Month: May 2017

Mental Toughness – Control Your Story

Narrative is the story you are telling yourself.

You have a voice in your head that is narrating or explaining what everything in your life means. Picture Morgan Freeman’s voice doing a play-by-play as your coach tells you that you won’t be starting the next game.  Maybe the voice says “The coach hates me.” or “The coach has his favorite players and there is nothing I can do to change his mind.” With this thinking (and the story it implies), are you likely to do the things which will get you into the starting lineup any time soon? Probably not.

On the other hand, what if Morgan Freeman said, “The team we are playing is very tall and obviously coach thinks we need our taller players in there.” or “I wonder what I need to do to get into the starting lineup?” or “Coach has always treated me fairly so he must have a good reason for not starting me. I will need to ask him to explain it to me so I can find a way to contribute to the team’s success.”

Where do these stories in my head come from?

The story we tell ourselves is built on the beliefs we have accumulated over the years and it can be hard to change our thinking… or it can be as easy as considering a different (more effective) story to explain the situation. This is the difference of being controlled by your past or developing the mental toughness skill of actively CHOOSING how you interpret events in your life.

How do I change the Narrative or Story I tell myself?

Get some alternatives. Ask someone else how they would explain the situation, preferably someone who does not have an interest in the outcome. Often your family’s beliefs are the same or at least very similar to our own beliefs. This means that they may not offer stories or narratives that are substantially different from our own and their stories may not give you a better course of action.

Find an “objective 3rd party”, i.e. someone who is not part of the “problem”, and see what types of explanations they can find for you.

What if the new story is not true?

Living in denial of the truth will certainly bring poor results but the reality is that there are a multitude of ways that events in your life can be interpreted. Clearly you need to recognize the facts of the case, like in our example the fact that the coach said you are not starting in the next game.

The key is how you react to the facts… and the sooner you realize that while you might initially think a particular circumstance is “good” or “bad” it is often how we react that makes it good or bad for us. Choose to be mentally tough and create your own story.

You can change your story…

… and this can open up all kinds of opportunities that you would have missed.

“Problems are not solved at the same level of thinking that created them.” – Albert Einstein

Comments on Changing Your Narrative and Creating Your own Story are welcome and encouraged…

Halftime Speech for the Win

Halftime SpeechAre you setting your team up for a win in the second half with your halftime speech? Or are you letting them off the hook since you are leading the other team by assuming your team will continue playing the same way in the second half? The halftime speech is a critical skill for coaches and one that is primarily about setting up a strong mental state in each of your players.

Let me demonstrate with an example…

One of my favorite college teams is very talented, well coached and they have great potential. They also have a weakness that could keep them from advancing as far as they could into the post season playoffs.

Their problem is that they almost always win the first half of games, often by 10-20 points, only to let the other team back into the game in the 3rd quarter.

How could this be addressed?

First, we must recognize that the problem is 100% mental, especially if the team is up by more than 10 points at halftime. Clearly they have the ability to beat the other team.

The underlying thinking must be something like, “We won the first half so we can relax and not try quite as hard because we have a [10-20] point buffer.”

The change in thinking has to be that NO BUFFER is safe. Every possession and defensive stand is win or lose. It is NEVER OK to LET the other team score or to LET them keep us from scoring.

“But that’s not realistic”

You are correct. A shutout is a near impossibility in basketball but would you rather WIN or “be realistic”? One of my favorite quotes is “How you do ANYTHING is how you do EVERYTHING.” Translated to a basketball game… “How you think about each possession is how you think about winning or losing.”

Are you willing to “BURY” the opposition?

Or do you want to give them a chance to win? You have proven that you can beat them in the first half and right now the other team’s coach is telling his or her team, “You have to play better, try harder, do something, or you are going to lose.”

They will come out motivated to play better basketball. Most likely they will try something different in an effort to gain an advantage. If you take their best and build the lead, by the 4th quarter they will give up. The end of the game will be played by their scrubs.

Or you can let them back into the game so you have a chance to lose the game at the end.

Don’t take them lightly. Things can happen. We have seen our key players get into foul trouble. Maybe they have someone who could get hot and score a bunch of points. There are still many ways for them to win. Let’s make sure we don’t give them the opportunity.

