Mindset: a mental guide for sport

I bought this book following the recommendation of my tennis coach. I’m just a stay at home mom who loves to play tennis whenever I can :-) I was taking lessons for a year, my tennis skills have improved - no doubt about it - but not the outcomes of the matches. The discrepancy between the level at which I could play during a lesson and how I played during a match was abysmal. It’s like there were two different people, one who could hit the ball confidently, enjoy every minute on the court and the other so tense, paralyzed, just able of pushing that ball tentatively. The worst of it : I hated tennis matches, the unfriendly looks of the opponents and the tension. At some point the question I asked myself was: what’s the point of taking tennis lessons if I don’t like to play actual tennis with people other than my husband and a couple of friends. I didn’t even care at that point if I could win. All I wanted is to be able to enjoy it.The book helped. It was a slow (and peaceful:-) revolution that took several months and is still ongoing.First tennis. I won 11 out of 12 matches I played during the last league. And I am still sometimes tense - but I do enjoy now going out and challenging myself. And when I feel the tension and feel that because of that my forehand (or backhand or the serve - luckily it’s never all three :-) doesn’t work well on that particular day - well, I don’t beat myself up, I give myself some slack and play with whatever I have at the moment. When my coach recently asked how my match went, my honest answer was “I won, but some of my playing would hurt your eyes”. And I’m ok with that.The author of the book also offers an online program on her website, friendly eyes (actually even two programs, called “Discover” and “Experience”). One is more sports oriented, closely related to the book and the other one is more general and teaches meditation. They are the most useful and helpful thing I did for myself in a long time. This is a wonderful follow up after the book. Of course I never met Ms Reardon in person but after reading the book and watching her videos, she strikes me as a genuinely kind person, she has that rare wonderful combination of competence, kindness, sense of humor and desire to make the world a better place. I enjoy her videos a great deal, the small annoyances of everyday life seem a little less important sometimes. With a friendlier and kinder way of going about sports - and life - I feel a slight difference in my relationship with people around me - and that is the most valuable lesson I took from Jackie. Being able to take a step back before reacting, see the good person behind the action that irritated me - and sometimes do nothing, or do things differently and in a calmer way. It’s surely a lifelong project... :-)A book really worth reading. Great online programs (donation based. Ms Reardon generously offers access to them, start and see for yourself).

It is a very good book I think, because it shows you the way to train your brain and emotions to build up your mindset, gives you knowledge and excersices to train your mindset.Most of the books I have began to read were just talking about famous athletes experiences, but this book is really all about teaching you.

This is a really excellent book. The principles in this book allow you to get friendly eyes and be calm not just in tennis but also in life. It helps you understand that the only person you need to impress is YOU. You do that by not focusing on the outcome i.e. win but on other goals that are within your control.Whenever I have a big match or tournament, I read some of the highlighted sections of this book and I always play much better. Looking at my doubles teammates, I had the biggest gap between my potential and my match play. Now, the delta between how I play during practice and matches has shrunk. As a bonus, I even win more matches. I thank Jackie Reardon and Hans Dekkers for this wonderful book.

Jackie Reardon presents a compelling approach to both how you and I play the game of tennis, but equally how we play in our own game of life. For many people who are too often "in their head" playing or living with reference to their story - holding on to past events or worrying about future events - this same thing occurs on the tennis court to disrupt the simple skill of playing entirely in the present. Mindset addresses your attitude, your concentration, your moment to moment enjoyment without resorting to judgment - if you seek to get more out of your tennis as well as everything else - do dive deeply into this book.PS - I am a tennis teaching professional and have first hand experience with Mindset in my day to day on court life.

This beautiful, accessible and practical book written explains in a clear manner how during and around the sports you are mentally resilient. The brain is trainable , this book makes it easy with applicable exercises how to do this.The insights from the book I use in coaching my daughters hockeyteam . In the process the girls learn eg to focus on their current actions and not on that difficult opponent or bad whistling referee . As a hockeyreferee I learn on the basis of practical exercises in the book how I can focus on the game and make the right decisions without letting hinder me in this by the comments of the players and spectators.In short, more enjoyment and better results!

I just finished mindset for the second time and I want to say what a great book that Jackie Reardon has written. There are other great mental skills training coaches out there such as Dr. Jim Loehr, Dr. Robert Neff, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to name a few. The way Jackie have presented the information makes it very easy to understand and use. I have already started to incorporate the mindset process into my coaching. I will recommend it to all my students!

Mindset made me realize how unfriendly I was to myself and judgmental to others. It helped to change my behavior towards myself and others and gave practical tools to be more focussed. It helped me during sports and in life. The book is practical, confronting but also fun to read. A must read!

cutting edge, all persons in competitive situations should know this.Bill Walker

Mindset: A mental guide for sport provides a deep insight to the mental side of sport and a guideline on how to handle pressure, overcome ego and control emotion.My daughter is 12 years old, she started playing tennis at age 6. Almost every time playing a tournament, she is very nervous, her mind is often full of doubt and frustration. After reading the book, I realized she was playing against three opponents - the opponent of her tennis match, herself and her dad - I always thought tennis is about winning the match and you can only be either a loser or a winner.After reading the book, I realized as a tennis dad, in order to help my daughter becoming a good tennis player, she and myself have to first become 'action thinkers’, meaning focusing on the moment and process. You may always win and may win the match once and sometimes twice with the mindset method and friendly eyes.

This is an outstanding book, which I cannot recommend highly enough. In my own sport, I had lost the feeling of enjoyment from playing. I was not performing at a high enough level (when compared to previous achievements), and having ready many different books on improving my mental approach was still in a pit that I could not get out of. At times, I felt strongly about giving up the game. I managed to scrape enough wins over very good players to show that I could still perform at a very high level - however, these were few and far between, and were combined with many losses against people who were lower ranked. It was my mental approach that was severely lacking and I think that the negative mindset had crept up and taken over my game over a number of years......... And now, very quickly, I am performing very highly again, and am wondering whether the sky is the limit :) Rather than bemoan others who play against me, who suddenly play out of their skin against me, or if they have a great shot, or even a lucky shot, it doesn't bother me at all - instead, I enjoy the challenge of countering their shots with an improved one of mine. I now love every minute of the challenge of competing and am looking forward to seeing where this takes me. Whatever happens, I very much thank the author of this book for swiftly bringing back to me my love of playing my sport.

Bought this for my teenage daughter, she can understand it, with just a few bits she's needs clarification on. She is finding it has some good points to follow, and will be a book she returns to constantly

I am reading it together with my son, who competes in olympic archery, and we are finding it very practical and at the same time full of insights. The book was recommended to my son by a top archer, and we would also recommend it to anyone interested in sports psychology.