I have had a few moments where I thought, “Okay, I’m ready for it. I’ve been process oriented and now it’s time to deliver. Now I have to execute”
Then I come back to so what does results-oriented mean?
Should I try to play different? My brain just doesn’t understand it. Maybe if somebody can come and explain to me what Result-oriented is then ok.
For example, I saw too many times where I would sacrifice good tennis to give myself an immediate chance of winning. So, in other words, I would purposely play worse tennis in order to win, which is complete gibberish in my brain. But a lot of us do it. We actively play worse tennis to give ourselves a bigger chance of winning because we’re afraid to lose. Sometimes you win like that.
The problem is that the body remembers that. Your brain can tell you “Yeah, but it was only that match, but our nervous system remembers”. Every time you do that, it goes into your muscle memory and then it gets more and more difficult to do the right thing because the body is going to remember what you do, not what your brain tells you to do, because it’s too slow. If you have to think about everything and get it out into your racket, it’s too slow. Let’s say just for a round number 500 that is a lot of decisions you have to make. Every time you create a bad habit, you have to override that. At least I had to. So, the best way for me to do it was to focus on the right thing to do in the long run and not sacrificing that.
Would you be able to tell?
I will argue to you that all the players in the top hundred. They play roughly the same way no matter who they play against. Like if you only saw Djokovic play and you didn’t see his opponent. You couldn’t tell who he’s playing. Maybe you could tell if it was righty or a lefty, but it’s roughly the same.
So, I think the less swings there are in how you play, the better you are. The closer you are to an identity and how you want to play, the better you are.
If you go down a level, you can have one guy who’s moon balling one day and then the next day he’s playing serve and volley. Great tactical awareness, but it’s a little bit all over the place. That’s why I always feel that the process is the best way to be result oriented.
Finding a way to win
One thing I hear a lot is you just got to find a way to win the match. It’s such hollow words for me. What does that mean? Like, how do you get the best way to win a match? How do you find a way and not just in 1 match? You have to find a way in 10 matches. How do you do that? Yeah, 1 time you’re going to find a way by playing dropshot lop on every shot. But out of 10 what gives you the best chance of finding a way?
I think the best way to see tennis is over a big number of matches. You’ve got to have a big reference point. Can you hit a continental forehand slap from the corner of the fence into the other corner? Yes, of course you can. Is it worth basing a career on? No. Absolutely pointless. So, don’t bother with it. Can I save a match by serving underarm chip and charge, serve and volley and hitting with my grip at the net? Probably one out of a million. It’s worth wasting time on — no. So, what gives me the best chance of finding a way? Most time. That’s what’s more important.
I do feel that some people can benefit from having a result-oriented goal, but not basing their immediate actions on it. So, for example, some people want to be number one in the world, so that’s fine. Or they want to win a grand slam. Yes, I’m for that, but that’s the final cake. For example, be results oriented. That’s fine. You can be result-oriented. You want to be number one in the world. How does that come out in the next match? What gives you the best chance of being number one in the world? That should be the result orientation, and not winning the match.
So if you are trying to base your game on dominating the middle of the court with your forehand, but you are too scared to do that in a match and you run around, hit your backhand and you found a way to win a match? Yeah, you found a way, but does it bring you closer to your goal? No.
So did you find a way?
So, there is a place for ranking goals for some people in the sense that he can help with the application. You can use it as a way to guide how you’re going to get there.
So, for example, one thing we did with the Davis Cup team is that our goal is to play the world Group, so whenever we make a decision, we’re asking ourselves what gives us the best chance of achieving to play world group. That’s absolutely fine and that’s where the process comes in.
So, you can have the result goal and then you have to find the process and trust the process to get to that goal.
Ranking goals
I never really understood ranking goals because it was just explained to me you have got to be e.g. top 300 at the end of the year. That is too short term. If I want to be a top 300 player that I can relate to. If you are a player and wants to be number one in the world, it’s much easier to match that application. If you want to be number one in the world? Okay. Then you have to be very, very professional, maybe even obsessed. If you want to be top 300, you might not have to have the same application. So, I think it’s a very important distinction. That’s why I don’t like short term ranking goals or targets like that. I like it as a big plan because it can function as a map of what are you trying to achieve with tennis.
That’s also one of the differences with Michael Ymer and me. I didn’t have any goals as such. I just wanted to be as good as I could. Whereas he has a little stronger ambition in that sense, and I think it works. That’s when we can keep it very long term. It defines the process and then we trust the process and then the results come as a result of that process makes complete sense to me.
Adam: That is also a distinction of where is the motivation coming from and also what are then the actions towards that goal. And where the result-oriented could be potentially be wrong is if it get in to short term actions that are working against your long term goals.
Exactly, because also short term results you can’t control. Like, it’s very good and ambitious if you want to be top 10 at the end of the year. But. If you’re your career goal is to be number one in the world and you want to be top 10 at the end of the year and do you believe in a certain way of scheduling your tournaments and training and then after six months of the year you are behind in being top 10. So, you’re going to change your believes to be top 10? Are you going to still be on the path for number one?
Because let’s say you had a decent year. You just lost some close matches against better players. You had some bad draws. Are you going to add tournaments to chase top 10? Is it important that you top 10 right now if your life goal is number one?
So that’s why I think it’s very good to have a clear end goal that determines what are we trying to achieve here? If you don’t achieve it, you can obviously change that. I’m sure that Novak Djokovic is not having his ambition to be number one in the world anymore. He probably has something about it being the guy who has won the most Grand Slams. So how do you do that? I don’t think it will work if he said I have to win in the next five attempts.
I’ve seen it so many times that you compromise on your beliefs and your values and you start changing what works well. The best example of that is when you start chasing tournaments, win points, and therefore you sacrifice the way you train and then you do something else, so you don’t do what got you where you were. Then you start fading away and then you have to reinvent your game.
Want to listen to the full episode with Freddie Nielsen? 👇🏻
