Naomi Osaka once believed that winning meant saying yes to everything. Over the years of her successful tennis career, though, the four-time Grand Slam champion says that doesn’t ring true anymore.
As the new ambassador for vitamin and supplement company Olly’s Mental Health Awareness Month campaign, Osaka got candid about setting boundaries, pushing through fatigue and the success myth she used to believe.
“I used to think success meant saying yes to everything that came with it,” Osaka wrote in a personal essay for Fortune. “Now I see it differently. I’ve been able to achieve what I have by holding boundaries.”
In the piece, Osaka reflected on her decision to withdraw from the French Open in 2021 to focus on her mental well-being.
“That moment stands out for me because it opened my eyes to something I hadn’t fully let myself see: you don’t always have to do things that people expect from you,” Osaka said.
The tennis star has been vocal about mental health in the past. After her high-profile withdrawal from the French Open, Osaka wrote a piece for Time about the backlash she faced for her decision. She wrote about how scrutiny from the press and the tournament pressured her to disclose her personal medical history.
“In any other line of work, you would be forgiven for taking a personal day here and there, so long as it’s not habitual,” Osaka wrote in the Time essay. “You wouldn’t have to divulge your most personal symptoms to your employer; there would likely be HR measures protecting at least some level of privacy.”
Since having her daughter in 2023, Osaka said that creating boundaries throughout her motherhood journey has gotten easier, because not only does she have to protect herself, but she also has to protect her daughter, she explained.
“There’s this idea that ‘doing it all’ is something women should aspire to, and I don’t think that should be glorified,” Osaka said. “You can’t be everything to everyone without losing something of yourself. Sometimes it’s actually kinder to say no.”
In 2019, after she won the Australian Open at the age of 21, Osaka told Fast Company that the stakes started to feel higher.
“If I lost a match, it became news everywhere, and I would pay more attention to my losses,” she said. “They were harder to get over. Sometimes, I got depressed during practices and [felt] like there were a lot of expectations on me. I started to question my ability, which I had never really done before. I have a tendency to shut down in those moments. It’s hard to keep having fun playing tennis.”
Since then, Osaka has learned how to listen to her mind and body. As she explains in her essay for Fortune, she doesn’t push herself to extremes when she feels overwhelmed or fatigued.
“As a professional athlete, I’m very in tune with my body. I’ve learned the difference between a good kind of tired and a deeper fatigue that means something is off,” she said. “When I feel that fatigue, I don’t push through it anymore. I respect it.”