🎾Mental Skils🎾

Resetting Your Attention "Radar" to the Positive Process

By Larry Lauer, PhD, CMPC

Process (how we prepare and compete) leads to the outcomes (winning tournaments, ranking, money) you seek, not the other way. So, why focus solely on the outcomes instead of what comes first, the process? It happens to all of us. It can happen

when we lose a match we expected to win, when we are playing well, when defending a good result, and what we would consider a very important tournament or match. And, when it does we often become negative, fearful, and doubtful. Our anxiety increases, it is harder to control our emotions, our performance drops, and tennis is not as enjoyable.

In our hearts we want to focus on the process, but those outcomes are so darn enticing. And, we know that the outcome is not under our control. The lack of certainty creates fear leading to future-based thinking and anxiety about achieving the outcome. To avoid the trap of falling into a strong outcome focus you must discipline your focus.

Attention or focus is like radar, we are attuning to the things in the field of vision. If it is outside of the field of vision we don’t attend to it. This applies to our thoughts as well; we pay attention and give more energy to thoughts that are in our radar. This can be good when we have attention on the positive and the process, because we are seeing the good in situations. However, when it shifts to the outcome and the negatives that come when don’t get results it creates issues. We start to look only at things in this field of vision instead of data that would not confirm the negative narrative. Thus, it perpetuates the attention on the negative.

How do you shift the radar from the outcome and the negative? Intentionally pay attention to the process and positive, and create experiences that catalyze this focus.

The first exercise I recommend is to quiet your mind via breathing and pay attention to your thoughts. What is coming to your attention? Mostly positive, negative, fearful, confident… This helps you determine the direction of your radar or attention. Do your best to be non-judgmental about the thoughts that are there and instead attempt to understand the thoughts. Ask yourself,

“Are these thoughts based on reality?”

“Am I catastrophizing or making too big a deal out of it?”

If you can answer yes to one or both of these questions then you will want to challenge this irrational thinking by refocusing it on the positive and the process. For example, if you have the thought “I have no serve” this is probably rooted in some poor performances recently but it is not reality the way you are thinking about it. You can serve, this is reality. Challenge this thinking and refocus on a thought such as “I will make more first serves and I will do this by using my legs more.”

You can make a list of negatives and challenge each one in your journal. Take time each day to quiet your mind and pay attention to the thoughts. Work on challenging the negative, fearful, doubtful thoughts and bring attention to the positive and process thoughts.

What I also find helpful is to visualize your strengths as a tennis player and as a person and then write about it. Strengths journaling helps to shift your radar away from the negative story in your mind.

Then, I recommend players make a habit of focusing on 3 Process Goals for every single match (could be also be for the whole tournament). This shifts the radar to the process and the positive. Now you have control over what defines success. In doing this you alleviate some of the anxiety and move your thoughts to more positive and productive actions. You are priming the mindset you want to have in the match, and that is process-based.

To continue to shift the radar, visualize yourself successfully performing these 3 Process Goals pre-match and even during training weeks. Again, this primes the radar and you can begin to see the good in situations.

On a daily basis I think it is important to build in routines that keep your radar on the positive and the process. Two excellent habits you want to build in are:

Gratitude awareness journaling

3 positives and 1 thing to improve journaling

These habits are exactly as written above. Take time each morning to write about what you are grateful for in tennis and life. This has an amazing effect on your radar. It brings perspective to life and allows you to be more resilient to the ups and downs that are inherent in tennis (and life for that matter). I like to combine this exercise with mindful breathing and visualizing success on my purpose for the day. It is a great morning routine for shifting the radar intentionally to the positive and to the process.

Second, at the end of the day write about three positives that occurred. Visualize and reconnect with those moments. You will feel a wave of positivity and confidence that comes from reconnecting with your little successes. And, write about one thing you want to improve. Focus on the plan you will use to achieve it on the next day. This gives you commitment and clarity about your work that quiets the doubts and fears enough so you can enjoy the process.