1. Dream Big and Take Action Today
When asked, what is your dream? Are you the player that says ‘to win Wimbledon’. Or the player that says ‘I don’t know’. Those that dream big, set goals and take action to achieve those goals right away are the players that will go the furthest. If your coach said you need to improve your serve, would you wait until next week or would you go to the practice court the same day and start hitting more serves?
2. Compare Only to Yourself
If you want to improve, you are only in competition with yourself. Regardless of other people, have you improved? Were you better than you were yesterday? What can you control to ensure you are going to improve?
If you run a PB (personal best) but come 7th in your race, would you consider this a win? Would you rather be factually faster or finish in first place?
3. Practice on the Edge of Your Comfort Zone
Your comfort zone is different to someone else’s comfort zone. You might be able to do 3 push ups, so training on the edge of your comfort zone might mean working towards 4 push ups. Someone else might be able to do 30 push ups, so their comfort zone is different to yours.
Training on the edge of your comfort zone (learning zone) will mean making mistakes, it will often require having to start again and involves lots of practice.
Training on the edge of your current comfort zone helps you edge forwards, growing the size of your comfort zone. If you stop pushing yourself, challenging yourself your comfort zone will shrink back down as will your results and progress.
4. Perfect Does Not Exist and Mistakes Are Unavoidable
Roger Federer played 1526 (1251 wins, 275 losses) matches in his career. He was number one in the world for 310 weeks in total (237 consecutive weeks), won 20 grand slams to include winning Wimbledon 8 times but only won 54% of all the points he ever played.
What does this tell us? You can lose 46% of the time and still be the best in the world. It tells us that even when you are the best in the world you will make lots of mistakes and your game will never be perfect. It tells us that even if you are the best in the world there is always something you can practice and improve.
5. Focus on What You Can Control and Influence
Focusing on things you cannot control can make you feel like you are not making progress and can lead to the mindset of ‘the world is against me’ or what is often described as a victim mindset.
Things you can control include your body language, your actions, your effort and attitude, who you spend time with and your preparation before an event.
Things you cannot control include other people’s behaviour, the rules, the weather and the past. The umpire for example is there to enforce the rules, so arguing with the umpire is not going to affect the outcome of their decision. If you focus all your thoughts and attention to the umpire’s decision on the rules, rather than the next point in the match, you will not perform your best.
You could, however, influence someones decision. If we go back to an umpire in a tennis match for example, if your body language is positive, you are respectful, your attitude is positive and your actions show good intentions a decision is more likely to go your way. You can use things in your control to influence a situation.
6. Work on Your Confidence, Body Language and Self-Talk
Working on your confidence, image, body language and self-talk are all within your control. These things can make a huge impact on whether you make progress or not.
You are not born with confidence, you develop it over time. There are many sources of confidence so pick one you feel you could work on and set some actionable progress goals to grow your confidence in that area.
Your body language has more impact on your performance and progress than you might think. Having positive body language and good posture make you look like a winner, like someone people want to work with, like someone who is not going to give in easily, like someone who is confident. If you are playing tennis for example, if you show poor body language, poor posture, your head is down and your facial expressions are negative you give your opponent a boost of confidence as you look like you’ve lost before the match has finished. If you want to look like a winner and fight to the end, look strong and positive to give your opponent no sign you will be giving in any time soon.
Self-talk is a tool athletes use to boost their performance. The best athletes will say motivational or instructional things to themselves to enhance their performance. For example, on a tennis court you often hear tennis players saying ‘come on’, ‘lets go’, ‘you’ve got this’ to remind themself of what they need to do or to keep the belief they can win at the forefront of their mind. Players using negative self-talk such as ‘you’re so bad’ or ‘I can’t play tennis’ often lose their match.
7. Stick to Your Daily Non-Negotiables, Strengths, Standards and Values
Daily non-negotiables might include things like hitting 50 serves at targets a day, practicing visualisation or working on your mobility for 20 minutes a day. Daily non-negotiables can help you make huge progress if you stick to them.
Do you know what your strengths are? Everyone has their own individual strengths and it is important to know what these are so you can build on them. Too many people focus on what they are not good at or improving weaknesses, but continuing to build on your strengths can lead to big wins.
Your values are important to stick to. Do you sway from your values and standards in certain situations or do you stand by what you believe? If you do not know what your values are, it could pay off to sit down and think about what they are.
8. Monitor Your Progress and Celebrate Success However Big or Small
If you do not track and monitor your progress, how do you know whether you have made progress? For example, if lower body power is important in your sport, how do you know if your lower body power is improving?
If you make progress, celebrate it. What do you do to celebrate wins? However big or small.
9. Manage Your Expectations and Remember You Always Have a Choice
Do you look at a situation in a helpful way? For example, one perspective could be ‘I’ve lost to this opponent before, I can’t and won’t win this match’. Or another perspective could be ‘I started playing tennis because I enjoy it so I will go out and play my best’. Your expectation and perspective of a situation can effect whether you will make progress or whether you will stand still.
Always remember you have a choice. If you are unhappy at work you can leave your job. If you know your return of serve needs to improve you could work on it. If you need to be more explosive you could follow a training programme. If you know your current friendship group will get you into trouble, you could make some new friends. You have a choice, so don’t complain about something you have choice over as you will not make any progress.
10. Be Coachable. You Can't Win on Your Own
Lastly, to win you need a team. Your team could include team mates, a coach, a physio, a strength and conditioning coach. Or your team could be yourself, your parents and your friends. If you want to win seek the support you need to win, don’t think you can do it alone. Who do you know that is better than you? Could you reach out to them to seek some advice? Is there a coach you could work with to enhance your game? Are you willing to listen to advice and put it into action? The best athletes in the world have a coach because they are constantly looking for the 1% improvements they could make to stay ahead of everyone else.
I hope this post was of value to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts, please do send me a message on Instagram (simonjamescoaching).
Thank you for reading.
Simon James
