Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy. My name is Tony Roig, and I'm glad to be with you this week. Today we take another step along our mental Pickleball journey, whether it's your Pickleball sanity, wanting to play calmer, more focused Pickleball, a desire to improve, or any combination of these or podcast is designed with you in mind. My goal today is to share with you a way of looking at Pickleball that will help you have a positive and healthy relationship with the sport we all love.

Today, we're gonna be talking about something that is very timely because it's around the new year. We're talking about goals and how to use goals in a more positive and constructive fashion. Now, I know that goals can happen anytime during the year. We can have goal set goals and, and modify goals, things like that. But usually at the beginning of the year is when everybody's focused on goals.

So today's a good time to talk about goals and again, how to use them more positively in your Pickleball. Before we dive into the main subject today, a couple of quick announcements. Number one, the academy. Our our academy is gonna be launching this spring beyond the lookout for Academy courses. We already have a few up. If you wanna check 'em out at you,

go to better Pickleball dot com and you'll see our list of classes there. We have on Enforce Airs class. That's really good class. Got a lot of good feedback on that one. And on our partner play class, we had versions of that class last year during Black Friday, and we now have them in a full course inside our Better Pickleball Academy.

So make sure you check those out. And if you're in the need for shoes, I know the new year, hopefully you got some shoes for Christmas, but if you didn't, our friends at Tyro have some new shoes that just came out, the SMASH shoes. I'm still waiting to try 'em, but I can tell you that the ones that I use,

the, the, the, the, the Bali Drive, and I forget the name of the other one right now, but the, the Tyro shoes that I use are excellent shoes, and I'm sure the smash is no different. And if you want to check those out, I'll put a link in the show notes to get you a discount. It's also an affiliate code that helps support our podcast.

And as we get into the podcast, if you have a minute to rate and review the podcast, we certainly appreciate that it's helpful to other players like you who may benefit from the content of this podcast. They'll have a higher chance of coming across this information if you've, if it's been rated and reviewed by other listeners such as yourself. All right, let's dive into goals in depth and talk about goals and how to use them constructively,

how to use 'em in a more healthy fashion. Now, it's, there's nothing wrong with having goals. Goals are a fine thing. The problem that can arise sometimes when as Pickleball players is in how we frame out our goals. And, and there's ways to framing out goals that can lead us to frustration. So what we wanna do first is let's talk about how we frame our goals.

You know, we always talk about framework and framing in, in both in our podcast as well as in our teachings on in our Better Pickleball Academy, as well as a Pickleball system. So framing's always gonna speak where we're gonna start everything from. And so what we gotta do is we gotta start talk, start talking about how we're going to define our goal.

That's really important because when we set a goal, what we're trying to do is measure against it, right? The reason to set a goal is to say, okay, did I accomplish a goal or not accomplish a goal? Otherwise, the goal is irrelevant. So how we define the goal is gonna be key to whether it works for us and whether it helps us avoid potential problems later down the line.

And the key here is to understand the difference between long-term goals and short-term goals, because we need to keep those two separate and avoid confusion between them, because each operates in a very different sphere. Short-term goals are about the, now they're very, they're finite. They have a finite measurement to them, and a finite time to them. Example, I wanna be able to hit 20 dinks in a row without making a mistake,

right? Without missing a, a shot. That is a short term goal that can be measured. I can take steps to accomplish it, and I can know when I have reached that goal. If I reached that goal, I'll know, okay, now I'm ready to, I I'm able to hit 20 dinks in a row without missing it. Long-term goals are different.

'cause long-term goals are about always remember short-term goals are, goals are about now they're finite. Long-term goals are about the always, they're, they're infinite, right? They're just something that sticks with us during our Pickleball journeys or Pickleball careers, if you want to call it that. It's, there are things like, I want to become a better player. I want the respect of my peers,

of my other players at the courts. I want to improve as a Pickleball player. Those are infinite kind of goals. Those are goals that have no real finish line to them. You can measure steps along the way. Sure, right? You can set up short term or medium term if you prefer goals along the way, but you can't really measure the,

the, the entire thing by becoming a better player because there's no finished product to measure, right? As long as you're alive and wanna play Pickleball and grow, then you're gonna always have something to work towards. So there's never a finish line that you get to and say, you know what? I have arrived, I'm done in this, in this long-term goal of becoming an improved player or a better player.

As an example at best, which you can tell is that today I'm more proficient than I was yesterday and tomorrow. Hopefully I'll understand the game a little bit better than I do today. But there's nowhere to arrive at it. It's really important to, to get our arms around this idea that there is no finish line in terms of our Pickleball improvement journey.

Our Pickleball improvement paths have no stopping point as long as we continue to want to grow. As long as you continue to remain curious, as long as you continue to remain interested in knowing more about Pickleball and growing as a Pickleball player, you'll always have something to learn. And the reason this is really important is because having a finish line can lead you to potential frustration.

