Improvement for holding motivation

Hi Alois, I am 39 years and I play competition for about 4 seasons.  I took training lessons one season and with that I know about many things where to make attention during matches.  Technical and focus is for me the most important.  Now we are going to degrade with our team to the lowest category in our competition system in Belgium.  This happens for the second time during my 4 seasons experience.  Not hapy to deal with.  I may not say for the moment I am not a good player nor I may say I have many focus points to get a better player.  I have different qualities.  The reason I want ask here something is the following: for the moment we are playing in a very strong category.  I am winning for about 40 percent of my games, I achieve the best results in my team.  We could be saying I am too good for the lowest category I should be stay playing in the second last category.  Only next season we won't have a team in this category.  I see that many people get better during lifetime till more than 50 years, so I think I may have also the opportunity to stay getting better, off course while enough training and focus on weak technic points.  Now here the question:  I am losing my motivation because next year we 'll be playing in the lowest category.  So I will have less challenge to get better.  How can I even inrease my motivation?  Second question is about my technic.  I know I have work points for example the forehand smash (I just took a look at your video about this subject).  There are several things I can learn from your different video's to get better.  At home I have a robot which can give top and back spin and rotation.  So my second question is how can you tell me or what should I try to do to get a better player (knowing I have already my own specific way of playing) and next season I will play in the lowest category, but I am motivated to adjust where possible?    These questions are given because I feel I am losing my motivation for stay playing competition and I am losing also my believe to still having opportunities to get a better player, so I can force in my club to play in a better team.  I thank you for your answers!!  Salutations, Bart Dehandschutter from Belgium.

Hi Bart,

Firstly the motivation question.  Set yourself some targets for the season.  If you feel that the matches will be easier, focus on your win/loss percentage and to get it as high as possible.  IF the match is particularly easy, set yourself some tasks to improve a part of your game or test a particular part of your game.  You could aim to play all forehands for the match or play a higher percentage of a particular shot.

This can apply to your second question as well. You could aim to implement a part of your game you want to improve. Thinking about attacking more or making a more effective attack can be something that you look to improve.