David’s Tennis Lesson #6:

Watch Out For Your Ego Mind

In the previous lessons, you now know and hopefully you have experienced how powerful seeing the ball correctly is, how breathing helps, and how relaxing the muscles that you don’t need and using the proper tension of the muscles that you do use helps you hit the ball into the court.

Have you noticed that maybe you are not making doing them as important anymore? Or have you forgotten to work on these concepts altogether?

This seems to be a natural progression for most of us because the ego mind does not want to be so far out of the picture. It will constantly sneak in and tell you that it knows better than you do about how to play well.

If you have used these three concepts in your play and saw the immediate improvement, then you know this thought is not true.

My point is that if you found that you played better when you used these concepts then using them more and more and getting better and better at letting your body learn and figuring out how to hit the ball the way you want to is the issue you need to address.

So, how do you deal with this Ego mind? First of all, you need to just not believe the ego mind when it says that it needs to control your body in order to hit the ball into the court.

Then you need some strategies that will help you keep letting go and letting your body play and learn.

One of these strategies is that you just keep on focusing on the three concepts given to you no matter what.

However, I find that most people need some help and this is why I developed my course. When you get a reminder every week to think about and work on some aspect of your mental game, you will be over riding the ego mind.

Maybe just buying my book or CD’s is enough for you to keep working on these ideas. Either way should help you stay focused on the things that allow you to play well every time.

Another technique I use with my student is this. Say, for example, that you are not able to see the ball the way I have talked about. I tell my students that, “If I would pay you $1,000,000 for every time you saw the ball properly and to your racket, do you think that you would be able to do it a little better?” Now unless you are Bill Gates and didn’t need a few extra million, I am willing to bet that you would make seeing the ball a little more important. Well, you have to make it that important. And that means letting go of all the other thoughts that interfere. So, make seeing the ball, breathing, and relaxation this important and don’t let the ego mind tell you that it knows best.

And please always keep in mind that this way of playing is a process and you will not one day “just do it perfectly.” You will be constantly learning more and more about yourself and how you can play better and better no matter your age. At the time of writing this, I am 65 years old and I am still learning things and although I can’t move as well I am still getting better in a lot of areas.

So, order my book or my CD’s so you can make sure you stay on the road to playing what I believe to be the only way to play. A way that is fun and exciting because you will always be improving, and of course, you will be winning more matches, more close matches, and feeling good about it all.

So please keep working on these concepts and just don’t let your Ego mind tell you they don’t work.

If you haven’t taken a look at the course I am offering on the mental game, take a look here. This course will guide you through over 70 weeks of lessons that will keep you focused on improving your game. Remember, you get this course free with any purchase.