Recently I found myself on the tennis courts without a game. Seriously, it was just one of those days when everything was off. Nothing was working. My timing was off and it didn’t seem to be a thing I could do about it. My normally reliable and weapon-like backhand wasn’t working. My serve was just short of mediocre. My forehand, well . . . what forehand? Need I say more? It just looked like the best strategy was to say forget it. Then something hit me.

Before I share what it was let me say this. Tennis is a very physically demanding sport. If you’ve ever watched a match you know what I mean. It takes a lot of endurance, strength, and agility. But as physically demanding as it is, it’s mostly a mental game. And that’s the thing that hit me.

As I was experiencing my off day on the courts, the only thing I could rely on was my mental strength, the one that said, you’ll get through this no matter what. It also said, You have to find a way to win even if nothing is working for you at the moment. While the physical aspects of my game were off, I had something else much more powerful to work with —- all I had to do was use it to get me through the game.

Maybe you’ve been experiencing something like this recently as you pursue your dreams of starting and growing your business. Maybe things are not going the way you wanted and you just don’t see a way to make it work. There’s nothing more frustrating than that and I completely understand. You could be having a really crappy day. You know the ones, the days when absolutely nothing seems to be working right. Maybe the computer’s not working, a key staff member is out, or you just can’t seem to get that proposal out. Whatever the issue or distraction, you have to find a way to stay in the game. But that can be plenty tough when everything seems to be working against you. That’s when you have to rely on your mental strength. Because to be an athlete and to be in business takes a lot of mental toughness and if you don’t have it, you’re going to find it really difficult to stay in the game.

But how do you do that?

Stay Focused

It’s very difficult to stay on task when things are falling apart around you, but getting overly anxious, angry or frustrated really doesn’t help the situation so you have to stay focused. This means you can’t get too ahead of yourself. There’s a saying in tennis, One point at a time. This is basically a call back to the present. Before you can win the match, you have to win the game and before you can win the game you have to win the point. Same with business. Take a look at your project, break it down into small steps and take one action at a time. Don’t get overwhelmed with what’s not working or all that you have to do. What’s the priority? Focus on that.

Be Flexible

Like business, tennis is a game of strategy. Once you have one you generally want to stay on course, but sometimes you’ll need to adapt and make a change. You have to be flexible enough to know when to stay on course and when to veer. Here’s an example, Let’s say you’re on the courts and it’s a windy day. You’re going for the lines and instead of winning the point you’re finding your balls sailing out. So what do you do? You learn to adapt. That means mentally and strategically you have to change your original course of action because now you have to factor in an unforeseen barrier. This happens all the time in business and it happens a lot in tennis, which is why they say on any given day you can win or lose. You have to be able to adjust your strategy. When I found that my backhand wasn’t working, it didn’t mean I avoided the backhand. It meant I had to make adjustments to my backhand. Instead of going for all out winners like I would normally, I had to pull back a bit so as not to over hit the ball.

Try Something New

People generally don’t like the idea of change, but change is growth and you have to be willing to try something new. Your resistance to change may not be as high as you think, but answer this question, How often do you change up your routine? If you’re like most people, you take the same route to work, you sit in the same office, in the same chair, you go to the same grocery store each week and so on. We say we’re okay with change, but we don’t practice it and thus we get into a routine and a series of habits before we know it. Here’s an on-court example. When you’re playing a competitive match, the inclination is to do what you know works. For me, that’s serve and volley (rush to the net). That’s what I know and eventually the opponent knows that to, so they come to expect that. If that’s the case, then it may be time for me to try something different, like maybe a lob instead. Now if what you’re doing is working, sure stay the course, but if it’s not you have to re-evaluate and be willing to try something new.

Monitor Your Self Talk

You already know how important it is to maintain a positive attitude even in the most dire situations, but sometimes negative self talk gets in the way. “That was dumb”, Why’d I do that? Instead try something like, “I’ll try it this way this time” or “I learned a good lesson from that mistake so now I know to do this”. In other words, stop beating yourself up about it. Keep it positive and move on. Negativity won’t get you very far.

Don’t Get Overly Attached

It’s hard not to get personally attached when we are going after something we really want, but sometimes we take those attachments too far. When we get overly attached to something, things like failure and disappointment can break our momentum. You can’t let that happen. You will lose some and you will win some, that’s just the nature of the game, whatever game you’re playing. If you don’t get the results you want, you can’t let that stand in your way and keep you from trying again.  Although I was having a difficult day on the courts, I reminded myself how much I loved the sport, how nice it was to be able to play and that allowed me to enjoy the game itself, unattached to the results I was getting.

Don’t Let the Mistakes Stay in Your Head

If you’ve ever watched a tennis match and listened to the commentators, they can pretty much track the course of a game and when it changed directions by one failed shot, but can you imagine that same commentary going on in a player’s head? If you stay stuck on the last error you made, you’ll never move forward. Sometimes it hard to shake it off when you know you’ve made the wrong move, but you have to if you want to win. And that takes confidence, in yourself and what you’re doing. It’s difficult to go from a double fault to serving up an ace. But you have to have the courage and take the risk to go for the shot anyway, even if you’ve faulted in the past. Building mental strength gives you the capacity to take the mistakes, learn from them quickly and move on to the next point or action.

The only way to win the game is to stay in it. To do that you want to consistently and constantly build up your mental strength to move forward, make progress and take the action needed to get what you want.

To Your Success,

Sheronde