Rhythm & Flow Tennis

4th in a series on the Psychology of Winning

Motivation is an emotional state. The great physical and mental motivators in life – survival, hunger, thirst, revenge, love – are charged with emotion. Two key emotions dominate human motivation with opposite, but equally effective, results – fear and desire.

Fear is the most powerful negative motivator. Fear restricts, tightens, panics, and forces, ultimately defeating goals. Desire, conversely, is like a strong magnet. It attracts, reaches, opens, directs, and encourages; helping you to plan and achieve goals. Fear and desire are polar opposites and lead to opposite destinies. Fear looks at the past. Desire at the future. The consuming words of a fearful person are likely to be: I can’t; I see risk; and I wish. Desire says: I want to; I can; and I see opportunity.

Winners are motivated by desire. There never was a winner who did not want to win. Winston Churchill was a poor student. Althea Gibson came from the back-alleys of Harlem to the center court of Wimbledon. They wanted something special for themselves in spite of their early track records. Winners in life are people who have developed strong positive self-motivation. They have the ability to move in the direction of their goals they have set or the roles they want to play. Winners tolerate little distraction.

Desire is the emotional state between where you are and where you want to be. One of the best guarded secrets in the kind of self-motivation practiced by high achievers is this: We always move in the direction of what we are thinking of most. Therefore, it is imperative to concentrate our thoughts on the condition we want to achieve rather than move away from what we fear or don’t want. Simply stated: Winners focus on the concept of solutions rather than the concept of problems.

The mind cannot focus on the reverse of an idea. A famous true story involves a World Series baseball game in the 1950’s. The game was tied with a power hitter at the plate. The manager ran up to the mound to give his pitcher instructions: “Don’t give him a high outside pitch. He’ll knock it out of the park”. It was the last thing the manager said to the pitcher. The pitcher tried to aim low and to the inside corner, but like a neon light, “high outside” was the dominant signal. The pitch went high and outside and of course, the hitter hit a home run to win the game.

Positive self- motivation is fueled by desire as opposed to fear. See the green in the middle of the sand traps instead of the sand traps around the green. See the glass as half full vs half empty. Jack Nicklaus said he always thought about what should go right with a shot instead of what could go wrong. Billy Jean King says she never allowed a negative thought to enter her mind. Winners know their actions will be controlled by their current obsessions.

For too long it has been wrongly assumed that strong motivation is external; that it can be pumped in from the outside through incentives, pep talks, contests or sermons. Such activities do provide encouragement and inspiration for individuals to turn on their creative powers, but external motivation only works if the individual wants it to. Lasting change is affected only when the need for change is both understood and internalized. Until the reward or incentive has been interpreted and internalized, it has no motivating power.

The enduring power that moves high- achievers to action comes from inside. Success is not reserved for the talented. It is not defined by high IQ nor is it from gifted birth. Success is almost totally dependent upon drive, focus, and persistence. Daniel Burmnan said: “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir your blood to action. Make big plans, aim high in work and hope.”