Growth Lessons from Roger Federer: “It Is Only a Point”

I recently listened to Roger Federer’s commencement address at Dartmouth Green last spring, and his words, “it is only a point”, struck me deep. They refused to leave my mind, literally, and here we are today, a whole article about them.

The words came from a man who spent more than two decades treating every point as if it carried the weight of a career; well, sometimes it did. But how he presented that statement, the simplicity, yet surprising authority, drove the point home. In tennis and other games, a point is everything, until it isn’t. The moment it’s lost, it’s gone. There’s no rewinding, no bargaining, no replay. You walk back to the baseline, bounce the ball, and play the next one.

Strangely enough, I didn’t realise how much I needed that reminder until he said it out loud.

In the recent past, I lingered on my own “lost point”; I don’t know if it was a mistake, a failure, or a moment I let slip away. Whatever it was, I held onto it so tightly that it became a kind of emotional self-blackmail. I could feel myself circling it, returning to it, analysing it from every possible angle. If life had a scoreboard, I probably would’ve stopped the match right there and sat down to brood over why I let that point go in the first place.

Then Federer happened. Oh boy, “It is only a point,” or rather “It was only a point,” and something unclenched. From his words, I didn’t read any permissions for a carefree and indifferent approach to whatever we do. Federer would be the last person to treat performance lightly. What I picked, rather, was the clarity: not that the point doesn’t matter; it doesn’t define what comes next, whether it is gained or lost.

And that nuance was exactly what I’d been missing.

In the same note, Denzel Washington had given a commencement address back in 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania, and he remarked, “If I’m going to fall, I don’t want to fall back on anything except my faith. I want to fall forward.” The first time I heard it, I liked it. Period. But only recently did I feel the sting of what that actually means. Falling forward, I can say from my perspective, is about discipline. It is the intentional choice to give more weight to what’s ahead than what’s behind.

It’s getting up with bruised knees, shaky confidence, and still deciding, Alright, the next step is going to be in the direction I want to go, no matter how badly I messed up the last one.

Roger Federer and Denzel Washington‘s statements merge

That’s where Federer’s point and Denzel’s forward-tilt suddenly meet. Federer says Don’t get stuck replaying the last point; Denzel says Let your fall carry you into the future, not the past.

Together, they form a kind of practical philosophy that underpins the idea: don’t stay on the ground, and don’t stay on the last point. Rise. Keep playing.

Of course, saying that is easier than living it. Regret has its own way of pulling us in its direction. My own recent “lost point” wasn’t small, not in my mind, at least. It was the kind of thing that leaves you rehearsing conversations in the shower, replaying scenarios while trying to sleep, and wishing the human brain had a “delete forever” button.

But the truth is, even regret has an expiration date. It should have. I don’t want to wallow in regret forever. I don’t want to hang around disappointment. I want the shortest possible emotional rebound time. I am not trying to suppress anything; rather, I’m training for resilience the way an athlete trains for a quicker recovery. I want to feel whatever I need to feel, but I want that phase to be a tunnel, not a permanent address or prison of sorts.

I should be happy for the point I won, or be sad for the one I lost, but I should not remain there. I should look forward to the next point. The next game. The next practice. The next endeavour.

So now, I’m learning to treat my life the way Roger Federer treated the court. I want to feel the intensity of the point while I am in it, but once it’s over, let it be over. Walk back to the baseline. Reset. Exhale. Another ball is coming.

One of the traps I’ve fallen into is shrinking my entire world into whatever “court” I’m playing on in the moment. The project. The relationship. The business. The investment. The opportunity I mishandled. The thing that didn’t go the way I hoped. When you’re standing on that small rectangle, it can feel like the whole universe. But life isn’t a court, it’s a world, and a very big one. It contains more seasons than any single mistake can occupy.

It’s humbling to realise that the thing you call everything at one point in your life is, in the context of your whole life, just a point.

And here’s the surprising part: once the sting of the lost point fades, the loss will sting, no doubt about it, but something else takes shape, some sort of curiosity. A kind of forward-leaning interest in what the next point could become if I actually learned something from the last one, I lost.

I don’t want to return to the court with bitterness; I want to return with confidence of a lesson learned. I want to work, not to prove the past wrong, but to make the future less accidental. I want the next point to feel more natural, more precise, more… me.

That’s what falling forward looks like when you remove the social spotlight and apply it to a regular life. It’s kind of quietly saying: I’m not done. I am in the making.

You Can Only Join the Dots Backwards

And somewhere along this process, Steve Jobs’ idea about “connecting the dots backwards” has started to make more sense. He famously said you can’t connect them forward; you can only see how they fit when you look back. Now, I understand it’s also a survival mechanism. If every dot has to make sense in the moment, you’ll drive yourself mad. But if you trust that the meaning will come later, if you allow the story to unfold instead of forcing it, you suddenly permit yourself to live the chapter you’re in without demanding it justify itself immediately.

Maybe this lost point of mine will become one of those dots. In fact, the lost points are many. But maybe I’ll look back someday and think, if that and that hadn’t happened, if I hadn’t stumbled there, I never would have made the leap I eventually made.

My present disappointment may power the very inspiration and social empowerment I’m hoping to pursue. Maybe this is the dot that shifts the arc, being in service for others.

But that’s for the future-me to confirm. The present-me only has one job: focus and play the next point.

I’m not trying to erase the past, after all, it is like a shadow. I’m only trying to build a healthier relationship with it. One where I can acknowledge the sting without letting it swallow the horizon. One where the world feels big again. One where mistakes are teachers rather than condemnations.

And really, Federer’s right. The point matters while it lasts. It shapes the moment, demands my focus, and teaches me something I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. But once it’s gone, it belongs to the past, not the present. The match continues, the ball comes back into play, and the scoreboard moves on, whether I do or not.

So, here’s where I stand now: I’m walking back to my baseline. I’m bouncing the ball. I’m settling into my stance. My racket is firmly held. The next point is waiting. (So should you.)

And this time, I’m not looking backwards. I’m falling forward because I can only win forward.