Novak Djokovic Revealed His Secret
After winning a record-breaking 23 Grand Slam titles, he told us how it was made possible and how you can create your own future as well.
On Sunday, tennis star Novak Djokovic completed something I don’t think anyone in the tennis world ever expected to see a male tennis player accomplish ever.
With his win of the French Open, he has now won a record-breaking 23 Grand Slam singles titles. This is almost hard to believe, despite witnessing it before my eyes.
I was telling my dad after the match: “Remember when Pete Sampras won his 14th title and everyone thought that was an amazing number?”
That happened in 2002.
Just 7 years later, Roger Federer broke that record when he won his 15th Grand Slam. He later went on to win a total of 21.
Exactly a year ago, Rafael Nadal caught up to and passed Federer, winning his 22nd Grand Slam title. And now, Djokovic has them all beat — with 23 Grand Slam titles.
The fact that these three men have won a combined 66 Grand Slams titles, all while competing against one another, is just unheard of, unprecedented, and may never happen again.
I’m tiring of trying to figure out who the “GOAT” is. I thought it was Sampras. Then it was clearly Federer. But then there’s Nadal and now Djokovic, who is still playing at the top of his game and has his sights set on even more Grand Slam titles.
What allows such few, rare individuals to achieve such greatness?
In his on-court victory speech on Sunday, Novak Djokovic used the moment to tell us. His wife and two young children were in the crowd and he had in mind the young people who might learn a lesson and be inspired by something he might say.
Now that he has achieved the pinnacle of what any male tennis player has ever achieved — he told us his secret. (You can watch it here at the 7:10 minute mark).
Pay attention because this is gold.
“I would like to send a message to every young person out there, whatever you are pursuing in the world, whether it’s tennis, sports or anything else,” said Novak.
“I was a seven year old dreaming that I could win Wimbledon and become number one in the world some day,” he said.
“I’m beyond grateful and blessed to be standing here with so many incredible achievements, but one thing is for sure: I feel I had the power to create my own destiny. I tried to visualize every single thing in my life, not only believe it but really feel it with every cell in my body and I just want to send a message out there to every young person: Be in the present moment. Forget about what happened in the past; future is something that is just going to happen. But if you want a better future, you create it. Take the means in your hands. Believe it. Create it.”
It’s hard to underestimate the power of visualization.
I have read about it in so many books and have heard many great people talk about it. And as a junior tennis player, a sports psychologist taught these visualization techniques to my brother and I.
Novak is right — visualization is not simply about believing you can do something, although that is important.
One way you can use this technique is to take a few minutes in the morning and do the following:
Be by yourself.
Keep your devices far away.
Close Your Eyes
Visualize Your Ideal Day.
Actually see yourself accomplishing the things you want to accomplish.
Go another step: FEEL IT.
How will you feel in those moments?
Maybe you are a lawyer and you have a court case today. Visualize yourself walking into that court room. How will you feel? Will you be nervous? Anxious? Exhausted? During your visualization ritual, really try to feel the emotions you will anticipate feeling.
This could apply in many other types of circumstances.
Do you have a job interview? Are you making a sales call to a potential client? Do you have to deal with stress in a relationship?
Visualize how that will feel. More specifically, how will you feel?
Anticipate any positive or negative emotions. And then visualize yourself dealing with the situations confidently.
How would you like those situations to go?
For a tennis player, they certainly have to be physically fit. They have to be skilled. They have to have put in the reps over and over and over again for years. They have to be mentally tough at the right moments in every match.
But they also need to visualize situations in advance.
What will it feel like to be up 5-3 in a match? Or down 5-2 (as Novak was in the first set of the French Open final).
What will it feel like to be exhausted from the heat? To have fans cheering for your opponent because he’s the underdog? To have a bad call go against you? To have Tom Brady watching your match while sitting in your box next to your wife and kids? Will you be nervous? How will you then play through those nerves, those fears, those anxieties? Visualize yourself dealing with all these situations and conquering them confidently.
This is all necessary mental preparation.
As Novak said, you have to visualize every single thing in your life. Don’t simply believe it, but feel it with every cell in your body.
One more thing he said: Be Present in the Moment. Too many people are living in the past. While the past is a great teacher, the past is over.
There are 3 main types of way each of us lives in the past:
Some people are traumatized by their past.
Some people replay the past as a series of “What if?” moments.
Others relive the glories of their past. Maybe they are nostalgic for what seemed like a better time in their lives.
The past is a great teacher. But the past is over.
While Novak visualized creating a better future and told us we can each create a better future for ourselves, he also briefly cautioned about living there as well.
Don’t live in the future. Build for the future. Yes. Visualize for the future. Yes.
But be present in the current moment.
The present is what you can most control. The present is where you have to put in the work, physically, mentally, and spiritually. The present is where we build ourselves. The present is the time we spend with others.
A technique you can build right now:
Put total focus on where you are right now.
Stop looking at your phone or computer. Stop scrolling.
Look up right now and take a look at your surroundings in the physical world. What do you see around you?
Enjoy this moment.
Incorporate gratitude into each moment. For example: before diving into your meal. Pause. Think. Reflect. Maybe be grateful the food is there. Maybe be grateful for the farmer who made it. The truck driver who delivered it. The grocer who made it available. Find someone or some thing to be grateful for, while remaining in the moment of enjoying what you are about to eat.
The physical world around us is the one our Creator gave us. It might also be one we have constructed ourselves or that someone else provided for us.
It is the world in which to live. The world to be present in.
Start each day with those visualization techniques. It’s mental work but it will make for an absolutely world-class day and ultimately lead to a world-class future.
Just ask Novak Djokovic.
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