down to shoot the cueball I was counting my practice strokes. The doctor said that once you get down on the shot that ABSOLUTELY NO THOUGHTS should be in your head. So now I line up my shot, stand one step from where I want to approach the cueball, decide what english, what stroke, and the result I plan to attain from this shot. After I'm satisfied with all these things I'm now ready to get down on the shot. Once down on the shot, I do practice strokes til I'm comfortable, not counting them. When I'm playing well nothing gets in my head at all, however sometimes this damn voice says you're gonna miss the shot, position, or whatever it may be. I'm learning to be disciplined and stand up and start all over again. It's easy to start over on a difficult cut or position leave but when it's a "gimme" then you think this is an easy shot and I can make it, but that's when you can miss a stupid shot. Another aspect this helps me in is that it keeps me in the moment. I can't count how many times I've gone through a rack making hard shots and perfect leaves and then missing an easy shot or easy leave with 2 balls to go because I was "about to break & run" this table. My pre-shot routine only allows me to think about THIS shot and what english, stroke, and leave I want to perform. A pre-shot routine has been the biggest addition to my game of all the things I have ever done.