You can’t play good tennis without good mind control.

That’s one of the reasons I love tennis so much – it teaches you mind control through instant feedback. If you’re not concentrating on the ball when you prepare for a stroke, you’re not going to hit it well.

The first rule of good tennis is to concentrate on the ball. We all know that and we try. But there is subtle interference from the ego that is sometimes difficult to catch and eliminate. It’s what causes you to play so well during the warm up and then tank as soon as the match starts. The cause and solution to this problem is is what we will look at in this article. Let’s look at a very specific example of subtle ego interference.

Just yesterday I was talking to a student about his tournament. He was up 3-0 in the first set against the #2 seed. He was playing aggressive tennis, going for his shots, putting the opponent under pressure and taking the points on offer. In short he was playing his game and enjoying himself.

At the change over he told me he was  “happy with the way he was playing”.

Sounds pretty good so far right?

WRONG!

Being “happy” is a big problem in a match.  Yes I know that might sound crazy, but let me explain.

As a Mental Trainer®, one of the first things I teach students is to “play like you don’t care”. When you’re competing you don’t focus on the outcome, you only focus on the process.  In sports psychology speak, during competition you focus on “process” goals, not ”outcome” goals.

Focusing on the process means you completely immerse yourself in what you are doing and do it as well as you can. You observe the results of your efforts and you adjust accordingly. “Playing like you don’t care” doesn’t mean you take crazy shots and go for winners on every shot, it means you don’t judge the results of your efforts. Not caring means you don’t judge, you just play.

If a shot is not what you intended all you do is observe what you did and what happened and make the necessary correction on the next shot. The concentration is on the process of playing tennis, not the outcome .

Judgments should be completely avoided during competition. If you hit the ball out simply observe that the ball went out and how far it went out. Then replay that shot in your mind and have it go where you wanted it to go. This visualization is a powerful message to your body letting it know what you want it to do next time.

Now back to “happy with my performance”. Can you see how that is a judgment on your performance? And what part of you is the constant, never resting, all seeing, all knowing judge of everything. Yep, the Ego. Being happy about something you did is your Ego’s way of patting you on the back because you are helping it reach it’s goals. Normally these are goals that make it feel better about itself, but that’s another book all in itself.

For now, practice observing your performance without judgment. Notice the Ego’s compulsion to judge everything you do as good or bad. When you notice such a thought, just let it go and observe the facts of what happened without any judgement.

Now back to the story. At 3-0 up in the first set and being happy with his performance, my student then got stuck in the subtle Ego trap of “trying” to continue to play well. Unfortunately, as the great Yoda said, “There is no try. There is only do or not do”. When you try to play, you aren’t playing, you’re trying to play.

Since he didn’t recognize and let that thought go quickly enough, it was all downhill from there and he lost a match he could have won. I’ve done that and perhaps you have too. The point is to learn from the experience.

In summary, when you let go of Ego expectations and demands and play like you don’t care, you will enjoy yourself more and your performance will probably improve.

Here’s a recent video talking about the up and coming Berdych and the changes he made to his mental game that have helped move him up the rankings.

If you want your own personalized mental training for $25 a month, have a look at Online Mental Trainer.