Love the Battle:
Rafael Nadal

Jim Loehr

When you watched the 2008 Wimbledon final, did you sense, as did so many observers, who the eventual winner would be simply by watching how Rafael carried himself, and the incredible sense of confidence he projected?

There may be only one Rafael Nadal, but competitors at all levels can learn a profound lesson from what Nadal projects on court. The lesson is how tough acting and tough thinking can translate into superlative competitive results.

Professional Acting

How does this work? I believe that successful competitors in tennis are really in the fullest sense professional actors and actresses. There's really no difference between what a Julia Roberts or a Jack Nicholson or any really great actor in Hollywood is able to do and what great professional tennis players do. This is to summon emotions they need to perform deeply from within themselves. And Rafael Nadal is the ultimate example.

It's not just the flamboyant things Nadal does: jumping up and down during the coin toss, the zig zag sprint to baseline for the warm up, pumping his fist after a pressure shot.

It's also the way he conducts himself throughout the course of the match in every detail. His extremely precise rituals. The way he controls the pace of the match. The way he maintains the same demeanor and body language whether he has won or lost the last point. Even the way he organizes his water bottles on the change-overs. In terms of his emotional control Nadal is literally the best player in the world.

If you watch many of the other top players, even in the top ten in the world, their on court behavior can be very uneven emotionally. Often they are up and down from point to point. They can exhibit negative body language. They can have angry outbursts and throw rackets.

You never or only very rarely see this from Rafael Nadal. He projects the image of a calm, invincible fighter and he virtually never deviates from the script. Watch how he reacts from point to point in the animation--it is often impossible to determine the outcome simply from observing his body language.

The Script

My question to you is this: how often do you follow this same kind of script? If I watched you play, would I see you act out the script regardless of how you're feeling? Regardless of your position in the match? Do you even have a script you are trying to follow?

We call this side of your behavior your performer self. What kind of performer skills do you have? Because those performer skills are exactly what are necessary to lock into your ideal performance state, the state of mental and physical and emotional harmony where you best performances naturally flow. (Click Here.)

Performer skills often require that you move away from how you really feel. Maybe you have no confidence. You really feel tired. You've got a headache. You just played one match and now you have to play another one. You've just traveled how many time zones? You didn't get good rest last night. You've gotten into a fight with your spouse. You don't feel like competing.

What Toughness Is

I will tell you what toughness is. Toughness is the ability to drag yourself from where you really are to where you need to be, what we call your performer self. To drag yourself through tough thinking and tough acting into a special, very unique way of feeling, what we call IPS.

Sometimes it can start as an artificial emotion, but great actors bring it to the surface and make it real. And in so doing, they bring the script to life, whatever that script might be. The script may call for emotions that are a million miles from where they really are. They may not feel excitement or passion or joy, but they are professionals. They have learned to recruit within themselves the resources that are necessary to make those emotions become real.

When it comes to Nadal, his practice is consummate. If you actively practice it, you can access this same chemistry yourself when you feel it the least, but when you might need it the most. But if you don't practice it, you'll never be able to pull the trigger when it counts.

But developing this takes time. You can't learn it overnight. It's exactly like your strokes. If you allow yourself to practice the mechanics in sloppy ways, eventually the mechanics go away from you.

It's the same thing emotionally. As soon as you get sloppy emotionally--sloppy thinking, sloppy imagery, slopping acting with your physical body, you're going to get mush. You are not going to access your talent and skill in the context of battle, in the context of competition.

So it's very important that you realize that what you really are--you are an actor. That's what a great athletic performer is all about. That's why every time you go on a court in tennis you should be constantly trying to stimulate the emotions that empower you. The more you practice it, the better you get.

Ready to Cry?

Jack, Julia, and Rafa--three actors at the top of their craft.

We know what the script is in sport. It is confidence. It is positive fight. It is relaxation. It is fun. We know that that ideal performance state script is where we will get the most out of the game, where our talent and skills will be born and will be launched into the highest possible orbit, and this will also be where we get the most satisfaction and enjoyment and fun from the sport.

But doing all that requires wonderful acting skills. There is some exciting research that shows that the chemistry of faked emotion and real emotion in professional actors is indistinguishable.

It shows that when Julia Roberts cries on screen and we compare that to a genuine sadness, a genuine cry that is born out of a very natural, spontaneous response to a tragic event, the two are indistinguishable at the level of physiology. This is why great actors are so believable on screen, because they are truly involved in summoning the chemistry that is associated with those emotions.

You may not start out confident. You may feel no energy. You may feel like not being there. You may not like playing a particular person in front of a particular audience, or whatever. But if you take the same procedures and the same skills and the same directions that a great actor or actress does, you accept responsibility for your task as a competitor, and you create that special climate inside yourself.

