Hi, do you have a high level of talent and because that high level of talent
you have really high expectations for your performance and then when you go
into competition and you don't perform up to those expectations you tend to
berate yourself or get frustrated? Hi, I'm Dr. Patrick Cohn and today in sessions with
Doc I'm gonna talk or I'm gonna answer a question from Leah about how when she
goes into matches she tends to get really negative with herself after
mistakes. You're watching sessions with Doc unrehearsed and unscripted answers to
your mental game questions.
Here's the question that I received from Leah. she said "With my athleticism and training my
talent I have super high expectations and I expect to win often but in matches
when I make mistakes I berate myself I get frustrated and lose focus now I
expect to do these things in matches which hurts my confidence, am I a
perfectionist or just being negative with myself during matches?" Well Leah great
question and this is something I deal with every day with my personal coaching
students and yes you do have some perfectionism when you have super high
expectations you price in into the bar of you can't make any mistakes you can't
miss any shortfalls, you can't miss any volley's, you can't double fault. Those type
of expectations can really get in the way of your confidence. It's one of those
confidence killers I discussed last week in last week's video now high
expectations you think well that sounds great if I have high expectations I have
high confidence no it's not that way if you have high expectations you have low
confidence I call that the recipe for disaster in other words most athletes
that come in have very high expectations here but then their confidence is here
why because they can never perform up to their
high standards or their high expectations they never reach their
ultimate goal they price in perfection and then they questioned why can't I
reach those expectations and I think that's what you're doing with yourself
when you go out to play you expect such great things and you expect to win
points and win sets and win matches and when that's not happening for you and
your making mistakes than that causes the frustration so yes I do believe you
have some perfectionism in terms of at least in terms of your expectations it
doesn't qualify you as a perfectionist ok but you do have some perfectionism
going up now the problem with perfectionism and sports and in this
case in tennis is that not only expectations but you tend to be very
hard on yourself and very critical of yourself after mistakes and that's
problematic for your confidence so not only do you have to learn how to manage
the expectations I called it the confidence expectation connection you have to have
high confidence without these expectations that are getting in the way
that's the first step for perfectionist in terms of building their confidence
understand we want confidence a belief in your ability we don't want the
demands and the judgments that go along with expectations
the second part of that is you have to start being your own best friend on the
tennis court if you make a mistake you have to understand that you're not
perfect your human you're going to make mistakes and that's ok so having more
self acceptance is also gonna help you after you make those mistakes as well
remember confidence we want the steady wave of confidence we don't want you on
the roller coaster of confidence which I'll talk about in the future
video so think about no expectations high confidence and being your own best
friend when you don't play up to your standards
thanks for your question!
Hey, if you want more information about how to improve your confidence check out peak
sports.com and look into the confident athlete or if you have athletes are 12
and younger you can check out the confidence sports kids CD and workbook
program also please subscribe to our YouTube videos and in addition to
subscribing to our YouTube videos I would suggest that you can watch another
video in this series on confidence. Thanks!