Replace Self-Doubt with Confidence in Tennis

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Do you have a lot of self doubt when you play specific players? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn and in today's session I answer a question from Charlie thinking that he suffers from self doubt and thinks he shouldn't lose two specific players.

Dr. Cohn, Charlie has a question for you. He asks, my tennis suffers because of self doubt. I think I should not lose to this guy and I must win every point to win the match. Is this the correct way to think when I play?

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Hi Charlie, if you have a lot of self doubt that indicates your confidence does suffer because those two can't coexist. Confidence and self doubt are the polar opposites. If you have a lot of question marks about your ability to beat a certain opponent or or to execute your shots, then certainly your confidence is going to suffer. I teach my students that they need to learn how to control their own thinking in terms of the self doubt and be able to turn that self doubt into statements of confidence. But you asked specifically, do you think you should go out there and think about I must win every point to win the match? That is not a good way of thinking. That is not a correct way of thinking when you go out there. Why? Well, number one, it's because of the terminology, I must win every point. We call that absolute thinking. In other words, you don't leave yourself any wiggle room. You price in perfection when you tell yourself I must win every point to win the match. You don't need to win every point to win the match. You need to win maybe two out of three points to win the match. Correct. And it's just illogical, it's just irrational to think that you have to win every single point. That's going to put way too much pressure, way too much expectation on yourself. Especially when you lose a point here and there, you lose a couple of points and you get down in the game. So my recommendation is no, do not go out there thinking you need to win or you must win every single point in the match. Instead, I would want you to focus on something that's more related to what do you have to do to win points. Not that you're going to try to win every point. But what are the top things you need to do? Do you need to take the ball early? Do you need to have good footwork? Do you need to have good tactics? Do you need to mix it up and be unpredictable, for example? Those are the types of things that I'd like you to think about that are going to help you beat a particular opponent. And certainly understanding your opponent's strength and weaknesses can help you with that. So for me, it's more about tactics. It's more about the process. And in your case, it's certainly the ability to cut off that doubt as quickly as you can when you notice that you're thinking, I should not lose to this guy, or am I going to lose to this guy? That type of thinking is irrelevant to playing one point at a time. Thanks for the question, and good luck with your game.

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