Now, how do Julia Roberts and Jack Nicholson do that? How do they summon those emotions? Well, they do exactly what Rafael Nadal does in the context of his competitive battles. Rafael Nadal has learned to be very, very careful in how he thinks--he thinks tough. He has learned to be very careful how he acts--he acts tough. And what does that mean? He acts out energy, positivism, fun, intensity, confidence. He does this all the time.

Nadal rarely deviates from the script. He can even laugh at himself when he makes a critical error. Nadal actually smiled when he hit a double fault serving two points from the match in this year's Wimbledon final. How many players can say they have the confidence and internal belief to do that?

Bad Acting

There are so many bad actors in sport who are constantly deviating from the script. They're chastising themselves. They're bellyaching, moaning, groaning, complaining. There's no place in the script whatsoever for that kind of emotional response.

As tennis players, we have to practice the skills that an actor or actress has to practice. We have to learn how to bring confidence with the look in our face, by moving the muscles of our face. When we communicate a smile, we are in a real sense communicating to our physiology that it's okay, things are all right.

In fact, we're moving the physiology at a molecular level. We know that autonomic nervous system responses mirror the movement of muscles in emotion-specific ways, when we take on the look of a frown or take on the look of sadness or take on the look of happiness.

In fact, just moving the facial muscles to coincide with the emotions we want to experience will help that along tremendously. If you told Julia Roberts, I want to carry a smile on your face, but I want you to cry tears of sadness, she absolutely could not do it because the body is communicating different messages.

A tennis match is not a place to be afraid or to be sad or to be angry. If you want to communicate confidence and belief and positivism and you're carrying your head and your shoulders down, your walk is slow and lazy and without any spirit, you cannot summon the emotions you need to be strong, the emotions for mobilizing all the resources that you may actually have inside.

The body is all connected. The muscles of your face, the muscles of your shoulders are connected to what you're thinking. And all of that is connected to what images you're carrying in your head. And all of that is connected to the physiology and to the emotion that you're carrying at every moment. The mind is the body, the body is the mind, and everything you do affects everything else. All the cells are connecting and communicating in a wonderfully interactive and brilliant, massive network of inner responses.

It's important to understand also that emotions work very much like muscles do. If for instance you stimulate a particular muscle, you're constantly working a particular muscle, when you want to summon that muscle in the course of that activity, it's readily available to you. The same thing is true emotionally.

The $10,000 Test

What if I said that I will give you $10,000 if you can cry for me in three minutes? If you very rarely cry, the chance of you getting this emotion to surface is nearly impossible. The people who can cry fairly easily and have worked the pathways connected to that particular response are much more likely going to be able to cry and to get that $10,000.

What are some of the things that you would have to do to make that $10,000 come your way? The first thing is to make sure that your thoughts are consistent with the emotion that you're trying to achieve. You're probably going to think about the saddest thing you've ever thought about in your life--the most tragic thing that has happened or could ever happen to you. And thinking about that, focusing on that, will start to change your chemistry.

We also know that if you picture the emotion, it will become more powerful. It's almost as if the brain is unable to distinguish something that's vividly imagined from something that actually happens. The chemistry becomes as real as if what you imagine was actually happening right here and now.

Why do you feel that you really are in Jurassic Park?

That's what happens to you when you go into a theater and you sit and you watch a movie like "Jurassic Park." You know you're sitting in that theater. You know you haven't gone to Jurassic Park. But the fear that comes inside of you is exactly the same fear if you were actually there.

You know you're sitting in the theater. Why should you become afraid when you know logically that you're just sitting there eating popcorn? It's because your central nervous system cannot distinguish real from unreal, so the real chemistry of fear is triggered. It's the same chemical profile that you would experience if you went into Jurassic Park and those events actually occurred to you.

So, what we are going to try to do here is to either think thoughts that help to summon those emotions or to make visualizations and images come alive to make that happen.

So if you want to cry, you want to get your body to conform to exactly those emotions you want to feel. So you would hump over your shoulders and slump down in your chair and drop your head and chin. You'd take on the look of someone who was very sad. All of your body and your posture would conform to that. You might even wiggle your chin and start to kind of move your chin like you do perhaps when you cry. And all of a sudden, if you get that wired right, the tears will start to flow, if you've had access to that emotion.

So now let's take a minute and let's start to look at specifically what you can do to improve your control over this very unique emotional response. First of all, any time you have access to film of anyone that you feel has it wired right, who is a wonderful competitor, who inspires you because of their ability to consistently be at their best in the most difficult moments and they can do it consistently, take a very close look.

Look at how they carry their head and shoulders. Look at Rafael Nadal. Look at Serena Williams. Look at Ana Ivanovic. Take a look at the players who have the ability to act out the script and to do it consistently.

Film Doesn't Lie.

Then take a look at yourself. Film yourself during matches. Confront the truth. To what extent can you walk the walk? Can you project the same spirit? Do you have the look of intensity on your face, the sense of fun, the sense of inspiration?

