Gaining Self Confidence In Tennis

No matter the level you play at, at some point in your tennis career you are going to go through a period, possibly periods where you lack self-belief and confidence. 

We now mentor tennis coaches, tennis parents, and players globally through our online system. What we have worked out over the past 2 years doing this is that the biggest underlining issue most players have, what is holding players back, and what most players do not realize is blocking them moving forward, are their confidence and self-belief! It is like a claw in your back stopping you from moving forward, and we have found it breeds fear and anxiety! 

You are possibly reading this and thinking ah-hah, yep, you got me! 

There can be multiple reasons why a player hits these hard times; childhood trauma, lack of exposure to positive environments, having not built enough mental resilience, lack of trust in the process they are following, constant or reoccurring tennis injuries, uncertainty about the direction they are going or constant negative messages. 

Today I want to touch on building self-belief and give you some takeaway tennis tips you can use to get you feeling better in this area. Let's go!

No matter how you get into the state of self-doubt and low confidence, there are some key areas you can focus on and practice daily to help get you through it and maintain a higher level of self-belief. I have given you 7 self-belief building tennis tips below because I love helping in this area so much. Use them all or pick a few that you feel will have the biggest impact. 

Think about self-belief and confidence as a living creature. We need to feed it the right things to give it energy. We need to protect it and nurture it in order for it to grow. If we are not doing this, how can we expect it to be highly functioning and thrive? 

Here we go!

Tips - How to Gain Confidence in Tennis 

1. Put yourself in the right environment - First and foremost if the tennis environment you are in is not positively geared for you, you are in trouble. If I found myself in a negative environment, I would be out of there, period. We all have different personality types and ways we like to communicate, so if where you are at now isn't ticking the boxes, look to make changes.
   
   However, before you do this, you need to ask yourself a few questions; How have you impacted the situation? What can you do to make it a more positive environment? If I keep doing what I am doing, am I going to achieve my goals? your answers should give you a better understanding of what you need to do. Feeling good about what you are doing and how you are doing is going to lift your energy and build motivation. This feeds your self-belief. 
   
   
2. Focus on your goal - Distract yourself from what you don't want by distracting yourself with what you do want, have I confused you? haha. I hope so! because most people get this around the wrong way. They get distracted by what they don't want and it impacts their direction to what they do want.
   
   Stay focused on your goal and in each moment you feel distracted ask yourself is this helping me step towards my goal or away from it. It is that simple and it will help guide you the right way. 
   
   
3. Be nice to yourself - Seriously, be nice TO YOU. It costs you nothing and once you get used to it, you feel better about yourself, I promise. You will always find it hard to take positive feedback and embrace it and use it for your betterment if you cannot give it freely to yourself.
   
   There would be countless things you could pat yourself on the back for in a day, remember that, and don't be afraid to stop and respect yourself and your achievements, no matter the size they come in. Do it daily! 
   
   
4. Be prepared to mentally and physically stretch yourself - Ok, I honestly believe every player should be challenging themselves above their normal ranges at least 3 times weekly. What I mean by this is, mentally and physically you need to lift up and push yourself above what usually feels comfortable and get uncomfortable.
   
   Once you can do this regularly you will start to develop a greater sense of achievement and self-belief that you can do more than you expect. This costs you nothing and I can tell you that every coach and tennis conditioner will respect you and give you more of themselves when you can do this. 
   
   
5. Keep moving - A famous coach once told me, "When you stop you're stuffed" when stop showing up for practice when you stop playing matches when you stop giving it your all, you are stuffed! You are slowly quitting when you do this and no one wants the quitter's mindset right?
   
   No matter how lousy you feel, get up every day and stick with your processes and follow your structure. This is how you build the "I CAN" mindset, which feeds your self-belief. 
   
   
6. Keep it positive - Another thing that costs you nothing! Having a positive mindset has the biggest impact on your life on and off the court. At every moment you have a simple decision to make, it can either be a positive one or a negative one. The choice is always yours and no one else's, you need to take ownership of that.
   
   I can guarantee you nothing negative comes from being positive. Examples of this are; Positive self-talk, gratitude, positive thoughts (visualization) smiling :) and body language. 
   
   
7. Trust the process - If you have been following us for a while, you know we are all about creating a positive tennis structure. What does that mean exactly? Well to explain it simply, when you know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what result it is going to give you, then all you need to do is follow it and trust the process. Following the right Tennis strength and conditioning program, combined with the right amount of on-court practice and match play, doing the recovery work (stretching, foam rolling, breathwork, etc),  spending time improving your mental tennis fitness.
   
   All these areas need to be structured in a way that suits you as an individual. Once you have that right imagine how your self-belief and confidence will start to grow even more.

We have launched a new global training system for players that want help with their tennis training structure, mental fitness, nutrition, and motivation. Think of it as a tennis mentorship where you will learn how to; train for tennis, recover better, improve your mental fitness, eat for tennis, meditate and breathe better. This system is aimed at educating players, parents, and coaches, on how to get the tennis journey right, we know you only have 1 chance at it!

For more information on our tennis mentorship, you can book in for a 45min webinar to learn "3 tools to fast track a young tennis player's career"
To book in for the webinar go here

Ok, I am sure you have grabbed some valuable tools today to get you started on building up that all-important self-belief. Please make sure you apply some of these asap! 

Get started today! 

Until next time, be nice to yourself, keep it positive and get uncomfortable! 

Team Tennis Fitness