Motivation and Peak Performance

Photo uploaded by haycon

My motivation to play table tennis is in a constant state of fluctuation as my playing and results usually don’t meet my expectations. Some people, like me, may be able to train well, have high expectations for a tournament but then perform poorly. Why? My coach said these people don't strategise well. He gave an example of me "wanting" to attack but not "planning" to attack. This made sense to me - to have a plan of attack is to have specifics down which will lead to us using our forehand loop or what ever we attack best with.

Other factors of low level performance could be:
- Being outcome orientated, or wanting to win so much that we lose. At the moment, I'm trying to play the game point by point and having a general focused and relaxed attitude in the game.
- Playing for the audience. This could vary from playing too casual, relaxed, showing the crowd that we don't ever get angry, to lobbing and trying to smash 10 metres away from the table. Either way, the mind is not on the game itself.
- Thinking too technique based in game. You see this when people try to correct their stroke in game, shadow playing it. My rationalisation for this one is that we shouldn't be trying to change our strokes in game because the game itself is too short. If it doesn't work, find a way to get around it or don't use it at all.
- You'll even hear some people talk to themselves. This is kind of a weird phenomenon where one person becomes two. They say such things as "Oh come on *own name*! Move your feet!" In the book "The Inner Game of Tennis" the author says tennis players play best when they let their subconscious play and not let the conscious "self get in the way".

I've felt deflated and unmotivated to play table tennis many of times after a loss or a bad tournament. I feel that all the hard work I have placed in to train has been for nothing. But the thing is, after watching a lot of youtube post tournament, I always come back to play. After a while the motivation springs back to life, leaving the past to be just that - the past.