Can you model it in tough times, when you make costly mistakes, when you're tired, when things aren't going right? When you tighten up and hit a double fault on a key point? Get yourself on film and take a look at it. Take a look with a very critical eye. What do you see? Would you fit the profile of a great actor, a great IPS actor?

The first thing to improve your acting skills is to work with your physical body and and how the body connects to the emotional realm. You need to have great respect for how the body is connected to emotion.

So how do we train mentally? How do we get our thinking more precise? How do we begin to be more precise in our visualizing? The first thing you're going to have to do is to step back and take a very, very critical look at how you process information before, during, and after competition. What are the actual thoughts that go through your brain, and how to they relate to the toughness script?

And is there anything that causes you to summon the wrong emotions because of and in response to the way you're thinking or imaging? For instance, if you sometimes say or think things such as "I hate," "I hate this," "I can't stand bad weather," "I hate this competitor," "My backhand is really off." Instantly, that type of thinking closes the door. You begin a cascade of consequences which are precisely the opposite of what you want.

We must hold ourselves responsible for how we are thinking and how we respond emotionally to the things that happen to us in our context of competition. We can't control what's happening, but we can control how we're thinking about it, how we're imaging about it, and how we are responding emotionally to what's happening.

So training is simply learning to think about things in ways that help to fulfill the script. We call that tough thinking, thinking about something in a way that enables us to feel positive emotion, to feel challenged, to create a sense of fun, to feel relaxed, to feel energized in a positive way. If you tell me, "I hate my serve," "I hate my forehand," or "I hate playing pushers" or "I hate whatever," right away you ensure that you will not be able to access the emotions that empower you in the context of the Ideal Performance State.

And that's how simple it is. Don't make it more complicated than that. Make it very simple. Zero in on exactly this connection, the connection with the physical and the connection with the mental and how it is all driving toward this emotional response capacity.

Your Personal Battlefield

Here is the scene. It takes place on your own personal battlefield. See yourself as a great competitor. You are now a great actor. It goes like this:

I love to compete. Competition helps me to come to terms with who I am and with what I can become. When I can enjoy, I can perform. Fun is what makes playing well possible for me. I can have fun no matter how tough, no matter how difficult the task is that lies before me.

Winning happens by itself. I simply perform. I don't focus on winning. I focus on the things over which I have control. I'm performing against myself. In reality, I am my own toughest opponent and I will win the battle with myself.

Winning that battle simply means that I am in control of me, that situations do not control me, that I control my response, my unique emotional response to pressure, tough times, and problems. I am learning to literally love problems, to thrive on tough times. I am learning to become a great fighter.

I fully understand that losing is a part of the process of getting stronger and better and tougher. Mistakes are a necessary part of my growing, my becoming the best that I can be. Pressure is the result of the way I see the situation, the way I act and the way I think and visualize about things. I know I cannot control situations, only the way I think about them, how I act in those situations, and ultimately how I respond.

Choking

I've come to understand that controlling the choking response is really at the heart of athletic competition. Over coming choking means that you reduced the fear response, fear of failure, fear of looking bad, fear of not living up to expectations, and the chemistry of fear began to die.

In a real sense, there's no reason to be afraid. It is okay. It is going to be fine. You have to believe tomorrow that life is bigger than any athletic contest. Not one single athletic event is going to make or break me as a competitor.

By thinking in the context of fun and enjoyment and loving what you do, the fear will go away. When we screw up and make stupid mistakes and do dumb things, it's so easy to turn against yourself. It's not normal to respond positively when things turn against you, when bad things happen, if you suddenly don't measure up to what you know you could be. It takes a very special commitment, a very skilled competitor, to summon those emotions, that chemistry, so that you can continue to charge forward and suddenly re-electrify those positive emotions.

So here is an affirmation for you, one that summarizes everything we've been talking about, one that will help you become the performer you really want to be:

"I've come to understand that positive emotions are my most normal state. During competition, I need to create that chemistry through positive thinking, positive acting, that literally brings to life my potential."

"Regardless of the circumstance that I find myself in, I will always commit to giving my absolute best effort. I will be prepared to meet the unexpected. Things will not always be fair and I expect that. I will do everything I can to be physically, mentally, and emotionally ready with lots of reserves, able to take massive doses of stress as it's called for."

"Every time I compete, I will get closer to understand how to truly love the battle, and not just winning. Great competitors learn to love the process. Just for today, I will become challenged when problems come my way. Today I will be a great problem solver. Just for today, I will love the battle. I will create my own state of enjoyment. I will accept the hand that is dealt to me with no complaint."

"Just for today, I will take charge of how I feel. I will not be at the mercy of my emotions. Just for today, I will have a plan. The plan will keep me focused and organized. I will stop saying, "If I only have the time." If I want the time, I will take it."

"Just for today, I will find humor in my mistakes. When I can smile inside, I am in control. Just for today, I will do the ordinary things extraordinarily well. Just for today, I choose to believe that I can make a difference and that I can be in control of my world. The choice is really mine. Just for today, I will love the battle."