What happens is you start applying finite thinking to an infinite situation, and there's this whole concept about playing finite game versus infinite game. And I'll, I'll address that in a, in a different podcast, but you can apply that to your learning process as well. And what it means is there's certain things that you do that are finite. The example I gave earlier about 20 dings,

you can think about the same thing in terms of, you know, my objective is to become a 2.5 rated player, or a 3.5 or a 4.0 rated player, or my objective is to play competitively in a 3.5 tournament, something like that. Those are great. Those are short-term goals that you can play in a tournament. And, you know, say that you,

you made it to the middle of the field, you're competitive. So you played a competitive tournament at 3.5, accomplishing your short-term goal. But having, but, but generally speaking, when we think about ourselves as Pickleball players, right? The more infinite view of ourselves, the more long-term lens or view of ourselves, what we're replying is we're replying an infinite lens to,

or an infinite perspective to what we're doing and our game. And that's where we can run into problems when we try and apply finite thinking to it, right? When we try and say to ourselves, or when we say to ourselves something like, I'm just not getting better. I'm just not improving. Or, or When am I gonna get there? When am I gonna,

when am I gonna arrive? Right? There is no to arrive. And if you're asking the other questions like, when am I going to improve? When am I getting better? My guess is you're getting better. Now, if you're doing anything positively towards your game, including listening to this podcast, you're taking a positive step forward in your game, you are better than you would've been had you not done it.

Because here's the, lemme give you a little tricky thing that you can do when you're tricky thing that can happen to you when you're thinking about yourself and your improvement, is we compare ourselves to some idealized version of ourselves. And I'll dive into this more detail in another podcast, but we, we, I compare ourselves to an idealized version of ourselves that isn't reality.

The reason it's not reality is because we don't have a control to measure it against. Let's assume that yesterday you played and you played the best you've ever played, and you play in a week, and you don't play as well as you did last, you know, yesterday, right? So yesterday is the best you've ever played. It's your high watermark,

and in a week you don't play as well. What you're gonna do is you may say to yourself, you know what, I'm, I'm, I'm not getting as, I'm not improving as something's happened. But what you don't know is what would've happened to you next week, right? Had you not put in the work in the intervening seven days, right?

Had you not done what you've done in the intervening seven days, you might have played worse. In other words, you played amazing yesterday, you didn't play great a week from now, right? But you could've played worse a week from now had you not done the things like, listen to this podcast, think about the game, watch a watch a video inside the Pickleball system and study it.

Do a little bit of drilling. Whatever you did, you'd never know what could have happened otherwise, right? In terms of your performance moving forward. But big picture, I think it's clear to know that it, or it, it's, it's easy to conclude, I should say, that if you're putting in the work, you are making forward progress in your game.

The difficulty is measuring it because you're, you're dealing in an infinite situation. How good am I as a player relative to what I could have been as a player? And as at a given moment in time, is an infinite kind of a thought. It's very difficult to measure, possible to measure, I would say. And so you wanna keep in mind when you're thinking about yourself,

big picture in terms of your game that you're playing the infinite game, right? You're, you're in an infinite situation that is not capable of measurement. And the example that I'll give you as a, as a hopefully make you feel a little better about yourself and your game. Not example, but the, the, the, what I'll hold up as a,

as a, as a comparison are the best pro players on the planet, the best pro players on the planet, the ones with all the medals, et cetera, continue to work on their game. Now, why would they continue to try and strive and get better and improve if they've already arrived, right? They're the best players on the planet. Why do they have to do anything?

They've already gotten there, haven't they? To this finish line, this imaginary finish line that exists out there? No, because there is no finish line. And even the best players on the planet, the one with all the medals you could ever hope to get if you wanted to play tournaments, right? Know that there was always something to learn in this beautiful sport of Pickleball.

And what I suggest that you start thinking about in terms of your journey as a player is not just understanding that it has no end, right? That there is no finish line for you to get to in this race. 'cause it isn't a race. But is to understand, is to, is to embrace the foreverness of it, because that's one of the beauties of this sport.

You will never exhaust this sport. You will never run out of things to do, to learn to get better at, to understand better about Pickleball. I can tell you as a player who's been playing for, oh, going on, going on, this will be my ninth year of play, I guess is doing the math. Eight or nine years of playing a long time,

long enough to know that I know a lot about Pickleball, but I still have a lot more to learn about this awesome sport. So embrace the lifelong nature of your Pickleball learning journey of the, of the path that's in front of you. Because as long as you want to continue walking it, Pickleball will have something to teach you. So change your perspective.

Be thankful for that ability to learn and keep growing. Understand that your long-term goal in Pickleball is an infinite goal. It's a goal that does not have a finish line, does not have a measurement to it. Understand that every time that you take one step forward in your game and another step forward in your game, that's awesome, right? You're gonna be able to look backward and say,

okay, I've traveled in my game, right? What I said earlier, tomorrow I play better than today. Next week I understand the game better than I did last week, et cetera. So you make forward progress in your game, but there's not somewhere to get to. So don't think that you're behind, don't think that you're behind schedule anything like that because there's always gonna be somewhere else to move in your,

in your Pickleball game. By keeping this kind of perspective on your, on your goals and your goal setting and your measurement of your goals, you'll be able to avoid potential frustration and potential stress with yourself about not doing the things or not getting to the places that somehow we think we should get to. Applying a finite, finite framing, which doesn't apply to an infinite situation.

So, you know, this understanding this, this, this step in your process is another improvement in your mental Pickleball journey. As we walk this mental ball, mental Pickleball journey together, this is another step along that process. Now, if you ever feel like, if you ever feel like you've strayed from the path that we've embarked upon, right? This mental journey process,

or if you need a little pep talk, we're gonna be here for you. These podcasts are designed to be here for you. We'll continue to produce these podcasts for you, but also remember that you can go back to a prior podcast or this one and listen to it again to get that lift that you need in your game to refocus you on your mental journey.

And as always, if you know a player who could benefit from joining us along our mental journey path together, share this podcast with 'em. Remember, if you find the podcast useful, they probably will too. Keep enjoying the gift that is Pickleball and I'll see you next time.