It’s all just guessing.

I love tennis, and last weekend I managed to catch both the men’s and women’s Wimbledon finals. It was completely riveting and so fun for me.

All sports have a huge mental component. Solo sports (think tennis, gymnastics, golf, diving) put a specific kind of mental pressure on the individual. If you follow these sports there’s a good chance you’ve seen plenty of instances where an athlete's performance varies wildly from day to day, or even within the same event — with no obvious explanation.

And we know a lot of this is driven by what’s going on inside their heads.

(I also know this because high level classical musicians rely on much of the same peak performance training that athletes use. We, too, require super strong mental skills to perform at the highest level.)

A lot of the fun of these sports — and nearly the entire focus of the sportscaster commentary —  is imagining what’s going on inside those athlete’s heads. What are they thinking? What do those slumped shoulders “say” about their confidence? Are they in the “zone”?

We think we can “see” the crowd getting to them. (Toward the end of the women's final, the crowd cheered each time one of the players missed.)

I had a new thought while watching Wimbledon this year. In past years I listened to all that commentary and just accepted it at face value. Of course she lost — you could see her begin to doubt herself in the second set. He was clearly relaxed and confident — all his shots were landing just inside the line.

What I realized this year is that while all that speculation and armchair psychoanalyzing is incredibly fun — it’s almost entirely guesses. It’s fully possible (even likely) that any given “insight” we have into these athlete’s mindset is TOTALLY INACCURATE. 

As a performer I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt beautifully “in the zone” and then missed something big. Or have been struggling a lot internally and then been told how effortless and relaxed I sounded. 

Years ago I spent an entire performance close to tears, barely able to get a sound out of the flute thanks to an allergic reaction that caused my lips to swell up. It was one of the hardest and most upsetting concerts I’ve ever played. Afterwards, two separate colleagues (they didn’t know what was going on) told me they especially loved my playing that night, and that whatever I was doing I should keep it up. I could hardly believe that we had been on the same stage — and I imagine they would have been equally shocked to know what my internal experience had been. 

Here’s what we know about what’s inside anyone else’s head:

Not a single thing — unless they tell us.

Is the extra time he takes to set up his tennis serve due to nerves, or is it strategy? Is her wild backhand lack of focus or a stiff elbow? Is that missed shot because he wants to win too much, or is he overly casual, taking it for granted?

We’ll never know.

We also don’t know what’s going on inside our colleague’s head. And until we learn to really slow down and be with our own thinking we often don’t have a lot of perspective on what’s going on in our own heads!

So yes, it’s super fun to psychoanalyze those athletes and talk about their mental game, what they’re thinking, and how it’s impacting their games. But let’s remember that it’s all just made up. Until we hear it directly from the athletes themselves (if they have the awareness to articulate it clearly) then we are all basically in the dark. 

And while sitting on my couch getting a kick analyzing a tennis player’s thinking probably does no harm, making assumptions about what’s inside other people’s heads in the rest of our lives can cause real problems. 

I'm all in favor of fun armchair analysis when we have a television and a continent between us and the subject of our speculation.  

And maybe we don’t want to be guessing and assuming so much in the real world?

PS — For words of wisdom from a tennis great, check out Roger Federer’s fantastic 25-minute commencement address at Dartmouth. It's absolutely worth the time.