As we look back on Wimbledon 2015 we've seen some incredible action with more twists and turns than a fairground ride! The men's final was an unbelievably close and tense match with Djokovic winning his 3rd Wimbledon title. Federer showed incredible resilience and determination, but Djokovic somehow had that extra edge.
Even if you are not interested in tennis there is still a lot we could all learn from top tennis athletes for increasing your chances of success and creating a winning mind-set.
Unless they retire or are seriously injured we know that Federer, Murray and all the others will learn some valuable lessons and bounce back.
Know why you want to achieve your goal, keep that vision in mind and pace yourself so you take small steps to work towards that goal. Imagine, if you were a tennis player you would have trained for a long time, tweaked your technical ability by just an inch after every game and only focussed on winning your very next match, not the whole tournament. Nobody establishes a reputation overnight.
Anxiety and doubt are a natural part of the process, not a sign that you should give up. Building up your mental stamina and pre-empting any possible obstacles that could stop you from achieving your goals is an exercise in itself. If you can programme your mentality to not sweat the setbacks and the challenges but to view them differently then you will start to take advantage of every doorway of opportunity and develop your character.
If no one ever criticises you, then you are either perfect (perhaps unlikely) or you never take a risk which means you may be falling short of your true potential. We never know what we are capable of until we try. Your future success always lies just outside your present comfort zone.
Imagine if Andy Murray listened to all the negative chatter and throw away comments about how the British just aren’t good at tennis. Andy Murray was the 2013 Wimbledon Champion and once again reached this year's semi-finals. He is currently ranked number 3 in the world and is the British Number 1. He also won the 2012 US Open Champion and reigning Olympic Singles Champion.
He doesn't take it to heart and dwell, he learns from failures as they all provide valuable lessons, he remains focussed on his goal and continues to dare to lead where others fear to tread.
Do you remember the record breaking tennis match that took place at Wimbledon 2010?
John Isner and Nicolas Mahut battled it out for 11 hours, over 3 days with the American Isner finally winning the last set 70-68! Talk about not giving up!
Both of these men demonstrated that resilience is the secret weapon for turning setbacks into comebacks! When you build your resilience, stressful situations are no more and this mind-set becomes your auto-pilot for when the going gets tough.
Emotionally, people tend to be happier if we have support from a team or a trusted person. The benefits of having a coach are always talked about in sports. Sport stars are quick to praise their coaches, they couldn’t have done it without them and to celebrate the fact that there are men / women behind their success and achievements.
We’re obviously going to be a bit biased on this one but having somebody who can objectively fight your corner with you is the difference between having an idea of how to do something and actually doing it in practice.
It’s not only sports stars who have them, Oprah Winfrey famously had one to get to the top of her career and even the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt has a coach! In his own words “everyone needs a coach they can really put things into perspective”.
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