Lift Emotional Brakes Access Athletic Potential
At the Jan. 2025 Australian Grand Slam, AO, American tennis pro Madison Keys, put aside her mental/emotional brakes and put together a stellar two week performance. Along the way she defeated the two currently highest ranked WTA players, Iga Światek and Aryna Sabalenka.
More pointedly during Madison’s post match interview she shared that adjusting the internal noise of expectations of herself and professional career provided the mental freedom to access her potential during the big event. From a young age coaches, family, friends prognosticated she would one day became a Slam Champion. For years she shouldered the burden of feeling as though she wasn’t living up to what others felt she should accomplish in her career. These expectations slipped from being a positive motivation to an emotional burden as time wore on.
Through therapy, and she differentiates the difference between sport performance psychology and personal therapy which intersect but have separate focuses. Through therapy she untangled expectations and began to work through, would she ever win a Slam and if not does it mean that she had failed to reach her professional potential?
Madison’s story is not isolated to tennis. It occurs in all sports where young talent can become bogged down in the great expectations mine field. Forecasting from coaches, families, friends, media can develop into, “I should, ought to, must, can’t, and if I don’t I have failed.” This mindset can mistakenly become muddled with the internal belief for an athlete of “I am less than.” As developing athletes climb competitive ladders in their sport there are many challenges that come into play. Injuries, being on a team that doesn’t fit for them, being under developed for the expectations assigned to them, adjusting to a new level of competition, to name a few.
Where Madison’s self discovery can aid any athlete in any sport is to become clear about who you are as a person separate from your accomplishments as an athlete. There is overlap. When Madison reached the point mentally/emotionally that she could accept herself and proudly walk away from her professional tennis career with or without a Grand Slam trophy the internal noise she had been carrying quieted down.
Obviously this is a process. Making peace with athletic accomplishments particularly when there is evidence of being able to compete effectively with the best is not to give up but to engage differently. Madison commented that through the process of accepting the mental roadblocks, nerves, mental dialogue, expectations, and within match play remained committed to creating opportunities to win she noted feeling more clear headed and became a better problem solver. She still put in the physical and technical work during the off season but taking off the emotional brakes she had been clutching allowed her access to this sweet reward.
The link to her interview is worth a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xabQ3WlRcv0
