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Do
You Use Tennis Psychology? – Use Your Mind The Right Way and
Win.
Top
tennis professionals know how critical tennis psychology is to their
success. The smart players know it, use it to their advantage, and
are continually learning more about it. Here are seven major ways
you can utilize tennis psychology to help you improve faster, and
create sustainable success in your tennis.
485
words.
Do You Use Tennis Psychology?
Use Your Mind The Right Way and Win
Bill Cole, MS, MA
Founder and CEO
William B. Cole Consultants
Silicon Valley, California
"A positive attitude can really make dreams
come true...it did for me."
—Zina Garrison, tennis pro, after getting to the finals of
Wimbledon
"I still feel nervous playing Champions tour-type tennis events.
I go out there wanting to perform well before people, even if the
crowd is small. I don't want to lay an egg."
—Tennis Legend John McEnroe
"I learned a lot from those two tournaments. I think you can
learn more from disappointment. If you lose something, you definitely
learn a lot more from it than from winning."
—Martina Hingis, after losing the French Open
You can see that top tennis professionals all know how critical
tennis psychology is to their success. The smart players know it,
use it to their advantage, and are continually learning more about
it. When I was the Mental Game Coach for the Israeli Davis Cup Team,
we spent considerable time on this aspect of their training.
Here are seven major ways you can utilize tennis psychology to help
you improve faster, and create sustainable success in tennis.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Play Within Yourself. This
means you play as you normally do – nothing special, nothing
above your normal ability. Have faith that your normal game will
be good enough to win. You can't play shots you don't own. Stay
within your capabilities.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Trust In Your Self. Allow
your training to take over. Have confidence in yourself and come
from a mental place of strength. Don't hope for an easy match
– strive to be a strong person. Have faith that your practice
and training will carry you through. Don't analyze or second-guess
yourself.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Place Things Into Perspective.
You should set learning goals for each match. Determine that you
will learn something new about the opponent, about yourself as
a competitor and about performing. Then work the process and let
winning take care of itself.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Visualize Success. Before
you can win on the court, you must win in your mind. A simple
truth, but more players could follow it. Learn this skill for
use before and during your matches.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Focus Your Mind. You can't
play if you can't concentrate. You could say this is almost the
most important factor in tennis success. Learn the secrets of
tennis psychology and your mind will do what you want it to.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Stay Poised Under Pressure.
It's natural to feel nervous, agitated or afraid under pressure,
but knowing tennis psychology can help you stay grounded and focused.
- Tennis Psychology Helps You Train Mental Toughness.
As you go higher up in your tennis career, you will encounter
more pressure situations. For this you need mental toughness.
Tennis psychology can teach you this vital skill.
So there you have it, a complete overview of
tennis psychology. Good luck to you in improving your mental game.
 Learn
about Bill's book, The
Mental Game of Tennis, or purchase
the book from Amazon.com.
The Israeli Davis Cup Team recommends Bill as a premier mental game
coach:
"Bill is a very talented and deeply-knowledgeable mental game
coach. His ability to help our players stay motivated, focused and
on-track is just excellent. Bill really takes the time to understand
people, to listen and to figure out what each person needs to achieve
and excel. He has crafted a comprehensive mental game peak performance
program for us, as a mental game advisor to individual players and
team mental game coach for team practice sessions. He is a master
mental game coach. He is one of the top peak performance coaches
on the Pro Tennis Tour. More players on the pro tour could use his
help."
For a comprehensive overview of your mental abilities you need
an assessment instrument that identifies your complete mental strengths
and weaknesses. Here is a free, easy-to-take 65-item sport
psychology assessment tool you can score right on the spot.
This assessment gives you a quick snapshot of your strengths and
weaknesses in your mental game. You can use this as a guide in creating
your own mental training program, or as the basis for a program
you undertake with mental
game coach Bill Cole, MS, MA to improve your mental game. This
assessment would be an excellent first step to help you get the
big picture about your mental game.
Copyright ©
Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved.
Bill Cole, MS, MA, a leading authority
on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and
CEO of William B. Cole Consultants, a consulting firm that helps
organizations and professionals achieve more success in business,
life and sports. He is also the Founder and President of the International
Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com),
an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development,
professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. He
is a multiple Hall-Of-Fame honoree as an athlete, coach and school
alumnus, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author
and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league
pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For
a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments
visit him at www.MentalGameCoach.com.
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