Goal GETTING Strategies for Tennis Players
Has a coach ever told you, “Keep your eyes on the prize”? The “prize” is your goal or an objective you want to achieve.
This phrase is designed to motivate you and keep you focused on the goal or objective you are working towards.
“Keep your eyes on the prize” is a reminder to push through adversity or tough circumstances such as losses, nagging injuries, repetitive technique refinement, hard training sessions, long seasons, etc.
If you take your focus off the prize, you will quickly become overwhelmed by your circumstances and lose sight of the reason for your hard work and efforts. With no “why” in sight, your motivation dissipates, and you become derailed by your circumstances.
Accomplishing your goals requires that you be focused on your goal and the path towards your goal instead of the adverse circumstances you may face.
With that said, maintaining your focus towards your goals is not always easy. For example, what if the “prize” or your objective is far in the distant future or the timetable for a return to action is uncertain?
This situation is facing all professional tennis players following the disruption of the season and uncertainty of the resumption of the Tour season due to the coronavirus.
Prior to winning the 2020 Credit One Bank Invitational, Madison Keys talked about the difficulty of not knowing when the WTA season would resume.
KEYS: “It’s really difficult to keep practicing when you don’t really have a goal in mind. So being able to have some of these tournaments back on the calendar has been really great even just for my mentality, just because I know I’m working for something…”
“Even in the off-season, even when we’re injured, we usually have a date. We have a deadline when we’ve got to be ready for, and we can time it up. So I think it’s been challenging for everyone to stay motivated.”
You will always experience times of “waiting.” Waiting for the high school or college season to start…
Waiting for a tournament or invitational… Waiting to return to competition after an injury. Waiting for a long period of time can drain your motivation, so it is important to set small goals too.
These small goals can be maintaining motivation for an entire practice session, spending ten minutes a night visualizing matches, managing your emotions during a tennis match, etc.
Small successes built over time help you accomplish the bigger, long-term objective.
Setting Constructive Smaller Goals
To create effective smaller goals, it is important to start with your long-term objective and work backwards.
Ask yourself the following questions:
“What is my long-term goal?” or “What do I want to achieve this season?”
Next, it’s important to have a plan for the season and the action plan to help you achieve your goal. “What steps do I need to take to accomplish my goal?”
Then break down these steps into smaller goals, “What do I need to accomplish this week, this day, this practice or this drill to move me closer to my long-term goal?”
Goal setting is the easy part. Goal getting is more difficult. Achievement is the result of small successes accomplished each day.
Learn Proven Tennis Mental Game Strategies To Perform Your Best On The Court!
Are you (or your players) performing up to your ability in competition?
Do you bring your best and most confident game to matches?
I often hear players complain about the following problems when they play in matches…
“I get so tight or tense before matches that I can’t think straight or have any rhythm in my game.”
“I get so frustrated with hitting bad shots or with errors and it snowballs.”
“I expect so much when I play that I unravel and lose confidence when the match does not go as planned.”
“My confidence seems to disappear when I go from practice to matches and I don’t know why.”
Successful tennis players have learned how to perform with ultimate confidence in tournaments.
If you are ready to improve your mental toughness and perform with ultimate self-confidence in matches, Tennis Confidence: Mental Toughness For Tournament Players can help you do this!
- Players: Learn how to take control of your confidence, focus your best, and win more close matches.
- Parents: Help boost your junior tennis player’s confidence for tournaments. Just load the program on your player’s IPod!
- Coaches: Boost your team’s confidence using simple, proven mental strategies.
- Instructors: Learn how to give your students the mental game advantage.
Use Tennis Confidence to help boost your mental toughness in tennis and discover powerful and proven mental game strategies that have helped professional athletes win!
Leave a Reply