Are You Able To Play Your Best And Have Fun On The Court?

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What's the mindset that you need to go out and really play your best and have more fun? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn for the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Today I'm responding to an email from Dieter from Germany who has been listening in on some of the podcasts and also reading my blog post@sportspsychologytennis.com here's what Dieter had to say. I'm age 51 now and still interested in learning all about tennis and playing with fun. But I have much more fun when I win. So I'm happy to hear from you recognizing what you have to say and give. So I wanted to run this by you what I've learned from you. He went on to say, you must not be interested in winning or losing. You only have to give your best and when you do, you win more matches and if you lose, you can be proud you have given your best. Why would you want more? Go out and play again.

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Well, yeah, I do think that holds true, Dieter. Certainly for tennis. I think you can be competitive and want to win. So, you know, I think it's okay to say, you know, I have fun when I win and I like to win and I like to be competitive. And I think a lot of players, they get motivation, they get intensity from going out there and trying to beat their opponents and trying to win. However, it often becomes an ineffective mindset for many players because they become too obsessed with with the outcome, they become too obsessed with winning and then they worry about the aftermath if they lose. In other words, how will they feel after they lose or how will that affect them in the club or how will that affect their ranking or whatever situation they're in. So they tend to think way ahead. And that does create a lot of anxiety and a lot of worry for players. If you're doing that and thinking too far ahead, then you're absolutely going to have less fun out there because you're so obsessed with the outcome and getting to that outcome, it's hard for you to absolutely play in the moment. So I think the formula is have high goals, want to win, and want to go out there and be competitive. But in order to do that, you have to do two things. Well, it's more than two things, but I'm going to simplify it for you and I'm going to say you do have to go out and give your best and you do have to go out and focus on the process or focus on executing one shot at a time and one point at a time. My philosophy is focusing on the process of one point at a time is going to bring the desired results because all your attention is in the moment and what you have to do to win points. So maybe look at each and every point as a game within itself that definitely has an outcome, but you're going to only focus on executing that point and giving your best. Then the result will take care of itself. You know, hopefully if you're a stronger player that day, all you can really do and I tell my personal coaching students this My role for my personal coaching students is to be able to play the game they're capable of in a good to excellent practice match in a tournament situation. In other words, I don't expect you to go out and play perfectly and play your best every time. But my objective is can you play as freely and confidently and loosely in a tournament or a match situation as you do in practice? And that, like I said, that often becomes my main objective for my personal coaching students. You can't expect to play perfectly every time and you can't expect to win every time. Sometimes you just go against a stronger opponent and you have to accept that. Thanks for your question and good luck with your game.

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