1st August,2023
Rafael Nadal says the toughest opponent in professional tennis is his internal dialogue.
“What I battle hardest to do in a tennis match,” he writes in ‘Rafa,’ “is to quiet the voices in my head, to shut everything out of my mind but the contest itself and concentrate every atom of my being on the point I am playing.”
One of his weapons in this battle?
Getting a particular Order in his immediate environment.
Before every match, he takes off his white warm-up jacket, places his tournament ID card on his bench facing up, sits, takes a sip from a bottle of water, takes another sip from a second bottle, then he places the two bottles at his feet in front of his chair a little to the left, one neatly behind the other, diagonally aimed at the court.
“Some call it superstition,” he writes, “but it’s not. If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose?
It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.”
It’s important to get your surroundings as well as yourself into a positive state and start feeling positive about the outcome before you start.
We all seek an orderly world. We feel comfortable when things are placed in a particular fashion whether at home, at our desk, or even in the toilet.
It is only then do we feel we are ready to start our day, commence the work & face the challenges that lie ahead.
Choose your order of things & stay blessed forever.