Should You Quit Tennis?

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.

Do you feel nervous before matches and are under a lot of pressure to the point where you don't want to play the game anymore? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn with the Tennis Psychology Podcast. In today's session, I'm going to answer a question from Dwayne Duane's questioning whether he should continue to play tennis.

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He said the following My problem is that I hate that nervous feeling before going into a match and all the pressure of wanting to be good enough to showcase what I practiced for months. I hate the feeling I'm even thinking about quitting the game. I do try to focus on the game itself, but that feeling of being nervous really gets to me at my core. What should I do? Should I just quit the game? I recommend to athletes that quitting because of a mental game issue, something that you can take care of, isn't a valid reason. In other words, if you want to quit the game because it's no longer fun, or you have other interest or you want to do another sport, those are more valid reasons, I believe, in my opinion. But to quit the game because simply you're nervous? I say simply because I feel like that's something that you can overcome and get beyond. Okay, so how do you get beyond it in this particular case? Well, based on your question, I'm noticing that you said showcase your talents and what you've been working on. That indicates to me that maybe you're a little bit too focused on what what others think about your game and proving to others that you're good. And that is a source of pressure. That's an underlying fear for the fear of failure. We call it social approval in my work, meaning that you go out there and you're so nervous about showing others you're good or getting others acceptance or wanting to be the star maybe. And that leads you to underperforming and feeling the way you do when you're on the court. So what can you do about it? Well, it's always about understanding what's creating the nervousness, what's creating the anxiety. So first of all, my suggestion will be let's get back to having fun in the game. Let's just go back to enjoying the game and the reasons why you started playing tennis from the get go. The second part of that is you have to start playing for yourself. Yep. That sounds silly, right? You got to play for yourself. Aren't you playing for yourself? Well, maybe not. Maybe you're out there to impress coaches, impress your family, impress competitors, friends, whatever it may be, and that's the wrong reason to be out there playing. So go out there and get into your bubble. The bubble is it's just you, the court, your opponent and the ball. And try to stay focused on the court, not what others think, not what others are going to say about the outcome of the match, only about just playing the game inside your bubble. Hey, thanks for your question. If you want more information about the mental game, go check out sportspsychologytennis.com there you'll find articles, videos, and at my website you can download a free report titled six Costly Unforced Mental Game Errors Players Make Between Points.