The mental mindset of a world champion
[Music]
you’re a world champion for many many
years which takes
obviously a lot of physical fitness but
also mental fitness as well the
incredible
sort of mind training that you have had
to go through
in order to stay at the top for so many
years walk me through how that’s like if
a young person
wants to learn um what is your mind
training routine how does that look like
one is to turn the negative to positive
so just thinking about on a daily uh
practice where you have a phrase or you
you are more aware about
what you’re talking to yourself and if
you feel like you’re talking negatively
how to turn it round use different
phrases
or different words to bring you back to
think positive
and and that becomes a daily habit and
the last one
is visualization and um and i used to do
that when i was 11
12 years old to visualize how am i going
to be
a world champion how am i going to play
this perfect match like every single
point
every single rally every shot is being
viewed in my mind and i would just go
through it over and over again and even
seeing myself with a trophy
or being a world champion i started
doing that since i was a kid how do you
turn it
like let’s say you’re telling yourself i
can’t i can’t train today how do you
specifically turn that around yeah so
i’ll have an
example where like on the day i would
just wake up going
oh you know i just i’m so tired my body
is not moving and i just can’t get out a
bit
but i’ll tell myself you know this is
the only time i can
really make this day happen because if i
don’t do this day right
i will prolong the process of getting
better or improving myself to get to my
goal
so this day counts so i’m going to make
the most of it even though i’m feeling
down and out
but i know i’ve done it before i’ve done
the training yesterday i can do it again
so
that alone you already start having this
posture you wake up and you go okay i
can walk a little bit hard with my head
held high so
so yeah i think and it becomes a a daily
habit
i believe you became world champion at
the age of 22
you won the first world championship and
that is something you have
worked so hard for so many years and
suddenly you’ve achieved that dream
what is that journey like once you once
you hit that dream
nobody actually tells you in a playbook
like how do you be world champion
next step and then so i had to figure it
out myself and it was a place that i
felt really lost and i i just didn’t
know
what was next for me and i was
losing matches i was not in a good state
i was very down and also i was expecting
myself to be something else
i thought i had to be another person i
had to be
a better person if you’re a world
champion you are expected to be
this much better or this much like you
know like you have to
act differently so i was also lost in
the fact that do i need to
be something else so all these things
happening in my mind
while i still have to compete while i
still had to perform
so that first half of the year i was
just losing matches i went down the
ranking straight
straight after i think and and it
occurred to me
when i took a little bit of time off
maybe like two three weeks of just
time away from squash i spoke to my
coach
and and also my sports psychologist and
my family
and sharing with them how i how i was
feeling and
they said you know what just be true to
yourself you don’t have to be anything
else
the person you are is what made you
become world champion and well number
one so why
change that now it’s up to you of what
you want to do next
what you decide and i and i was like
yeah you’re right so
so my coach and i we just sat down and
we redid
new goals we re did a new
set of goals for myself to see how far i
can push
so every year we will will jot down
what milestones would take to get to the
next level and then the world
championships will be the final
event for the year so we always work
towards that
progression and that was it and my
mindset just switched and i knew that
now i have to work even harder
and now it’s another step up of what i
did before
is now another ball game so we had a
team around that was
positive it was there was a stronger
network in
support system which might with my
sports psychologists my
sports therapists with working on my
body
as physio physical trainers all these
people
came in to make sure every small detail
was looked after
and and then i could be pushing forward
to
what’s what i need to do in the tasks
that i had and and all the plannings
that we need to do
along the way and and you stayed well
number one for
eight years um and at one point
you decided that okay you’re going to
retire
how did you reach that point what was
the thinking behind it
suddenly i just didn’t get the the wins
i suddenly didn’t
quite reach that finals and slowly but
surely i lost my world number one
ranking but i was in denial i was going
through that
for two years and it came to a
tournament in the u.s
open and i lost to a player from hong
kong and
i played i beat her all throughout my
squash career and that moment i lost to
her
she played amazing but i i came out of
that match in the second round
and my coach told me or even asked the
question
do you really want to play squash like
really what do you want to do with your
squash
um and i was like no i’m gonna play
squash for another five years while
you’re talking about why you asked me
that question
and he’s like she’s like no just go back
and think about it and
and literally i went back to the hotel
and i just burst into
tears and i just did i realized that you
know i
got nothing much left the hunger was
lost
i’m getting older too so obviously i’m
not as spunky as i was before
but i only had two years left and all
that i’ve used
all that energy i’ve used for my mind to
be always sound or my body to be always
fit and strong and ready to take on the
pressure of just
everyone wanting to beat me the coaches
all trying to find ways to beat me and
and that was constant pressure on me to
to
always take on and it just needed that
needed a break and
so i only i told myself i’ll have two
more years
and i was in 2017 and i would retire in
2019
but i i need to do my process so i had
an emotional like up and down mode but i
had great people around me
to help me through i have to let go of
what was truly me
and now i have to find a new reason new
purpose to
then take on the next phase of my life
and is to give back now i found finally
found a reason to
do something after squash so i i think
that is so great because you know
your identity for so long has been about
being a squash player and being a world
champion and
now you have a second phase of the
purpose that you’re looking for which is
to inspire youth of next generation kind
of as a closing
if you if there’s something about what
you do
that you wish every youth every child in
the country will know about what would
that be
i would hope that every youth can just
really stay true to themselves i think
nowadays we are so caught up with the
noise around us or what we should be or
what we are told to be
and it’s so easy to get to fall into the
wrong path
and and i think being true
to yourself is so it’s difficult but at
the same time if you know yourself
and you know who you are it’s so much
better to just move forward and
trust that this is going to be the right
decision to make
and if it’s your passion if it’s
something you you
deserve or something you truly want
never let anyone tell you otherwise