Mental Toughness Home Activity
Good afternoon,
This is a strange and challenging time and it’s easy to be negative and focus on all the things that we can’t do. However, we can improve and get a competitive advantage if we use our time wisely. Whilst most people are spending their days scrolling Instagram and watching Netflix, we tennis players need to be using our time proactively.
The Quarantine Proactivity Chart
As you can see from the chart, most players are Instagramming and Neflixing right now (I made up the data). So now is your time to get ahead of the game!
A coach from my academy said it great:
“I think it’s a great opportunity to clear our minds and get back to some of the things that we don’t normally prioritise.”
So what are the things that we can prioritise in this period? We can improve our Mental Toughness for a start.
How do we improve our mental toughness without a tennis court?
Let’s get into the activity:
The mental game of tennis is all about awareness and acceptance of the thoughts and emotions that we experience on the court. Our mind is made to wander and experience a range of emotions. Djokovic, Williams, Rafa and Federer all get nervous and frustrated at times, but it’s their ability to accept the emotions and return their focus to the next point that sets them apart from the rest.
Your Mental Skills Challenge
I would first like you to download My FREE Guide to Mental Toughness. You’ll have the guide downloaded in 20 seconds by filling out the form below.
Next, I’d like you to read through the guide to learn all about becoming mentally tough (it shouldn’t take long). It will teach you the same method that Djokovic uses for the mental game. The 4-step “Mindfulness Method” is so simple but unbelievably effective.
Afterwards, I’d like you to complete the focus exercise at the bottom of this page.
My FREE Guide to Mental Toughness
“The principles taught in the guide are easily understood, and more importantly, easy to put into practice. For anyone wanting to develop their mental toughness, this is a great place to start.”
— Chris Lewis, Tennis Wales Head of Performance
Enter your name and email to get it instantly.
As you will have learned from the guide: mental toughness is all about our ability to aim and maintain our focus on our most helpful attention. The negative thoughts and emotions that we experience on the court will try to distract us from focusing on our most helpful attention, but our job as mentally tough competitors is to be aware of how we’re feeling and accept the emotions that we’re experiencing so that we can put our focus back on the next point.
So how can we practice this without a tennis court?
Meditation. Yes, meditation. Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think. All we have to do it focus on one thing. It can be our breath, how our body is feeling or even the sounds that we can hear around us. And the trick is, whenever our mind wanders away from what we’re trying to focus on (which it will do) we need to be aware and bring our attention back. It’s that simple.
This is basically what mental toughness is all about – notice when we are experiencing thoughts and emotions that aren’t helpful and bring our focus back to our most helpful attention for the next point.
Try this meditation below:
How was that? Tricky right? Novak Djokovic says that he does 15 minutes of these focus exercises every single day. Novak practices his focus in a number of ways. Sometimes he does it through meditations like the one you’ve just done, and sometimes he does it by focusing on his steps when he goes out for a walk. Cool right?
You’ve just done 10-minutes there, so it’s not that hard. You get better and better the more you practice it. I’ve been doing this for about a year now and I still find it very tricky. The quicker we can notice our mind has wandered and bring our focus back, the more mentally tough we will be on the tennis court!
Hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for taking part in the challenge and stay tuned for more activities and insightful posts.
Cheers!
