My friend B. is a very good archer who competes in the Boston area. We spent a few hours on the phone last night talking about what makes a winner. I told him that I play tennis because I want to feel like a winner. Evidently I have this completely backwards. You can’t win in order to feel like a winner, you have to first feel like a winner in order to win.

This is a basic tenet of manifestation. By manifestation I mean getting the results you want: reaching your goal, hitting for the triple crown, winning a gold medal, beating your 7 year-old sister at chess. It’s the difference between setting the goal to be an Olympic athlete in your chosen sport and watching the Olympics on TV. It’s the difference between a wannabe and an is.

Am I a winner? Obviously not, my record this year is 2-6 and I yell and scream, under my breath of course, in frustration as the points slip away and I fall further behind. I guess I was under the impression that if I practiced hard enough and developed enough skills, winning would take care of itself, but that’s not quite right. If you don’t feel like a winner and you play against someone who does, you will lose.

I had a slight feeling of being a winner today while I played. It felt like calm confidence. Kind of like Kobe Bryant in the 2000 NBA playoffs against Portland when the Lakers were down by 15 points in the fourth quarter calming the crowd as if to say, “Everything’s cool, we’ll be all right, don’t worry,” followed by the biggest fourth quarter comeback ever in a game 7. That kind of feeling. It’s the oppposite of getting flustered and yelling and hanging your head because you know that you have the skills to win the game at hand so why worry, it could only make things worse.

Practice and Competition Report: played four hours: three sets with M. and practiced my serve: 2-6, 4-6, 6-2
Solutions Analysis:
1. I am pointing further towards the deuce court when I serve so I can get the serve out wide.
2. I have to snap across and over the ball on the serve else it will go into the net.
Success Analysis:
1. I’m hitting my ground strokes consistently deep.
2. I improved in each set by staying confident while uncovering and taking advantage of my opponent’s weaknesses.