Performing Without The Fear of Losing

Welcome to the Tennis Psychology Podcast with your host, Dr. Patrick Cohn. Dr. Cohn is a mental game of tennis expert. Do you want to improve your mental toughness for tennis? Then join us on the Tennis Psychology Podcast sessions with Doc.

Welcome to session number 66 of the Tennis Psychology Podcast. Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn and in today's session I help a tennis player that is is petrified prior to matches because he has the fear of losing.

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Well, for me, the fear of losing comes from several different areas or components. So you have to narrow down what the ultimate fear is because it's not so much about losing the match. Right. There's always a winner and a loser. Correct. So I think it's more about underlying fear of failure. What does that mean? If you're afraid to lose, then ultimately you're afraid of the consequences that come from losing. Like some kids feel like their parents are going to be disappointed or a coach is going to be disappointed. So there's the fear of really upsetting the cart there in terms of the parents. Maybe it's the fear of embarrassment that you don't want to look silly in front of others, for example. So you have to look at what the core issue is in terms of what's driving your fear. And you have to ask yourself the question, ok, if I lose, then what's so awful about that? In other words, who am I going to disappoint or who am I going to upset? Maybe you're just going to be upset with yourself because you work hard on your game and you train and you practice a lot and you don't want to lose and you just love to win. So it could be around that area too. But the bottom line is, number one, you're focused on the wrong thing. If you're going in there thinking about losing the match, obviously that will create a defensive style of play or a tentative style of play, afraid to make mistakes, afraid to hit the ball out, you know, afraid to double fault, etc. So you certainly don't want to be in that attitude. Instead, I think stop thinking so far ahead to the outcome. And this is very common in my work. Too many athletes, too many tennis players, they focus too much on the outcome. What you have to do is think about your strategy, your abilities, your game plan for the match and try to go out there and focus on playing one point at a time, working your strategy. Allow the results to take care of themselves at the end of the day, at the end of the match, what you really want to be able to tell yourself is, I played up to my ability. And that's the focus I have with my students, is trying to help them play up to their physical ability, what they're capable of in a practice setting. So whether you win or lose, that's kind of a different story. Because if you can say, I played up to my ability, I got the most out of my ability. I was focused, I felt confident, I trusted my ability. I didn't play tight. I played nice and free and loose. I had fun out there. Those are some of the things that you want to assess how you played rather than focusing so much on winning or losing. So I saw my daughter playing an advanced player over the weekend who was much better than my daughter. My daughter lost 6060. It was a lot closer than that, however. But she played very well. She played confidently, didn't give up, didn't get frustrated, continued to play hard. Okay, thanks for the question and good luck with your game.

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