[00:00:05.160] - CJ Johnson
What if I told you that chasing wins is the reason that you're stuck or frustrated? Today, we're flipping the script on how you think about improvement. And this episode is something that you know is going to be near and dear to our hearts here at Pickleball Therapy. It's about process over results. Hey, everybody. My name is C. J. Johnson, and I'm not your regular host of Pickleball Therapy. Tony Roig is taking some well-deserved time with the family this week. And rather than dive into the archive, it's the perfect opportunity for me to jump on and to record this episode. Before I get into this, just a couple of housekeeping items. We have, for those of you who are Pickleball System members, be on the lookout. We have Pickleball System system, some information about Pickleball System 2. 0 coming your way, so please make sure that you check your inbox. And if you are not Pickleball System members yet, it is our step-by-step solution to help you become the pickleball player that you know that you can be, we are going to be opening a new class in September. So get on to our email list.

[00:01:24.700] - CJ Johnson
That is how you're going to find out everything that's going on Have a butter pickleball. And I got to tell you, we got a lot coming your way to help you with improvement for the rest of '20. I can't believe we're in the second half of 2025. All right, let's get back to process versus results. Now, if you're a regular podcast listener. This is not a new concept. Tony talks about this all the time, and it's one of the things that we share. It's one of the things that we share as athletes is how we think think about the improvement journey. And recently, we're just a few weeks past. I'm recording this in July. So we're just a week or so away from the Wimbleton Finals. And one of the things that I have always loved to do, I think this is a great insight for you as an athlete, is to listen to the press conferences that are held after... They're held pretty much for every sporting event. But boy, I'll tell you, when it's a major sporting event where the pressure is really on, where it's different from the regular going on in that sport, meaning that if you listen to tennis when they're playing at a major or golf when they're playing at a major, basketball when they're playing in the finals, the pressure is on just a little bit differently there.

[00:03:01.900] - CJ Johnson
And some of the insights that you can get from these press conferences, these little nuggets about how the athlete thinks and what the athlete was feeling, they're gold. They are just gold to your mental improvement journey because they often open up and tell you about the tools that they used to get over some of those humps. In fact, I will link to a blog post that I did several years ago. It was the year that... Oh, gosh, his name is now forgetting me. Jordan Speef won the Open Championship, and it was back and forth. He was falling apart, and it looked like he wasn't going to win. And his press conference was just amazing. So I will put that link in the show notes. But I want to talk about Wimbledon last week and what specifically happened in the women's finals. And there really were two stories in the final. So let me just set the scenario for you, for those of you who are not tennis fans. Wimbledon comes six weeks after the French Open, and the French Open is played on clay. So there's a very limited amount of prep time for them to play on grass.

[00:04:26.330] - CJ Johnson
Essentially, the only time that they really play on grass is between the French and Wimbleton. So players have, as I said, a very limited amount of time. And I've never played on grass, but my understanding is that it just plays differently. And you have to have a different skillset. And this six-week period that players have to navigate is really difficult if you're not a natural playing on the grass court. So get to the finals. And you have to remember, in a grand slam, these are the top players in the world. And in order just to get to the finals, you have to win six matches. So both ladies won six really challenging matches. Now, there's a fascinating story to the woman who who lost. But I really want to focus because we want to talk about process versus results. I really want to focus on the woman who won. So the woman who won, Iga Shwaitek, at one point in time was the number one player in the world. Her ranking has slipped some for a variety of reasons, but she's never played well on grass. In fact, I think the last several Wimbletons, she has been out, I think the furthest she ever got was about the third round.

[00:05:59.750] - CJ Johnson
So She has been out very early. And from all accounts, she's out early because her game just doesn't traditionally set up well for the grass court. So she has struggled to play on grass. So here she is. She gets to the finals. She wins six matches in the finals. She wins 6-0, 6-0. So her opponent does not win a game. Now, her opponent had some struggles of her own, as I mentioned. But frankly, let's not take anything away from the way Igo Shwaitek played. She played incredible. She played incredible tennis. It was like she could do no wrong. So when she gets off court, even before the press conference, Pam Shriver is there to interview her. And I forget exactly how she asked the question, but it was something about, what happened? What Why did you do differently? You never made it through the third round. And here you've now won seven matches, and the last one, very convincingly, on grass. What changed? And what she talked about was the process. In fact, she said she never thought that she could win Wimbleton. Isn't that interesting? She was the number one player in the world.

