Story by: Oma Akatugba
It is often said that successful athletes become less motivated as they win titles and they get to a point where there is nothing to win again. Motivation is what passion needs in order to give birth to success. But when you are already so successful, how then do you get motivated? Novak Djokovic is one of the most successful athletes in the world, a tennis great. He is regarded as one of the greatest in the sport.
Djokovic has won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, the fourth most (equal with Roy Emerson) in history, and held the No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings for a total of 223 weeks. In majors, Djokovic has won six Australian Open titles, three Wimbledon titles, two US Open titles and one French Open title. In 2016, he became the eighth player in history to achieve the Career Grand Slam; by winning the 2016 French Open, One would wonder how he still gets motivated to keep performing at his very best. The Serbian Tennis great tells omasports: “I am still very motivated, I can’t speak for the other athletes but in my case, I try to extract the biggest energy and motivation from the source of love and passion for the sports and for life in general, I think that allows me to always stay hungry and keep my feets on the ground and keep staying in the present moment and keep working hard”.
Just like every athlete, his childhood dream was to become the world No.1 as well as winning major titles.
“Of course I had my childhood dreams to become NO. 1 in the world and to win the Wimbledon but I never prioritise achievement or trophies or success as my main source of motivation and drive and energy, I think it’s crucial to me because that kind of emotions towards the sports and my life and the support I have from my closed ones is something that keeps me going.
“ If I don’t have that passion inside of me to play the tennis ball without really being able to compete because realistically, most of the time we spend on the tennis court we spend training like every other athlete.
“We probably spend 10 percent of the time competing, some sports even less, so you need something else to motivate you, not just the achievement, you need to love and enjoy what you do”.
Photo Credit: Atpworldtour.com
