As we start the new year and are fresh off of our holiday
cheer, it’s time to get back into the habit of working and head back onto the
tennis court. In celebration of the new year, let’s set some resolutions for
your tennis game. Whenever the new year would come around, I would always
resolve to be at a certain point with my tennis, but oftentimes this goal was a
numerical goal, like to get to the top ten in Florida, or top hundred
internationally. While great goals, these goals don’t explain HOW you’ll get to
them, and the journey is the most important aspect of setting a goal. So take
out a pencil and a piece of paper, and let’s set some physical and mental goals
for you that helps you achieve the ranking or tennis skill you want for 2013!
Physical goals. Anything that concerns your body is what you
place under these goals. Want to run the mile under six minutes? Add track
training to your goals. Want to trim a few pounds to get lighter? Add intense
workout and diet schedule to your goals. Pick a goal that is doable and keeps
you motivated. I recently asked a junior player what his goal was, and he told
me he wants to be top ten in the nation. I asked him how he’d get there. He
promptly replied with a shrug. Regardless of where you are ranked, focus on
what you will do to change your ranking, not the numerical status of your goal.
While a valiant resolution, it’s talk that isn’t backed up by any real goal,
like setting a specific regiment of waking up and going to sleep on time, or
focusing more on footwork on the court.
Additionally, don’t overwhelm yourself! It’s great that you
get excited and add a plethora of physical goals to your resolutions, but try
and focus on two or less particular goals that you can achieve in the short
term. Want to fix your technique on your forehand? Aim for setting two private
lessons a week rather than one or none. Want to be able to move your feet like
Nadal? Set yourself up with a coach who can show you a good routine and set a
schedule for you that is realistic. Once, I had an odd obsession with getting
my abs super flat. I resolved to do twenty minutes of an abdominal routine
everyday. Not too hard, right? It did wonders for both my resolution AND my tennis!
Had I set my goal to be ranked in the top ten, I would have been frustrated
with every loss or set back that I had, which is part of the tennis life. I
knew that the ab routine was something I could control, whether I played bad
that day or not.
Now for the mental goals. These go hand in hand with
physical goals, as you need a strong head on your shoulders to not give up on
your resolutions. Mental goals are also tough to set, because a lot of times
people set goals that they do not know how to achieve, like “not to go
cray-cray on the court when my opponent cheats or is not very nice.” A noble goal,
but what is going to stop you from acting like a rapid dog when your opponent
does cheat? Set yourself a routine, or a method, of helping your mentality.
Whether this is to slow yourself down on the court between points by counting
to ten or twenty, or focusing on a specific routine on the court that can help
you when you get the match-point jitters, setting a mental goal always involves
some kind of physical action. I know that I would get super nervous when I had
match-points, and would get tight and tense when my opponent would fend off a
match-point, so I decided, my senior year of college, to serve and volley, or
chip and charge, for match point. I knew that the jitters I couldn’t control,
but I could control what I would do about it. It worked. It worked so well,
that eventually I got rid of the jitters, and didn’t have to focus on my
nervousness during match-point!
So after you jot down your ideas, share them! Blog about it,
post it on Facebook, or even respond to this blog post and share some ideas
with me. Go get ‘em!
