The Inner Game of Tennis summary

Imagine you’re in the heat of a pivotal game in a big tournament. No matter what strokes you try, your opponent continues to maintain the upper hand. What should you do?

Well, if you’re like most people, you’ll remind yourself how to improve your form, say, by tightening the grip on your racket. But doing so won’t help you.

Anyone who has ever led a team knows that micromanaging is a recipe for disaster. A better approach is to make your goal clear, encourage your team to succeed, give them the support they need and trust that they’ll do well.

As it turns out, the same is true of Self 1 trying to micromanage Self 2. Behind Self 2 is the body, which works perfectly fine without any conscious management; in other words, you don’t have to control every little thing your body does.

What’s your primary focus right now? The blinks you’re reading or how you’ll apply them down the line?

Well, for many people, it’s too easy to drift away into the future. Instead, don’t try to fight your mind. Guide it. This is especially important because your Self 1 doesn’t like to sit back – it’ll keep butting into situations until you give it a job to do. So, to keep it in line, focus it on the here and now.

Infants learn new skills easily and intuitively, and can even pick up foreign languages with relative ease. But as people age, something happens that gets in the way of this basic learning.

We begin to differentiate between “right” and “wrong,” and, in the process, become afraid of making mistakes. But in reality, there’s no such thing as a right or wrong way to do something. Rather, each person has to learn the method that works best for her, personally.

So, the Inner Game has clear applications in tennis, but how can you apply this knowledge to your life in general?

Well, first consider the implications the Inner Game has for sports in general: by letting go of the need to control everything, matches can become more playful and athletes can focus more intently on the present moment.