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I would do something very specific if I wanted to get to the next level in my pickleball game in the fastest way possible.
And it’s not about putting in more hours of work on the court.
I did this when I was getting ready for my freshman year of college tennis not knowing where I was going to end up on the team’s line up, but knowing I wanted to play every match and not sit out watching from the bench.
I did this when I decided to become a 5.0 pickleball player, when I was still new to the sport.
I even did this when I decided I was going to go from being a full time tennis coach to a full time pickleball coach.
The beautiful thing is you can use this in many aspects of life.
The things I’ve done were:
1) I asked myself: “What would it look like to be this? What would it feel like to experience this?”
2) I then decided this was my new way of being.
Making this kind of decision is already enough to speed up your results.
But sometimes you don’t know what it feels like or looks like.
This is what happened when I wasn’t sure where I was going to play on my tennis team in college.
I decided that it would look and feel like someone who was TRAINING like the #1 player.
I didn’t know what it felt like or looked like to be the number one player on the team and to win all of my matches, but my imagination was able to easily help me accept the feeling of what it means to train like one.
So everything I did stemmed from this decision.
How I showed up to practice.
How I was training.
How I thought when I was playing.
Every single detail.
The conviction that I had after making the choice that I would train like the number one player ended up having me experience starting from #5 singles on my college team.
To quickly getting bumped to #4 on the line up.
And shortly after that, other coaches of other teams were accusing my coach of sandbagging me lower on the line up, so I got bumped to #3, and even shortly after that got bumped to #2.
They didn’t want to replace our #1 player, which I agreed with.
She was such a strong player and she was also a senior, so it made sense to keep her there.
Needless to say, I just lived in the decision that training like the #1 player pretty much got me close to becoming the #1 player that year, and I went on to being the #1 singles and doubles player the rest of my college run.
But sometimes a decision isn’t enough, maybe it’s a little process. Which is what happened with my other two personal experiences I mentioned earlier.
Whatever process you choose, it can look like different things to different people, but the key of the process is to be in a place where you already are living in that reality.
When I wanted to become a solid 5.0 (which, what that meant to me was that the 5.0 players at the time felt comfortable with me being there and welcomed me to play in with them), I decided to journal out or imagine that other people were asking me things like “what are you doing? You’re so solid now? How did you get good so fast?”
And actually this very statement was something I particularly liked to imagine hearing someone say. I didn’t dwell on it religiously, but I would think about hearing it in my imagination from time to time and I would smile to myself and move on with my day.
Not two or three months later, I actually had someone message me on Instagram and told me these words, pretty much verbatim.
It was a bit crazy when I realized what happened, but I also had a feeling of, “of course I improved fast” as I already felt it was normal in my body and in my mind since I was in a way “practicing” that feeling for some time.
Now to this day, I don’t ever question when I talk about being a 5.0 player.
Not even when my DUPR was stuck below 5.0 for almost a year due to an event I played in for charity that dropped my DUPR rating.
Now when I talk about being a 5.0 player, it’s as normal as you telling me my name is Ashley, instead of Sheryl, and me looking at you like you’re crazy.
That’s how much it should be a matter of fact.
I feel it deeply.
I don’t have to argue with anyone that my name isn’t Ashley.
I know my name is Sheryl with so much normalcy and ease, that it would be so silly for me to argue my name with someone.
It’s just what it is.
No questions asked.
No hesitation.
On another quick note, please don’t attach your self worth or identity to your DUPR rating or put any meaning behind any rating or other people’s ratings, which is a whole other topic of conversation for another video since that is one of the biggest things I see that gets in the way of people’s own growth, as well as them mistakenly underestimating or overestimating their opponents due to a silly number on an app on the interweb.
The last tip I want to give you is the importance of the relentless commitment to the idea of the end result that you want to experience. For example, I used this when I realized I wanted to become a full time pickleball coach.
Especially when I was full time coaching tennis when I found pickleball and there were many factors that could have scared me off from pursuing becoming a pickleball coach.
I had people doubting my prices.
I had facility limitations.
I had tennis lessons to still do.
I had people adverse to taking pickleball lessons.
But with the combination of the questions I asked myself prior to this next pursuit–the questions of what it would look like and feel like, along with making that decision, I had a relentless pursuit of keeping my mind living in the reality I wanted to experience.
And trusting the path will unfold perfectly, which it did, and I’m ever so grateful for how everything unfolded and I just followed the open doors.
And that’s how I am sitting here making this video for you.
At this point, I think most people are aware of the power of visualization and even talking to oneself during competition in positive ways can create winning results and significant improvement.
I’ve worked with a junior pickleball player named Madison and she had improved so much within two months of us working together that everyone asks what she has been doing differently, and all we’ve been doing is get her mind sharp and change her perspectives on every little detail regarding everything pickleball.
These processes will improve your game to whatever level or whatever achievements you want to accomplish next, in your pickleball journey.
