Share

Building Belief and Momentum

Article © 2000 - 2035 Craig Townsend / Its Mind over Matter. All Rights Reserved.

Every year there are a lot of interesting power struggles on the world tour - and as usual, the player's all-important belief levels accurately mirrored their results on court.

Belief and results go very much hand-in-hand - they are an excellent gauge to track a tennis player's progress. Your belief levels show up in your results, every time - so if you don't like your results, work on your belief (as well as your game, of course - but that goes without saying!).


Tennis mental training / hypnosis

Mind Training for Tennis
by Craig Townsend (Dip. Clin. Hyp)


Hypnosis / Visualization Program
for Accelerated Tournament Results

MP3 Download
$29.95

Be the Best You Can Be

Includes $60 of Bonus Extras:
* 'Essential Mental Training Info'
* Sleep Subliminal
* Email Support, Advice & Guidance
* All standards / ages

1 Year Unconditional Warranty

PayPal / Stripe


* Also available for Doubles




Motivation Wears Off...
⚡ Train Your Subconscious 🔥

Customized Mind Recordings
24/7 Subconscious Reinforcement

Belief levels can either build in momentum or they can lose momentum - and most players experience both of these at various times in their tennis career.

Momentum obviously builds with confidence - and the easiest way to build both is to win a succession of matches.  Though, of course, its much easier to do this when you already have belief! (but more on that later).

Otherwise, some great confidence-boosting performances can also raise your confidence, no matter whether they were winning performances or not.

On the other side of things, losing one's momentum and confidence is one of toughest tests for any player - and every player will experience this at some stage, and the key is how well you can bounce back.

Only the mentally strong players can usually weather the storm and bounce back from this fairly quickly. This is no mean feat, as there are plenty of examples of Number 1 players who lost their momentum and confidence, and simply never got it back.

Back in the 70's, the worlds number one player Stan Smith, a powerful and confident player, found himself in a slump which he never really ever got out of. And Mats Wilander, after winning 3 Slams in one year in the 80's, was never a world force again after that.

And so to avoid this, and bounce back strongly from setbacks, it's important to:

a) learn from your losses

b) mentally boost yourself up with visualization or other mental techiques (such as mentioned below). And last of all.....

b) let them go - and move on

Belief is a funny thing. Once Federer showed that he was 'mortal', by losing some matches to lesser-ranked players, he never again experienced quite the same level of domination he once had.

This is not because he was no longer as good as he was before - it was purely because the rising players were strengthening their belief that Federer was now beatable.

In relation to confidence, a lot of players ask me what are other effective ways to raise your confidence? (apart from winning a lot of matches, which makes building confidence and momentum easy- but that's a bit of a 'chicken or the egg' debate).

As we mentioned earlier, in order to win a few matches and gain confidence, one already needs to have some confidence, right at the beginning. There are several ways to increase confidence.

The first is to use visualization regularly - a highly powerful technique where you vividly imagine, in your mind, playing at your absolute best, where you simply cannot do a thing wrong.

You can even use this technique to bring up real previous 'tennis memories', of times when you played brilliantly in the past, as well - this helps create a mindset of success.

Or you can even imagine yourself being one of your favorite players - any champion player you 'identify' with, style-wise. It won't make them play any better, but it will help you! if you need more information on The Power of visualization, go to the homepage for more info.


Secondly, make a Success List - write down all the great matches you have played, shots you have made, comments you have heard about your tennis, etc - absolutely anything that boosts your confidence and makes you feel good about your game.


Focus on all the good things about your tennis makes these expand in your game, and strengthens your confidence at the deepest subconscious level.

Last but not least - examine your beliefs and find any limiting beliefs which might be holding you back.

How do you find out what these are? Easy - just look for any recurring patterns that occur in your results or matches again and again, that you would prefer did not happen - these are likely to have a limiting belief behind them, which is making them recur.


For instance, if you lost a string of matches against higher-ranked players, where each time you were within grasp of winning, but let it slip through your fingers - this might suggest that at the very deepest subconscious level, you have a limiting belief that "I'm just not good enough, I don't deserve to beat those guys".


Once you know what the limiting belief is, you need to change it. You can do this with visualization, plus you would then also create a 'Reasons List'.

You get a piece of paper where you write at the top a line that counters the limiting belief. eg. "I deserve to win close matches against good players because...." - and then you simply write down every single reason on Earth you can think of, to prove why the line at the top of the page is absolutely true.

Write down things like all the hours of practice you have put in, your lessons with the pro, your fitness training, your mental training, what the coach said about your game, etc etc etc.

Write it all down, and keep writing until you are exhausted and simply cannot think of any other reasons.

Then go back over the list, spending 20 seconds on each point, taking it in and mentally contemplating it. That is the exercise - and repeat this exercise every day for a month.

Negative beliefs are not created overnight, so it may take longer than overnight to remove them. Then begin working on the next one, if there are more!

And just another reminder - always remember to visualize overcoming any limiting beliefs as well, as this accelerates the process - and builds belief, confidence, momentum and strong results. Now - go forth and conquer!

 

"The Mind controls the body, and the Mind is Unlimited"

The best of success, Craig Townsend


Next Tip   |   Previous   |   Tips Index



  play audio file

* Listen - 'The Power of Visualization & Belief' - Craig Townsend explains how these transform performance.

Click the 'Play' symbol to start the audio.

 


 

"The Mind controls the body, and the mind is unlimited". Craig Townsend




Article © 2000 - 2035 Craig Townsend / Its Mind over Matter. All right reserved