Confidence

Today I unintentionally taught myself a lesson about confidence. I was playing tennis with a friend - something I try to do at least once every week. As usual, I was playing well while we were practicing but as soon as we started playing a game I started to choke big-time.

There’s a little bit of a back-story so I’ll quickly get that out of the way. As I said, my friend and I play about once a week and we usually practice for a while before playing a (one set) match. We’ve been playing for about four or five months now and my friend has never beaten me. We're of about equal skill level and he’s come very close to winning a couple of times but I usually manage to squeak over the line; last week I won in a very closely contested tie-break. Despite my winning record, I always start each game very tentatively. Even though I haven’t lost yet, winning is never a foregone conclusion.

Don’t get me wrong, my friend and I aren’t pro-player-wannabes, we’re just a couple of guys who are trying to get some regular exercise and happen to enjoy playing tennis. Occasionally one of us will produce a great shot but our matches are generally a little on the scrappy side. It’s not that either of us lacks ability – we both know how to play and have played tennis socially for about fifteen years – because we can smash the ball around in practice but as soon as we start a game we revert to the sort of tennis you might see primary-school children playing. We both know we do it but we don’t know why. It’s not as if our games mean anything, they’re just for fun and we don’t take them too seriously but we both somehow get intimidated and inhibited and end up just trying to get the ball back into play.

Back to today’s game. My friend was leading 3-0 and I was serving at 15-40, looking down the barrel of a 4-0 scoreline and the possibility of not only losing but losing to love. As I already said, I’d been hitting the ball well while we were practicing and I’d even been serving well but as soon as we started playing for points I just tightened up and began playing very poorly. I tried to concentrate a little more and, although I continued to play conservatively, I managed to win the next few games to lead 4-3. The match was pretty even after that and I eventually won 7-5. I was relieved that I’d managed to win the match after such a poor start but so frustrated that I hadn’t been able to loosen up and start hitting the ball freely.

After the match we were both still feeling pretty good so we decided to play another set. This time, I made an effort to start more positively and really go for my shots. I’d been making them in practice, why wouldn’t I make them in a game? Surprisingly, this change in attitude actually made a difference. I played well and won the set 6-2. I was even serving well, something I usually struggle with during matches. After we’d finished the set we decided to rally for a little while before heading home. I was on a bit of a high because, for once, I was happy with the way I’d played and I was really smashing the ball around. With my confidence through the roof, I was hitting the ball so hard and right into the corners of the court; I felt like I couldn’t miss and about ninety percent of the time I was right. I don’t think I’ve ever hit a tennis ball that well. It came time to go and I didn’t want to leave. We’d been playing for three hours and I felt as if I could play for three more.

This afternoon’s events got me thinking. If my tennis game improved so much, so quickly, just because I started believing in myself, maybe I can learn a lesson from that. Maybe all I’m lacking in my life is the confidence to try things and the ability to recognise my own talents and abilities. That’s not to say that all of a sudden I’m going to be good at everything if I just believe in myself but there are moments in my life when I’m confronted with a challenge and I think, ‘I can do that,’ before quite quickly being undermined by a general lack of confidence in my ability to do anything. Consequently, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have pretty much stopped doing anything, certain that if I try I’ll only fail. If I can just manufacture a little confidence and start having some ambition then maybe I can get my life heading in a different direction.