Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,
the podcast dedicated to your pickleable improvement.
My name is Tony Roig.
I am your host of this weekly podcast.
In this podcast, we are going to look at why pickleball therapy.
In other words, what's the reason to get pickleball therapy?
And I have to give a shout out here to
Jennifer from our Better Pickleball Team who turned me on to this thinking, right?
So she asked me, we were chatting about
the podcast and the direction it was headed and things like that.
And she says, well, what's the point of the podcast?
What are you trying to do?
So it got me to thinking.
I made some notes, and I wanted to share them with you because I think it's helpful
here for all of us who listen to this podcast, who
are part of this podcast, the Pickleball Therapy family, if you will,
to just refresh what it is that we're trying to accomplish through this podcast,
as me as your host, and you as a listener of podcast.
So I made some notes, so I'm going to read
them to you now and see what you think about them.
Let me know at therapybetterpickleball.
Com if this resonated with you in terms ofPickleball Therapy and why we come
together on a weekly basis if not more, to get some Pickleball Therapy.
And so first question I ask myself is, why does Pickleball Therapy exist?
So Pickleball is awesome, right?
But it's more than just a sport that we play.
Pickleball is part of us, right? It's like family.
There are, however, forces that can undermine
our relationship with pickleball, whether it's a loss of perspective,
a sense of no longer belonging, or just noise.
We can find ourselves feeling less than, put that in quotes, right?
We can find ourselves feeling, quote, unquote, less than about our pickleball.
The enthusiasm and love we felt for pickleball can be dulled.
Our relationship with pickleball is important to us.
Pickleball therapy is here to
help us strengthen this relationship and to help us defend it,
defend the relationship, against potentially damaging influences.
So that's, in a nutshell, why we created Pickleball Therapy.
We know pickleball is super important
for you, not just as a player, for you as a person, as a human being.
Pickleball becomes a super important part
of our lives and how we interact with the world.
And a lot A lot of the joy that we get out of the world can come from pickleball.
But there are forces, and I'll talk about those a little bit more in a minute.
Some of those are internal, some are external.
And so we designed pickleball therapy to help strengthen us.
I against those negative forces, against those negative influences that can
undermine our very important relationship with pickleball.
And that's the objective of this podcast.
Now, there's different components to strengthening, right?
So Sometimes it means strengthening our minds in terms of our perspective and
knowing that no one can really take this away from us unless we allow them to.
Those types of things, that's internal strength, mental strength.
And then there's just being more competent as pickleball
players, both in knowledge and in execution, will give us more confidence.
And the more confident we are, the less
likely we are to slide into feeling less than, right?
Which is what we're to avoid.
So reading some more of the P pickleball
Therapy episodes focus on the mental aspects of our Pickleball.
We share tools and concepts that you can
use to maintain a healthy and productive perspective with the sport that you love.
And let me define the problem for you a little bit, and then I'll provide to you
what I believe is a solution to that problem, at least on paper.
It's harder to implement, but on paper, this is what I think happens.
So sometimes the problem is this:
pickleball players become dissatisfied with the sport they otherwise love.
And dissatisfaction can be, and remember, I mentioned it can be internal/external,
so it can come from themselves, themselves as a player.
And it's, I just can't get this.
I'm not good enough.
I'm stuck. I can't improve.
It's all on I can't.
Then sometimes the satisfaction could come from results.
I'm always losing.
I can't get better.
So that's a results-oriented thing.
Basically, I'm tying it to some external results-driven metric.
Or the satisfaction can come from a
loss of identity in terms of our place in the game.
So this is our interaction with pickleball, and that comes from...
A lack of confidence can be a big source of that problem.
So solutions can come from improved perspective.
An example there would be winning is a bad metric, right?
Is a good way of changing your perspective with the game, right?
And saying, that win-loss doesn't make sense.
I can throw that out the door.
That's a better perspective, a better approach on how we come to the game.
We could also improve our perspective
or perspective by focusing on the reasons why we play, right?
We don't play to come and win a bunch of games.
We could play because of social or exercise or whatever it is, that's a
really good way of refocusing ourselves in terms of our perspective.
So improved perspective is one solution.
Improved play is another solution, which
is things that we can do to reduce the anxiety when we're out on the court.
Sometimes that's perspective and play.
All these have some overlap.
But for instance, when you're playing,
knowing that no one else has time for your business, meaning no one's really paying
attention to what you're doing out on the court, even though we think that there's a
spotlight on us every time we make a mistake.
Not true.
The other players have the same thoughts
going through their heads, so they're not really worried about you.
Just knowing that can improve your
calmness while you're playing, which will improve how you play.
Also, just improving your focus when you're out there can help because you're
focusing on things that will help you actually play pickleball, as opposed to
focusing on noise out on the pickleball court.
So improving Improved play can help be part of the solution.
And then improved progress, right?
Feeling like you're growing, right?
Avoiding distractions, staying on the path
to your success, to your improvement, to your progress.
