Success can destroy you

You wake up in the morning. Eat healthy breakfast and go to the courts. Hard practice, fitness routine, recovery, another meal and little bit of rest. Afternoon you add another practice, stretching session and you finish the day with the last portion of good meal for your body. Why do you that? To achieve success. But be careful – success has many faces!

We all have own dreams. Young kids want to be like Rafa Nadal or Serena Williams. They want to play well, win trophies and be popular around the world. Teenagers think about going professional or combining athletic career with university degree. Young adults treat tennis as a job and do everything they can to become top 100 tennis player and earn money while competing in tournaments.

This approach is also visible in business world where people have dreams, set goals and go on the journey to achieve success. Unfortunately too many times when we think about success we see only the most comfortable things that catches our attention at the first glance. Then when we achieve success we step unprepared into the world where there is much more than happiness, nice amount of money and famous friends.

Looking at the professional level it is clearly visible that there are two groups of players. Some players achieve success and stay on the top for a long time while others quickly lose good performance just after the biggest achievement in their career.

The example of players from first group are Roger Federer and Serena Williams while athletes who didn’t deal well with success are Eugenie Bouchard and Bernard Tomic. Why does it happen? It all comes down to new requirements and ability to properly react to them. Let’s look at the facts.

When you achieve great success (winning big tournament, reaching high level ranking spot) you suddenly are in a completely different position. From player who can „surprise” opponents you become a favorite who „has to” beat lower-ranked players. That is a big portion of additional stress that many players don’t know how to deal with.

The next thing that we have to mention is popularity. Big success creates high level of popularity. There are articles about your game in newspapers, more people come to watch your matches as also young kids wait to get photo with you. Suddenly you realize that your actions are observed and judged by many people. Every step counts and when you make a mistake it costs much more than before.

Success creates more pressures as also brings new opportunities. Top players have a lot of money because of sponsorship deals but nobody gives money for free. When you sign contract with company you become an ambassador of this brand. You have to be available for ads, attend special meetings and remember to always mention support when you give interviews to the press.

Before the success all day was enough to train hard and recover between the sessions. Now your days have to also include additional responsibilities so without good planning it can quickly have negative impact on your performance. Let’s not forget also about your attitude. When you are lower-ranked you work hard every day to get to the top.

Unfortunately some players lose this internal fire as soon as they achieve their goal. Lack of motivation and poor quality of practice session will quickly make you lose good results and high position in ranking. The best solution to avoid this trap is to always set new goals and as soon as you achieve one you have to be ready to chase the next one.

As you can see success has many faces. Definitely achieving your dreams is a great experience and time full of joy and happiness. On the other hand success creates new responsibilities and demands.

If you want to stay successful for longer time you have to adapt to new environment and constantly care for quality of your actions. Preparation is the key so be aware of what is waiting for you at the top and when you finally reach the summit face these challenges with courage and gratefulness.

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