If The Crowd Isn't On Your Side, Be Your Own Crowd

​American tennis star Coco Gauff won the French Open last weekend. In the tennis world, that's a pretty big deal.

On the way to winning the tournament, she had to beat the French tennis player Lois Boissan in a semi-final match. As you can imagine, at the French Open the crowd is pretty one-sided when your opponent is from France.

After beating Boissan, Gauff was asked in a post-match interview how she dealt with the partisan cheers for her opponent. Gauff playfully said to the crowd, ""When you guys were chanting her name, I was saying to myself my name."

What a great strategy. And not just for Gauff, but for all of us.

If you're like me, there are days when it can feel like everyone is cheering on the rest of the world. It can feel like you're taking on the world on its home turf, and you're waiting for one single person to start cheering for you.

Sometimes the waiting never ends....

I want to encourage you, don't wait. Start cheering for yourself. When it sounds like you're drowning in the world's cheers for someone else start drowning yourself in your own cheers.

At a training I am a part of this week, we close each day by offering shoutouts - cheers - to fellow participants. Everyone gets one. And when they do, you can see the smiles spread across their faces.

But the world doesn't see to it that we all get our shoutouts at the end of each day. Or at any point in the day, really. So sometimes we have to be our own shoutouts.

Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and say, "you've got this, Keith."

Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and say, "great job getting that article written today, Keith."

Sound odd? Self-congratulatory?

Maybe.

But there's a reason why sports teams (and tennis players) play better at their home stadiums - why musicians can play for hours to screaming crowds - cheering triggers a boost of positive emotions and even chemicals like dopamine and adrenaline, which help us focus, push harder, and believe we can succeed. It’s like getting a shot of energy and confidence - just from knowing someone is with us and wants us to win.

Fortunately, research suggests we can get many of the same benefits when we cheer for ourselves.

So my suggestion: if the crowd isn't on your side, be your own crowd.