Roger Federer's thinking process

Roger Federer was surprisingly knocked out of the clay court competition in the second round by a 40th seeded player. The post match interview had him scratching his head trying to explain this strange phenomenon.
'It becomes so easy to win that one forget just how hard it is to dominate this tennis circuit. But a loss is perhaps just what is needed to wake you up again. When you keep on winning you stop thinking about how you are going to play and take things for granted. You do not think of how to play agains the next opponent and then something like this happens. You have to check your thoughts and change your thinking in order to win again.'
Notice how many times he referred to 'think'. There is a key here. How man thinks; so is he. Every action has been pre-meditated, good or bad. If you can think through something and think strongly enough, it will bring the required result.
There are the uncontrollable issues that you just have to accept as they come your way, but having clear thoughts about what you do is very important, if you are the world's best tennis player or not.
The apostolic injunction is to continually renew your mind with the Word of God - to begin to think the thoughts of God. Jesus rebuked Peter for thinking the thoughts of the flesh instead of the thoughts of God. Later on Paul tells us to learn to think about things that are 'above' and not 'beneath'.
There is an elevated thought life that rises above the things that want to drag you down all the time. It is a controlled thought life that leads to a life of self-control.
Roger Federer clearly told us all that it is important how we think about things in our life. The mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart. And the small rudder that determines the ship's course is like the tongue that controls our lives.
It is good to take some time off to just think through issues and determine which course to take or which thoughts to allow or disallow.
Clear conceptual thinking is something very valuable. We have to learn to excerice our minds, just as we excercise our bodies and learn to excercise our spirits as well. But that is another story all together...