In many situations, a desire for change collides with the environment. And our environment has a significant impact on our success, no matter what we set out to do. This is especially true for people with whom we spend a lot of time.
For change, we need willpower. And our environment can even generate additional resistance with its behaviour. This is often an invincible obstacle for our efforts. In a supportive environment, on the other hand, we perceive the same effort as easier and attainable.
Just like penguins need water to swim in, tennis players need a tennis court, other tennis players, and the right coaches to train, practice, match, and just have fun with. We all need other people to grow and develop. Unfortunately, we often forget that in our time, which is geared towards a completely exaggerated individuality!
If focusing on our personal strengths can help us tremendously, why do so many people in general, and tennis players in particular, focus on their “weaknesses”? Possible answers lie in our evolution, our genes, social norms and a lack of awareness of our strengths.
Problems and threats often seem more pressing to human gene maintenance than focusing on strengths. Those of our ancestors who were cautious, reserved, and/or alert to problems and dangers were more likely to survive than those who overlooked them.
Focusing on what may be wrong, dangerous or problematic, avoiding it and improving it has become an integral part of the survival of the human species. Similar to the focus on what can go wrong, problems seem to have a magical attraction for many tennis players.
How else can the “swearing”, “whining” or “yelling” on the tennis court be explained? For these tennis players, their sensory structures are more strongly bound to “negative stimuli”
In what is known as “tunnel vision”, many inexperienced players concentrate primarily on the “problematic” tennis shot and thus close themselves off from the rest of their tennis game. In particular, social norms, such as the classic fear of excessive self-centredness and unnecessary self-praise, prevent us from speaking freely about our strengths.
Our evolution and social norms contribute to what is probably the most important reason for our focus on weaknesses: many people are simply not aware of their strengths at all. For example, if tennis players are asked what their weaknesses are, many of them can’t stop with their statements and descriptions.
On the other hand, when they are asked about their strengths, they stutter, become very thoughtful, or say nothing. They just don’t know what their strengths are! Unfortunately, not many of us live and grow up in a positive feedback culture, which can also be observed more and more on tennis courts around the world.
Please don’t get it wrong. Of course, at times it’s appropriate to focus on your weaknesses. We should all try to improve our personal weaknesses so that they do not harm us. This is the key to our tennis life! Thank you for sharing your knowledge Bane!
This news is republished from another source. You can check the original article here