The following post is an excerpt from Frank’s newest book, The Soft Science of Tennis.
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How to Strengthen Self Coaching Solution #5:
Monitoring Outer Dialog
The fifth method of nurturing a positive inner dialog is to ask the athlete to monitor their outer dialog under stressful conditions. An athlete’s outer dialog includes speech, body language, and physical behavior, which are natural bi-products of an athlete’s internal dialog.
Monitoring this process begins with the athlete recognizing their automatic system of behavior under the stressful conditions of competition. Although it is common to default to old comfortable habits under stress; negative habits not only perpetuate pessimistic thought patterns, they alert the opponent that self-destruction is in the works. Self-spotting outer dialog behavior will help the athlete to recondition their inner dialog chatter.
How to Strengthen Self Coaching Solution #6:
Resist Attention Seeking Negative Dialog
A behavior management strategy is to coach the athlete to resist attention-seeking negative dialog and behavior. Athletes gain sympathy by projecting pessimistic behaviors. A typical example of this is an athlete’s excessively loud mini-tantrum in competition to gain sympathy from spectators, family or coaches. In essence, the athlete is projecting, “I’m usually so much better than this…I must be having an unusually bad day!” Ironically, the tantrum is seen every day.
In my opinion, tactically ignoring the outbursts in hopes that they go away is not dialog management because an appropriate alternate behavior is needed. An athlete’s dialog projects their thoughts and beliefs. Their voices have been simply programmed into their subconscious. Since they determine the course of their life, reprogramming their negative inner chatter is a battle worth fighting.
“Optimistic self-coaching is a wonderful technique to create better human beings on and off the tennis court.”
Here’s an alternate view of tennis parenting and tennis teaching. The conventional method has been to feel balls, criticize what’s broken, and then focus on the athlete’s problem areas. This judgment-based approach isn’t always in the student’s best interest. Why? Because it subliminally plants the toxic seeds of negative inner dialog and in competition, this learned behavior of focusing on what’s wrong opposes the natural flow state found in nonjudgmental, effortless, peak performance. Seeking “what is broken” isn’t part of performing in the zone or “treeing” as today’s juniors describe playing at one’s optimal level.
Game Day/Pre-Match Preparation
