Feeling like I am falling behind and not making progress.
(This is pretty long but if you read the second paragraph only that should be enough though it would be really helpful if you read the whole thing.)
I’ve had a six year gap and used to play for three years. I’ve recently turned 15 and returned to the sport less than six months ago. I practiced on my school team and had group sessions once a week. This was for about two months and back then I was still in middle school and my level was beginner to intermediate. I went to India over the summer and made fast progress from training two times a day for almost two months. I improved on my shots, especially back court, and learned pretty quickly. When I came back from India I did pretty good at this new club and was put with the competition players for practice. I’m now playing four times a week, two times private and two times group (8 hours a week).
However, I’ve recently been struggling with this mentality of falling behind. My coaches say I’m good enough to play on school teams, however I really want to play on the competitive team with this club. I’m mainly struggling with this idea of I don’t have time, the people I know have been playing for years and when I compare myself it feels as if my progress is not going anywhere. And I know it’s unfair to compare myself as I’ve only had about three months of proper training (I’m not including the training before the summer cause it was recreational) and if I look back at my training I’ve made very quick progress. My coaches also believe that I have talent and what I need is more training to catch up with everyone else which is what I’m doing. But I’m the worst one at practice, I don’t have any game experience so I struggle while we play in understanding the tactics and my shots get worse in panic. I also need to work on my backhand. And I know I can work on these over time and even now noticed improvement in areas. But every single time I get this overwhelming feeling that I can never become as good as the people I wanna play against. That I’ve lost to much time already. I don’t wanna quit and I won’t; I’ve tried setting goals for each practice and not think about the future but I still can’t help when I feel like I’ll never be enough.
If you have any tips that would be a great help.