This post marks the beginning of the first weekend episode of the Tennis Glow Up series, which will unfold over the first full weekend of every month in 2026. As introduced yesterday, each month will focus on a single self-improvement theme explored through three interconnected posts. January’s focus is on purpose, the foundation upon which every other aspect of this year’s exploration rests.
However, before the goal can be fully considered, your tennis identity must first be properly understood. Identity and purpose are inextricably linked. When your sense of identity and purpose are misaligned, cognitive dissonance follows. This creates tension between how you see yourself and what you are trying to achieve. This disconnect is reflected in frustration and dissatisfaction. Purpose indicates where we are going, while identity defines what it all means.
For the rest of the world, articulating one’s identity as a tennis player or fan is sufficient detail. However, within sports, those terms are too broad. The kind of people who are drawn to this blog probably have a layered view of their tennis selves. For those of us still entering the field, there is some nuance to this. For example, the identity can be expressed as a competitive player, a recreational player, a coach or a facilitator. Likewise, for those involved in tennis off the court, identity can be about supporting and creating opportunities for some aspect of our sport to thrive.
If you ask an active, competitive player to describe themselves, familiar, predefined labels will quickly emerge. Tom Gullikson came up with four playing styles in an article in Tennis magazine published in the early 1990s. That included Serve and Volley, Aggressive Baseliner, Counter Puncher and the All-Court Player. Nowadays a player might describe themselves as a Grinder, a Backboard, a Doubles Specialist or even a Mental Essential. These labels are descriptive, but can also be prescriptive. They draw boundaries around behavior and create expectations for success and failure. Once internalized, identity becomes the lens through which purpose is filtered.
A player may say his goal is to improve, but his identity prioritizes safety and predictability. Another may claim to enjoy competition, but identifies primarily as someone who “just plays for fun.” When identity and purpose conflict, actions almost always follow identity. Goal becomes ambitious language. Identity dictates behavior.
I believe that burnout often stems from a misalignment between identity and purpose. When these two factors drift apart, participation feels like a burden. People experiencing burnout typically continue to compete, train, captain, volunteer, or show up, but that involvement is out of obligation rather than intention. The time on the field is devoid of joy or any restorative quality. Off the field, league administration, team dynamics, and governance issues begin to feel personally draining rather than rewarding. What is actually depleted is not the energy, but the coherence. Burnout is the cumulative effect of maintaining roles and behaviors that no longer reflect who a person thinks they are or why they participate in the sport in the first place.
Identity influences how much effort someone believes they need to invest, how seriously they take the sport, whether they volunteer, coach, captain, or avoid leadership roles altogether. It determines how comfortable someone feels in challenging norms, questioning rules, or advocating for fairness. Tennis identity defines not only how we play, but also how we participate in the broader ecosystem of the sport.
Stress and coercion expose misalignment most clearly. Players do not achieve their goals under pressure. Instead, they retreat into their identity. Identity becomes a form of self-regulation, keeping us within known boundaries even when our stated goals require otherwise.
Identity also changes over time, regardless of whether it is recognized or acknowledged. Age changes it. An injury changes it. Life limitations recalibrate it. When players cling to outdated identities, dissatisfaction is inevitable. Measuring current commitment against an outdated self-concept is fertile ground for dissatisfaction. The problem arises when the evolution of identity and purpose is not explored.
Another quick side note: This line of thought offers an interesting angle on why so many junior players leave the sport after their junior or college eligibility expires. Instead of recognizing the changes that their new phase of life brings and reshaping their tennis identity to fit their new purpose and responsibilities, they drop tennis altogether.
Either way, effective transformation can only occur when the identity is properly understood and the purpose is aligned with the intention. The whole point of the Tennis Glow Up is to emerge as your best and most authentic self. That starts with understanding who you are. Naming the identity you bring to the sport is the first essential step in understanding it. Purpose cannot be developed in isolation, but must be rooted in who you think you are and who you want to become.
The next two posts this weekend will build directly on that foundation, with a clear goal in mind. Saturday’s post will focus on purpose as intention, considering what you’re actually trying to achieve with tennis and how unexamined goals silently shape effort, motivation, and satisfaction. The final post on Sunday will explore purpose as alignment, showing how a clearly defined purpose simplifies decisions, reduces burnout, and restores agency in how we choose to interact with the game.
#Identity #purpose