Why don't we give 100%?
They just can't give it everything they have. They do want to win, but they have an even stronger desire not to lose. Although the result of both aims may be the same — since if you win, you don't lose — the mental approach is completely different and results in a completely different state and playing performance. So why don't players give 100% effort? Because they are afraid to lose. That doesn't make sense on first glance, does it? To understand this, we need to understand a little more about how the brain/mind works. The primary function of the brain is survival. Yes, the most primitive and the strongest drive in the brain is to keep us alive. The second function of the brain is to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Not necessarily hedonistic pleasure, but just being comfortable — in no danger and having all basic needs met, such as water, food, shelter, social acceptance, love and so on. Once all these needs are met, the brain has no special drive left. Now you can understand why so many people just go to work, come home, eat, and watch TV for a few hours, doing nothing significant in their life. Because their needs are met, there is no drive to do anything further. So they watch TV. Or, as here in Thailand, they sit outdoors talking and watching the people passing by. OK, back to tennis and the mind — if our basic needs are met, the brain constantly filters incoming data to check for any that might cause us pain and discomfort. If a signal or information seems like it might cause even small emotional pain, the brain TAKES OVER and DELETES it. The mind thus protects us from pain, and at the same time, it blocks us from seeing the reality. But if we are unaware of all the facts, we are unrealistic. Here's the trick the mind plays: if we play a match and give less than 100% of our effort, we have an excuse. We didn't really lose, because we didn't really try to win. In other words, we didn't fail to do something we really tried to do. We gave only 80% of our effort. We didn't risk the full 100%. If we had, and lost, we would feel the emotional pain in realizing that we are still not good enough. That would also cause discomfort, because it would mean that we still have a long way to go and therefore much uncomfortable hard work ahead. But the mind protects us from all this present and possibly future discomfort (even pain) by »suggesting« to us that we put forth only 85% of our effort. And we automatically do that. If we give 100%, we will see how good we really are. We will see proof in reality of how good, or not so good, we are. And many people know, somewhere deep inside, that they didn't really practice well for the last two years, that they actually don't really care much about tennis, that they don't really care much about themselves and that the result of this attitude will be a not-so-good level of play. But we don't want to know that. There are, of course, many faulty beliefs underlying this mental game we play with ourselves. For example, you may think that if you practice so many times per week for so long, you SHOULD BE able to win this prize and that prize. Not doing so would then seem a personal failure. So, the brain protects us from the pain we'd feel if we gave 100% and then think a thought (like "I should be better") that is actually faulty! Interesting, eh?
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