If you want to know what it means to be in the zone, watch Novak Djokovic’s semifinal and final at the recent Australian Open. During this Grand Slam, he progressively increased his level to sharply beat French player Lucas Pouille in semifinal but more surprisingly to give no chance to Nadal in final, who had yet played an amazing tennis until the semifinals and was expected to challenge Djokovic.
After winning the semifinal, Djokovic shared that he was in the zone: “Every professional athlete hopes to reach it”. He describes it as “one of those moments when, almost effortlessly, you execute automatically anything you intend to do. You don’t even need to think anymore. You are guided by a force that is beyond you. You feel divine, like you are in another dimension. This is an extraordinary feeling we all hope to experience.”
After 18 months of struggle both physically (with an elbow injury ended with surgery) and mentally (first with something that looked like a burn out after winning the 4 Grand Slams in a row and then to rebuild his confidence), Djokovic has become again a winning machine, taking the last 3 Grand Slams. To come back to such a high level, Djokovic has shown, just like Federer and Nadal before him, humility and patience, has worked hard on his technical skills and physical preparation but also on his mental preparation as he shared after winning the tournament. To the question “what would you have answered if you had been told a year ago that you would win the next 3 Grand Slams?”, Djokovic replied:
“That it was not impossible but highly unlikely. I don’t want to look arrogant but I have always believed in myself. This is probably the most important secret of my success. I believe a lot in visualization. I use it a lot. I have used it more than ever in the last 12 months after my surgery, because I was not playing well, I didn’t feel good on the court, I was questioning everything, I was doubting my ability to play at my best level again because I didn’t know how much my surgery would impact my game. This has been an instructive turn for me. I wouldn’t change anything if I could go back.”
We can see that his impressive mental toughness comes from a strong self-confidence, even with lots of doubts along the way, and practicing mental training techniques like visualization. Also named mental imagery, this technique enables the athlete to use the same neural pathways and is great to use when recovering from an injury, when you can’t yet train normally or right after coming back, when you need to work on your moves. It’s also very useful to (re)build your confidence. And it helps to get in the zone, as other mental and emotional skills.
If you want to get a chance to reach the zone, improve your mental and emotional skills. And if you want to know how to improve your mental and emotional skills, you know who to contact.
Take care,
Evan Bernache 