One thing I've been thinking about recently is self-kindness. Whether you’re a player, tennis parent, or coach reading this, I’m sure you’ve dealt with that harsh, inner critic at times.

Perhaps it’s the voice that consistently shows up for you during practices, leagues, or in tournaments. It quietly—or loudly—judges and berates you, tells you that you’re not good enough, tells you that you’re a piece of sh*t, or whatever horrible thing you can think of.

In these scenarios, we often advocate for athletes to be conscious of their self-talk. We ask them, “How are you speaking to yourself?” “Are you being kind to yourself?” “Are you speaking to yourself the way that you would speak to a friend? Doubles partner? Or someone that you love? Or are you being a horrible supporter to yourself?”

While interventions like this are a great start for athletes who are exploring sport and performance psychology, there are sometimes different scenarios that can’t be handled with more motivational and kinder self-talk.

I’ve been speaking to a lot of athletes lately who are returning from injury, working hard towards their performance goals, or feel ranking pressures and time-crunches for reaching certain levels.

In these scenarios, these athletes will often present me concerns like:

This is where self-kindness versus self-judgment is more useful. This concept comes from the self-compassion framework for athletes and it really is quite moving and powerful. I know it sounds cheesy to you to be reading this, and maybe you’re thinking, “Oh man, is this guy getting all emotional and sappy?” But hear me out.

Let’s take the example of the athlete who’s been working really hard in practice. They’re coming back from injury and they’re worried that they’re going to be nervous in their first event. There’s also fear with how their injured body part will hold up under match conditions and stress.

In this scenario, we can use tools from sport and performance psychology to reduce that fear. We can use decatastrophizing, more tangible tools like breathing skills, and even mindfulness to change the relationship of the athlete with their thoughts.

But, the more pertinent approach, in my estimation, is to basically acknowledge that it’s okay to be fearful.

It’s okay to be a little nervous.

It’s understandable to be feeling tight or anxious.

It’s okay to be a little worried whether my knee will be okay in a match scenario.

Why wouldn’t it be okay?

After all, how athletes will perform is something that is quite concerning to them. They spend hours training their skills, hours in the gym, hours preparing. Given all of this… is it not totally understandable that they’d be concerned about how they’ll perform?

This is what it means to show oneself self-kindness.

For so many athletes, the narrative is that they shouldn’t feel a certain way. That they should always be mentally tough and locked in and be ready to compete and perform at the drop of a hat.

Then, when they do start experiencing performance anxiety, worries, fears, it all of a sudden becomes, “I don’t want to feel this way.”

Now, not only does the athlete have to deal with the initial layer of fear and performance anxiety that they’re managing, but they also have to deal with an additional layer which is telling them that they shouldn’t be feeling this way. This ties into this concept worrying about worrying. The first layer is actual worry. The second layer is worrying about that initial worry.

Here’s a personal example, I’m wanting to return to competitive tennis—whatever that means at my age—and start playing in leagues, matches, and different tournaments as the summer approaches (I’m in the northern hemisphere here).

It’s been a long time since I’ve stepped onto a match-court with any consistency. (On another note, I’m really leaning into Self-Determination Theory to find my own, personal reasons for competing again).

Naturally, worries and fears do come up for me. As Novak Djokovic once said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I don’t like this idea of being positive all the time. You’re a human being. You have emotions.”

So, for my case, I can engage in self-judgement: I can be mean, harsh, and cruel to myself and say things like, “Why are you feeling this way?” “You’ve been a tennis player, tennis coach, director of a tennis program… and now you’re feeling nervous about playing some tournaments? How is that possible?”

Worse, I can further increase my suffering by being in a state of mind where I focus in on this idea that, “I don’t want to feel this way,” “I don’t want to feel nervous, anxious, or fearful,” “I shouldn’t be scared—I study this stuff.”

Or, I can show myself some self-kindness.

I can say to myself that it’s okay to feel this way.

It’s okay, after a long time of not competing, to be a little nervous about how you’re feeling. That I’m just like everyone else. That just because I study and operate in sport and performance psychology, I’m not immune from the experiences of human beings. That there will be a small part of my readership who suddenly doubts if sport and performance psychology works just in case I suffer a “bad” defeat. And that’s okay.

But here’s the key part.

Saying it’s okay doesn’t mean I have to be swept away by those emotions or be taken for a wild ride by negative thoughts. I can still use my mindfulness skills to train my attention toward where it needs to go. I can use my process goal setting skills to set my intentions during the point so I have a clear plan of execution. I can use my mental scorecard (I might write on this in the next issue) to ensure that I’m staying true to how I want to compete.

Leaning into self-kindness (versus self-judgement) isn’t a magic bullet. But it can drastically transform your experience of competing. Get out of this space that being an athlete and performer means that you have to feel a certain way.

This is not true. And self-kindness (along with some self-compassion) can be your starting block toward better performance.

That’s it for today.