Those are different ways that you can
resolve or strengthen yourself against what is going to be normal, right?
Meaning these forces that are going to batter you sometimes when you're playing.
If you become better at your perspective,
better at your play, and better at your progress, better in the game, then you're
going to be a stronger player, not just in terms of your results, not just in terms
of level and how well you play when you're out there, but in terms of your ability to
withstand these potentially undermining forces that can exist out there.
And lastly, I want to leave you with this.
This is for folks who I jotted down as to who pickleball therapy is for.
pickleballtherapy is for players who want
a fuller and deeper relationship relationship with pickleball.
And we use that term relationship very conscientiously, very intentionally.
Again, as I mentioned at the beginning,
pickleball for us, if you're listening to this podcast, you're not a casual player.
You're not just showing up on a Thursday once a month and hitting the ball around.
You are serious about pickleball in the
sense that it is an important part of your life.
So you have a relationship with pickleball.
It goes beyond just what happens on the court.
Pickleball therapy is for players who are
feeling dissatisfied with themselves or their place in the game.
We try and provide a safe harbor where you come in here, you know that there's no
judgment in here, there's no criticism in here.
It's all about helping you grow as a
pickleball player, growing your relationship.
Pickleball therapy is for players who want
to continue improving or growing in the game.
Pickleball offers a great opportunity to us, right?
To continue our growth, to continue our development.
There's no such thing as
we're too old to learn or we're too old to change, and that's nonsense.
You keep going and keep growing as long as
you want to, Pickleball will have something to teach you.
And the Pickleball Therapy is for players
who want a healthier and stronger mental game.
I'm generally, I tried not to use the term stronger
mental game because it can be confusing sometimes.
What I mean by stronger mental game here is
a ability to withstand adversity and potential negative influence, so that
they're not the I'm going to win, ra, ra, ra, 140 % and things like that, stronger.
But definitely, you can develop a healthier and stronger mind, right?
Relative to your pickleball.
And what's cool is that the stronger you
get in using pickleball as your arena, right?
To develop as your gym to work on this,
the stronger your mind will be in every aspect of your life.
When you go to the supermarket and
the person in front of you takes out the checkbook, I've used this one before.
So hopefully, don't think about...
If you take out a checkbook in the supermarket, no judgment, it's fine.
But you know what I mean? When you're in a rush and things slow you
down or you're expecting a call from someone and you don't get it or whatever
happens, you'll have a much stronger mental base from which to deal
with those situations, which, pickle and life as well will throw your away.
Those are just some thoughts as to
pickleball therapy and why pickleball therapy exists.
But more importantly for you, it's why pickleball therapy is important to you.
Why maintaining a connection with pickle
therapy is something that if it's being helpful to you, please continue it,
because that's what Pigable Therapy is all about.
And we always close our podcast by saying, if you enjoy the podcast, share with your
friends because you enjoy it, they probably will, too.
I have it memorized, so I can say it pretty quickly.
And the reason we do that is because we
believe that Pigable Therapy can provide help to players who meet the criteria that
I mentioned, the four criteria that I mentioned there.
And so if you know somebody who is into pickleball and could benefit from this
conversation, this therapy at the at the end of the day, then
sharing it with them is a gift that you can give to them.
And it's as podcast, just giving you a little inside scoop here.
It's not easy to
get our podcast in front of players who don't know about the podcast.
What I mean by that is like, there's a
player out there who we don't know, they don't know us.
And how are they going to see the podcast?
Maybe on a Facebook post or we don't have billboards in every city.
It's just not feasible, right?
So the The most realistic way that a player is going
to hear about pickle therapy is from another player.
And so if you feel strongly about pickle therapy, again, we ask you to remember it.
And if you are so inclined to share with somebody else who you see that's having a
struggle, that's having a moment, because sometimes that
help can be the difference between keeping them in the game, a game that they love, a
game that they continue growing in, or them becoming dissatisfied, and in
extreme cases, leaving the sport of pick-up.
So that's why we are so passionate about sharing these messages and also asking you
continually to spread the message about about pickleball therapy.
One last note, if there's an important aspect to pickle therapy that
I missed in this podcast or in my notes, in terms of who
pickle therapy is for, what type of player, the problems that you're facing,
the solutions that you think might help it, and things like that, let me know.
Send me an email at therapy@betterpickleball.
Com. Those emails land directly in my inbox.
They are not They don't go to a support team or anything like that.
They go directly to my inbox.
So if you want to reach out to me and let
me know what pickleball therapy means to you, or
that you're a certain type of player, or we're in need of something that I didn't
mention, that would be good to know because at the end of the day,
we do our best to bring to you a podcast that we believe will help you in your
journey as pickleball players and strengthening that relationship.
But at the end of the day, the reason we make this podcast is for you.
So the better we know what's going on out there with you, the better we can
prepare the podcast to hopefully help as best we can.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast and a
refresher on why pickleball therapy matters.
And I'll see you at our next podcast.