Setting a new type of goal in hard times

I discovered something new about myself during lockdown. And it’s something that applies to both tennis and business. I do best when I have something to be obsessed about.

Before the lockdown, I was obsessed with making Team USA or Team Canada for this year’s World Championships in Croatia. And then, tennis with humans went away. My only opponent left? The wall.

I hate the wall. The wall is boring. It’s ugly. It doesn’t high five you when you’ve hit a good shot, and it doesn’t care. 

It’s hard to work hard at something when you don’t enjoy it.

So I started putting my energy into other things. I built a platform to help small businesses survive the COVID-19 crisis. I worked around the clock on it. I still am. I got obsessed about something else.

But there was still something missing.

You can’t cut something massive out of your life and expect to feel whole. But I found that going back to the wall wasn’t cutting it. It just wasn’t enough. 

I started to realize that I really just didn’t believe the practice time was worth it. The championships are probably going to be cancelled anyway, so what’s the point? I realized I was working towards a goal I didn’t believe in.

And that’s when it hit me. 

The only way I was going to keep at it was if I believed. And that meant I had to find a different set of goals that I actually believed in.

Before the lockdown, I was starting to rework my foot positioning on my forehand. Is footwork something I can improve at the wall? In fact, the wall is probably the BEST place to work on it. Same with a pile of other tweaks I’d back burnered.

It turns out, the wall is the perfect place to dial in technical tweaks because if I were to practice them against an opponent too early, I might chicken out and revert to my old ways. The wall keeps me accountable without the pressure of winning or losing. Remember, the wall doesn't care, which keeps us both impartial.

So instead of focusing on some distant tournament that may or may not work out, I started to focus my goals inward. What could I do right now to improve my game regardless of what happens with the rest of the world? What can I do intrinsically for me?

And then I asked myself that same question about my business.

There are a lot of things in the world we can’t control right now, and the unknowns... they aren’t just paralyzing, they can be completely demotivating. 

But what I’m finding, for myself at least, is that if I can focus on things that I care about AND that I can can move the needle on right now, I’m happier. I’m more motivated. I work harder. And these things will inevitably move me closer to some of my bigger goals.

At the end of the day, if I get better at those little things that I can control, I’ll feel more accomplished right away. Plus, they’ll make me a better competitor for whenever I can get back into the real swing of things again.

Motivation and success often come down to reframing the story we tell ourselves.

With gratitude,

Amina