The Imperfect Battle

Throughout my years of coaching tennis I’ve come across many players of all ages and levels that are ‘perfectionists’ in other areas of their lives (school, work, extracurricular activities, etc). Often, this leads to challenges in their tennis development because they are scared of change, risk, discomfort, and failure. And it takes away from the enjoyment of the sport.

When I come across a student with this mindset I talk to them about the statistic that the greatest tennis players in history only won about 53% of their points in their careers. Getting a 53% on a test or doing only 53% of something in other areas might be less than ideal. But in tennis, 53% makes you the greatest ever. This teaches important life lessons. You have to be willing to mess up and fail in order to learn. You have to take risks at the right times. You have to persevere through hurdles.

As far as kids go, my personal opinion is that as a generalization they get too much stimulation and instant gratification from the modern age of social media and video games. When they aren’t good at first at tennis, some shut down or act in a way that is detrimental to themselves and others. Maybe this is because they are conditioned to instant gratification and frustrated that they aren’t getting it yet.  This is where the coach has to come in to help them be patient and see where the process takes them.

Another observation I had is that kids these days have so much pressure of excelling at school and other activities so that they can get into a good college and have a successful life because of that. I think it is the culture of our society at the moment. The competition, expectations, and stress is very real and plentiful. It’s like there is no room for error or failure and this leads to non-growth because some kids are too afraid to explore, take risks, fail, and figure things out on their own/out of the box. I think tennis is a great tool to break thorough these barriers and help some kids grow on AND off the court by adjusting their mindset.

The real winners are the ones who won’t get defeated by these challenges, but rather rise to them and mature in the process…And have lots of fun along the way!

And if we as tennis coaches can help even just a few of them along our journey, then we are the winners too.