Performance vs. Results

Have you been in a match where you get surprised that you can actually win, but then you think about it, and end up losing?, OR Have you been in a tournament, you find out that the 'rating' of your next opponent is higher than yours, and you start thinking you will lose?, OR Have you been in a match where you already know you have a good chance to win, you put extra pressure on yourself to win, and end up losing? You are not alone.

Thinking about a match result or outcome (before, during, and even after the match) is probably one of your worst ‘mental enemies’. This might sound confusing, perhaps we should think hard about winning so we can actually win? - The problem we see is that thinking about winning (or losing) tends to mentally derail you from what you actually need to do and focus on.

We all sometimes think about a match result, but how can we put the result aside and focus on what we need to do? The answer is not simple, it is individual, and there are psychological tools that can help you uncover that answer for you. However, we think we can all benefit from the following general perspective.

We can approach table tennis with a problem-solving mindset. Specifically for matches, this means constantly looking for a solution or advantage to increase your chance to win the match, and if you lose the match, your job is to work out why you lost, and come up with a solution for the future to improve your odds, and the next time you play the same player (or find yourself in a similar situation with another player), prove your solution to see if it works, and if it doesn’t (or needs more refining), the cycle repeats and repeats until you find the solution.

The solution might involve a phycological/mental element you need to address, or a technique you need to improve, or perhaps a physical skill you need to work on, or maybe you need to rethink the tactics against this player. More often than not, the solution is a combination of these factors, and it is not one single thing.

So, instead of focusing on winning or losing, we recommend having a plan first, and focusing on putting your best performance, that is from our perspective, trying to play to the best of your abilities. In this way, you are giving yourself the best possible chance of winning, and more importantly, if you lose, you will be able to review the match based on “your best possible performance on the day” and not an "underperformance" because your mind distracted you thinking about the result.

We should also recognize that the result is not only the consequence of your actions, remember that there is an opponent on the other side of the table, so the result is the consequence of the combined actions of both players (yourself and your opponent). One could argue: "The actions of your opponent (among other factors) are outside your control", and if we agree with this statement, we can conclude that the result is therefore outside your control, so then the question is: What is the point on focusing on the result if we cannot control it? Perhaps shall we rather focus on those things we can actually control?

After a match, it is also good to separate in your mind your performance and the result, always knowing that if you increase your performance, you will maximize your chances of winning next time. Yes, it is understandable to not be jumping out of joy after losing a match, but after you recover emotionally, if you can separate "losing" from your "performance", this change of mindset is a massive development for yourself, and it will help you to improve in the long run because your mind is now directing you to the areas you need to pay attention to, and it will also help you to cope mentally during matches.

You can break down the match into your 'Areas of Performance' (Some general examples: serve & receive, footwork, strokes, mental game, fitness, etc.). You might have lost the match but perhaps your performance in a particular area was better, and therefore, you can see the improvement on this particular area, or you could have lost the match but your performance on all areas was good (this is also a possibility on certain situations). Another real possibility is that you won the match but your performance on most areas was low (For example, you performed exceptionally well on the serve & receive area, and that was enough to make the difference, but your footwork was poor, your attacking strokes were missing all the time, your were getting too frustrated after losing a point, and by the end of the match you were struggling to keep up physically).

The conclusion from the previous paragraph is that the result does not gives you the 'whole story', and if you are serious about improving, we recommend to look separately all the 'Areas of Performance', and not just look at the result. The best possible way we think you can see your 'Areas of Performance' is via video recording. We recommend to video record both training sessions and matches, and do video analysis. We think a video of a match that you played (specially, if you lost) is a 'private lesson' in itself with lots of learnings that you are missing. A coach can also look at this video with fresh eyes, identify situations you haven't been able to identify yourself so far, and give you good advice for your improvement.

Top players focus on their performance all the time and how to maximize it (some random examples; the mental routines, the tactics against a particular player, the adjustment required on the strokes, etc., etc., etc..) and they also mentally train to maintain this mindset both during training sessions and matches so it becomes a habit.

Focusing on the performance (both during training and matches) will help you to achieve tangible improvement in the mid-to-long term (we think it can even generate improvement in the short term in some instances). Focusing on performance we believe it gives you a better chance, and the results shall come, not the other way around.

We hope this perspective can help you somehow :)