[00:07:25.480] - CJ Johnson
She said she never thought she could win Wimbleton. And what she talked about was what she did after the French Open before Wimbleton started. She said her and her coach took some time off, and they went to work on the skill sets that she was going to need to play well on grass. She worked on movement, and I don't remember a couple of the other details that she gave. I do remember movement because movement is such an underrated skill in our sport. But she She took time off, I think two or three weeks. She didn't play the tournaments that happen. They're like prep tournaments that happen between the French and the Wimbleton. She skipped the first few. She played the last few, but she didn't play the first few to work on these skillsets. And that's what she talked about, is she talked about the process, not the results. I'm going So I went through with our TPS Plus members. I'm going through and we're doing a book club study, and we're talking about the confidence cycle. We're working from a book called Sport Psychology for Dummies, and we're talking about the Confidence cycle. And one of the things that's inside of the confidence cycle and ways to build your confidence are focusing on the things that you can control.

[00:08:56.860] - CJ Johnson
You can control the process process. You can never control the results. Results are really completely out of your hands. And it was interesting to me that recently I was analyzing one of our surveys. We've just recently done a survey analyzing going through this survey. And one of the sentiments that came out loud and clear was the feeling that players, especially as they get around that three, five-ish level, that they're feeling stuck and they're feeling frustrated. Also, what came out in this survey was that only 32 % of the players in that survey were actively practicing. Now, I know that pickle ball is an amazingly fun game to play. Who doesn't want to play? But if you're really looking at your improvement and you really want to improve? You have to look at the process, and the process needs to include some practice. You don't have to go to the nth degree that Iga Shwaitek did. But as She said she focused on the process. She started working on her movement. I'm sure her and her coach were working on her strokes. She was working on all of the things that she needed to do to prepare her game, to to play on a grass surface.

[00:10:34.160] - CJ Johnson
And so that's one of the things that I think sometimes as pickleball players, we omit. And I don't think we do that on purpose. Most pickleball players come to the sport without a sporting background, without any tools to understand how do you improve, what are the things that you need to do. And because we're a game that keeps score, it's super easy to get caught up in the wins. At the end of the day, there's always going to be a score announced, and I see players go through their games in their mind, how many did I win and how many did I lose? Again, you can't control the wins. But what you can control is the process. So let's start by taking a look at what are the processes that you've put in place to help you on your improvement journey. As an example, you've already done one. If you are a regular podcast listener, you have taken steps, you've added the podcast to your weekly processes to help you on your mental journey, to bring a different skill set to the courts with you. And For a lot of players, listening to the podcast once a week, and I know that many of you do it on your way to the courts, it puts you in the right frame of mind to play.

[00:12:13.980] - CJ Johnson
For many of you, It doesn't need to go beyond that. Now, for some of you, there's probably another layer to that. As an example, the next step in the process would be instead of just listening to the podcast, is to pick a podcast that really resonates with you, do some writing about it. I think that writing shows us some of the challenges that we go through. It illuminates those for us. And then put into place some things to help you to get through those challenges. Another thing would be if you're going to take it to a deeper level. You know, Coach Pete We're huge fans of Coach Pete and Compete, Learn, Honor. In fact, if you look back here, if you're on YouTube, I've got Coach Pete right back here. And even if you're a Coach Pete fan, you may not be familiar with this. This is the Compete, Learn, Honor playbook. Again, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see I have lots of little sticky notes in here. The playbook helps to give you exercises to help you to focus your mental game. Again, that's a step in the process. And here's the thing, it doesn't have to be complex.

[00:13:37.760] - CJ Johnson
These can be easy processes. They can be easy things to do. But you've probably heard the gold adage, and I'm going to say it wrong, but you'll get my gist, is whatever we leave to chance, generally doesn't get completed the way that we would like to see it completed. So I don't like to leave a lot of things to chance. I think that some planning, just a little bit of planning, will help me to get closer to the pickleball player that I want to be. That's going to keep my focus on the things that I can control, which is the process, not the result. And the result is ultimately the win. So focus on the process. And I think you'll be surprised, just like Iga Switek was, I think you'll be surprised at what you might get as a result of focusing on the process. That's what I've got for you this week. Tony will be back from vacation. He'll be back with you next week. In the meantime, if you like this podcast, please hit the like button. Share it with your pickle ball playing friends, because like Tony always likes to say, if you liked it, they probably will, too.

[00:15:08.400] - CJ Johnson
Have a great week and have fun out on the courts the next time you get out.