STEP UP and take this game away from them. It is our time. Our game. Our win starts NOW.

Will any coach who reads this post have the humility and confidence to use the ideas here? I suspect that there aren’t too many… but if I can help my favorite college team go another round or two in the NCAA playoffs, then I will be very happy.

We want your Halftime Speech story too…

What’s your “go to” halftime speech? Do you have a story about a challenge your team faced and how you turned it around at halftime? What do you think about this approach? Please leave a comment below with your thoughts, ideas or suggestions.

 

3 Levels of Winning Basketball

3 Levels of Winning - NH Basketball 2016-17
Click the image above to see full size listing. Source: MaxPrep.com

It started with a simple observation… I was looking at the season records for all high school basketball teams in New Hampshire (where I live and coach) and noticed that there seemed to be three distinct “Levels of Winning” based on each team’s record.

The image to the right shows the 3 Levels in the NH example. (Sourced at MaxPrep.com.) The order of the listing is based on MaxPrep.com’s rating system.

Below are the characteristics of each level of winning highlighted in the image to the right.

TYPE 1 = THE ELITE

These teams win twice as many as they lose (or better). They are considered “Hard to Beat” by their opponents. Their basketball programs are designed to consistently perform at a high level at all times. Winning is part of their tradition. They hate to lose and they expect to win every game. They are constantly looking for new ideas and what is working for other teams that might be able to be incorporated into their systems.

These teams don’t settle for just making the post season playoffs. They are disappointed if they don’t make it the championship game and, even then, it will haunt their offseason if they get there and didn’t win.

These teams are often very well organized and their strategies are set up to make the most of their competitive advantages, skills and talents.

Type 2 = “Mediocre is OK”

These basketball programs usually accept one or two games above 500 as “good enough”. They often think that they are “doing well”, i.e. they are “average” or maybe “slightly above average”. They may work very hard but they don’t have a tradition of excellence so it can be hard to make the leap to the next level. In NH, many of these teams make the state playoffs which adds to their perception that they still “have a shot”.

Type 3 = “Participation Awards”

These teams lose twice as often as they win. They are just happy to put on the uniform and ANY win is a cause for celebration. They rarely make the playoffs or if they do, they are typically beaten handily in the 1st round by a Type 1 team. If they are left alone, they create a tradition of being relatively easy to beat. This expectation on the part of opponents allows for an occasional surprise win due to an underestimation of their potential.

What does “Level of Winning” mean?

Physically, all 3 types of teams are often very similar. Some might have a slight height advantage while others might be faster, quicker, smarter or better in any number of parameters that would allow them to be competitive. The teams that win figure out how to take what they have and find a way to win.

Winning starts with a mindset. This is typically built into the basketball program by the head coach but there may be components that have become traditions after many years of winning across multiple coaches.

What type of team do you want to have next season?

This time of year (off season) includes many coaching changes. Some schools want to improve their team and a new coach is probably a good place to start. (Of course I’m not just saying that since I am in the market for a varsity coaching position.) It is common sense that the head coach sets the standards for the varsity and all the teams leading up to varsity. There is also much more that goes into a winning basketball program at the high school level… and I look forward to your comments.

Comments Welcomed and encouraged

I expect that there will be many comments like “Are you calling [insert my team’s name here] a bunch of losers?” No, their record of wins and losses just put them into one of three relatively arbitrary “Levels of Winning” categories so we could think about what goes into consistently winning basketball games at the high school level. The commentary that I added are strictly based my own observations. It is very possible that a program will have a “down year”, perhaps due to injuries, transfers or any number of other variables. On the other hand, occasionally a team will have an “up year” where they overachieve beyond what their history would predict.

Isn’t it much more complicated than 3 Levels of winning?

Of course it is. There are hundreds or even thousands of key attributes that go into the development of a winning basketball program (some of which are discussed in other articles on this blog). The 3 Levels of Winning is simply a framework to help us figure out where to look for some of those attributes or components that will take our programs “up a notch or two”. I look forward to the insightful comments from my fellow coaches, parents, players and athletic directors.