Djokovic : Setting Your Own Limits

If you follow tennis at all, you will know that the same three men—Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic — have dominated the sport for the last 12 years. Nobody has come close to touching them, and everyone knows it. 

The truth is that entire generations of really good tennis players have come and gone and not won anything because they believe they can’t touch the Big 3. They know that even on their best days, they won’t be good enough, and they are right. 

But for many years, Djokovic wasn’t part of the Big 3. Like dozens of players, he was an outsider trying to work his way in. At just 19, he told the world that he would be better than Nadal & Federer and would one day go down as the best, and everyone laughed at him. They called him cocky, arrogant, delusional, naive. Nobody respected him because they all wanted to say, “See, I told you it couldn’t be done.” They wanted justification for their own inability to work hard enough to catch the greats. 

But Djokovic didn’t listen to the critics; he listened to himself. What appeared on the surface to be youthful arrogance proved to be a mental toughness that led him to the pinnacle of his sport. 

The lesson we can take away from this video is that listening to other people try to tell you what you can and can’t achieve is a waste of time. They don’t know you. They only know what they could achieve if they were in your shoes. 

You are tougher and capable of so much more than you know. But it starts and ends with a simple question: “Do you genuinely believe that you can do it?” Only once you believe it to your core will you find the strength and motivation to work harder than you ever have.

 If you want it… go get it.