What Is Your Goal From Playing Pickleball?


In the past few years of playing pickleball, I have observed two basic goals for which players strive.

  1.  To have fun and socialize.

  2.  To be competitive and consistently improve.


Now, I'm not saying people have to have one goal or the other.  There can certainly be overlap with fun seekers also wanting to improve, and competitive players still having fun.

But, the rate at which players improve seems to be related to whether they are primarily playing for fun or for competition.

There are some players my wife and I played with regularly several years ago when we first started who have only minimally improved their games since then, if at all.

And these two polar opposite goals can create some problems.

For example, my wife and I each play to improve.

We enjoy the people we have met and the friends we have made along the way.

And we have fun even while improving. Although, my wife thinks I'm too hard on myself and should have more fun. She's right, of course, but I am my hardest critic.  

Because we are each competitive, it affects who we want to play. 

We preferentially try to play others who are equal to or better than our respective skill levels.  

We know that improving our skills requires being challenged and rising to meet those challenges. 

Since we can't play every day, we want to maximize our improvement in the time we do have to play.  

It's not that we never "play down." We do from time to time, but we prefer to "play up" and be challenged. 

There are other players we have played along the way who have not tried to improve and thus have not improved at the rate we have. 

We don't choose to play them any longer.

For that reason, we have been criticized as being "elitists" or "the A team" or as being arrogant or considering ourselves too good for them.

Some of them have even made snide, sarcastic comments about our character and criticized us for things unrelated to pickleball.

That is unfortunate, but they clearly don't know us very well. And they clearly don't share our desire to improve.

We don't criticize them for being content with just socializing and having fun at pickleball.

We don't criticize them for not caring who wins a game.

We don't criticize them for not putting much effort into improving their skill level.

We don't criticize them for not playing in tournaments.

We understand pickleball players have different goals regarding what they want from pickleball.  And we just don't share the same goals with them.

So, if you are playing primarily for fun and social interaction, please don't assume ill of those who regularly strive to improve.

Yes, there are jerks in every group, and I am well aware of some competitive players who are not nice to others at all. 

We don't choose to play with them either.

But competitive players are not all arrogant jerks.

Some just have a lifelong competitive drive as the way they approach life in general.

Some people just live life in first gear. 

Others choose to live life in a higher gear.

Some have been very competitive in their schooling and in their careers, and they just bring that same drive to the pickleball court.  It has resulted in success for them in their lives.

Others have had lives that were less competitive. They have searched for and found fun and social interactions throughout their lives. And it has served them well.

Neither type of pickleball player is inherently bad because of their choices and motivating factors.

They are just different.

And it's alright to be different.

Jim Rohn famously said, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."

That statement tends to be true regarding pickleball skill levels too.

So, it's alright for players to separate into groups of similar skill levels. 

It doesn't mean any of them are inherently bad people.

My experience has been that the group of players we prefer to play has changed over time as our skills have improved.  

We are still friends with some of those lower skilled players who didn't assume poorly of us even though we rarely play pickleball with them any longer. 

Others, who were highly critical of us behind our backs, and even to our faces, are no longer friends. 

What have your experiences been?


Ben Holt