The following post is an excerpt from the Second Edition of The Tennis Parent’s Bible NOW available through most online retailers!
QUESTION: How do we help our daughter re-commit to her tennis? (Part 3)
Encourage your athlete to stretch beyond their comfort zone and try new approaches by:
- Putting your goals and plans in writing.
- Acknowledging that the better choice is often the harder choice.
- Identifying possible negative influences.
- Cutting out trouble making friends and instigators.
- Limiting time spent with negative people.
- Establishing the rules in troubled relationships.
- Flipping negative talk: “I don’t know” or “I don’t care” or “I hate…”
- Letting go of “I can’t, I’m terrible, or I am not good enough.”
- Addressing difficulties as challenges and not defeats.
- List solutions, not problems.
The above proactive behaviors are not necessarily tennis issues, they are life issues. I find that we’re all too often addicted to our old comfortable thoughts. Behavioral changes stem from changing those unproductive negative thoughts.
“While your athlete can’t go back and change the past … they surely can start over and create a better future.”
Your athlete’s tennis re-birth begins as soon as your athlete commits to improving!
