I have a problem with confidence and doing my best, because whenever I actually try (I usually play by putting as little effort as possible) I feel depressed when I lose or mess up.

That’s because failing even at my best makes me feel as if my best is nothing, that is why I put little effort so when I mess up or lose I don’t feel as bad because it’s not my best. Help!

Let’s see where this comes from “because failing even at my best makes me feel as if my best is nothing”.

The game of tennis is not so much about winning or losing especially if you are a competitive player. Most players lose all the time. (go on ATP Tour website and check win / loss ratio of a top 100 tennis player. You’ll see what I mean.)

It’s the long term accumulation of POINTS that pretty good determines who is good or not. So when you lose it doesn’t mean you are “nothing”. That’s just your very critical description of a loss.

I’m sure you can find positives in your play.

Also, winning or losing a tennis match should not define your human worth. You are a good person, you can do many good things on life.

Do not let tennis losses determine how well you feel about yourself. It’s just a game. Sure, you are trying to become good in this game but this game is not important for life.

Having good relationships with people, friends, family is important and determines who you are. Providing value and serving people determines who you are and is important in life.

If you are serious in tennis, great, but that’s just a game where you try to improve your skills.

Previous Pain

What you say is that when you lose and give your best, this hurts you a lot. The most likely reason is that you have been criticized a lot when you were a child and this hurt.

You got this feeling that you are not good enough especially if you tried to accomplish something.

So now when something similar happens - you try to accomplish a win and don’t make it - this connects with the old pain and that’s why it hurts so much.

The only short term solution for you now is to look at tennis game in different view. The reality is, that you cannot control the outcome. Which means that no matter how hard you try, you are NEVER guaranteed to win.

Winning or losing is not your problem and not your responsibility. Giving 100% is.

If you give your best, you WILL increase the chances of winning.

That’s all there is. You only have a probability and your effort is the ONLY thing you control in tennis.

The Long Term

You say: “that is why I put little effort so when I mess up or lose I don’t feel as bad because it’s not my best. “

So yes, in the short term - just for that match, you don’t feel that bad since you somehow tricked yourself into not really losing. But that’s just a trick of the mind.

You really lost. The score shows it. And you are not in the next round. That’s the reality.

And this reality will eventually break down your illusion of not winning because after a few years of playing tennis you’ll realize, you haven’t gotten anywhere.

You’ve been investing so much time, energy and money into tennis and you’ll see, that you haven’t reached you potential.

Now think about it and then compare this pain to the short term pain of losing a match.

Which pain is greater? Which one would you like to avoid more - the long term one or the short term one?

The fact is, that tennis can be emotionally painful sport especially if you have previous pain associated with losing and not being good enough since these “past emotional wounds” will get triggered again and again in tennis.

You have two choices then: either you avoid playing tennis and triggering that past pain or you keep playing and learn to heal that past pain through greater awareness that you will gain by playing tennis.

This I cannot explain to you in one article. You can find many tennis articles on my website and blog, but the highest awareness and healing will come from thousands of tennis experiences and you spending some quite time and thinking about them

Related posts:


• 2 Ways To Deal With Match Pressure
• Tennis Is Not About NOT Missing, It’s About Winning The Match
• Dealing With The Fear Of Missing
• 4 Ways To Ease The Stress Of Competition For Tennis Juniors
• How To Stop Losing Against The Same Opponent

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Mental Tennis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.