Replacing Confidence with Discipline

Confidence is a key to reaching your potential. In the last article we looked at some ways to increase confidence. Increasing your confidence over time should be a part of developing your potential as a tennis player. The idea is to change how you feel about your game and create more self-belief when you are on the court. (Click Here.) But in this article I want to outline another approach for winning matches when your confidence is reduced. This is to replace confidence with emotional discipline. Doing this often allows you to achieve the same things as if you were actually confident, just in a different way, There are times in every player's career when he has less or even much less confidence than at his best. There is also a natural tendency, when a player is lacking confidence, to become excessively emotional in competition. Fears and uncertainties run rampant and players are particularly susceptible to choking, anger, discouragement, or excuse making. When this happens, of course, the cycle of playing poorly is perpetuated. When a player is in this mindset, these negative responses can be consciously dampened down with above normal discipline. This approach can allow players to remain...