What Tennis and Choosing Possibility Have in Common

As several of you know, I’ve used my extra time during the pandemic to get back into one of my favorite sports: tennis. While I took it up as an adult and have played on and off for many years, the past 12 months have allowed me to play more consistently.

Every time I’m on the court I have to remind myself to let go of the last shot in order to focus on the next one, particularly if I made a terrible unforced error or lost a set on a troublesome play. In tennis there is no single winning move, there is simply an accumulation of shots – each rally a “game in itself” that we play in sequence, learning as we go and getting smarter in the next.

Even match point, what you might call the winning moment, is simply the accumulation of points over 100 rallies (or likely more). In hindsight, we might identify some shots or games as singularly important in shifting the momentum of or ending the match. But as we experience it in real time, all we can do is focus on making one choice after the next. 

Choosing Possibility in our careers and personal lives is remarkably similar. We can create a rough plan and get into action, hoping to build both individual outcomes and cumulative momentum choice by choice. But just as there is no perfect game in tennis, let alone no  perfect match, there is no “avoiding failure” when we choose to play.  Our best chance for getting outsized returns lies in continuing to choose, learn, and choose again and again.