A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a weekend conference with Dr Joe Dispenza at Omega in upstate New York. Dr Dispenza is mostly known for his excellent appearance in the movie What the bleep do we know and tours across the world helping people understand how the brain works with quantum physics and how to change your life with this understanding through meditation.

“Neurons that no longer fire together no longer wire together” (Dr Joe Dispenza)
Unfortunately, when a player reacts to a perceived negative outcome, these neurons are strengthened to further wire the same reaction in a similar future circumstance. This is why you see the same competitors react the same way week in week out. Roger Federer generally does not react to errors because his brain is not wired that way through repetition of not reacting. Roger wasn’t always this way. As a junior he used to react to errors, however, he has changed his philosophy because he had the courage to stop the reactionary strengthened pathways.

If you are a player who reacts negatively to outcomes such as easy misses or disappointing losses, then you are living a considerable amount of time in the past whilst on the tennis court. If you’re a player who worries or is over anxious about outcomes before they happen, then you are living a considerable amount of time in the future. Some play in both past and future, but is that how you want to live your life? Is it worth feeling this way every time you step on the tennis court?

So how can you overcome these negative wirings? Well first you have to admit that you feel this way and identify the problem at hand. If you can dedicate your next training session to “not reacting” after a situation that you normally do react to, then you have already taken the first step to changing these pathways, then the environment will change as a result. Every time you don’t react to something you used to react to, it becomes easier until you don’t even perceive a missed shot as a negative at all, only it is observed and the information is processed accurately. If you can take that first step to overcome these issues, living in the present is can be beautiful and rewarding.

“The environment is an extension of the mind” (Dr Joe Dispenza)
Depression is as simple as re-living the past over and over again in the present. Physiologically you actually experience the same emotions every time your mind goes back to a negative part of your life, whether it is a bad loss in tennis or a girl breaking your heart. Again, if you keep re-living the past, you strengthen neurological pathways to keep you thinking about the past and it becomes more and more difficult to break. But can still be done by anyone.

Alternatively, the same can be said for anxiety. If your mind perceives an outcome like losing the final of a tournament, a girl not liking you or even envisioning a bad day at the office because of someone you conflict with, your neurons will strengthen and in the quantum world these outcomes can manifest.

Your mind does not know the difference between what is taking place in reality and what the mind is experiencing. If you are losing a tennis match badly, not playing well, but in your mind you are experiencing joy, gratitude and happiness for just being alive, then you can enjoy every experience on the tennis court. The present is much better than the past and the future because it is happening right now, even as your read this. Professionals fix their strings, bounce the ball before a serve and take deep breaths for a reason. They are techniques to bring them back the present, allowing them fight on for the next point. You can do this too.

It is important to not dedicate your training sessions to being critical of yourself. Try replacing the focus to something that is actually going to improve your game. Best to play almost all live ball games. Try one week of different focuses on each day. Your training program could look something like this.

Mon – Breath (1 hour)
Tue – Balance (static and dynamic) (1 hour)
Wed – Posture (lumbar curve and relaxed shoulders) (1 hour)
Thu – Enjoyment (Seriously, dedicate a day to having fun) (1 hour)
Fri – Relaxed arms (envision your arms as ribbons) (1 hour)

Try it, won’t kill you.