Building a Winning Mindset

Coach’s Obstacle of the Week (COW) #1 – Slow Start

Coaches Obstacle of the Week (COW) — cow image courtesy of ModernFarmer.com!

What obstacle have you encountered this week? What obstacles or challenging situations have you overcome (or not) and how did you tackle it?

I have always said that problems at the individual level are always easier to solve at the group level. Why? Because the odds go up in a group that someone has already solved the problem or challenge or “obstacle” that is causing you trouble. Is there more than one way to solve a particular problem? Of course, but wouldn’t it save you time to at least consider what someone else has already tried?

Our goal with the weekly “COW’s” is to leverage the experience of our fellow coaches so that when you encounter one of the situations we describe here you are armed with some ideas for a solution. As the coach of your team, you always get the choice of what you think will work best for your team in that situation. Need an example? Here is one from my own history…

COW # 1 – The Slow Start / Poor Shooting

This example of a COW might be something that a lot of coaches have encountered…

My team started out the game very slow and fell behind 7-0 before we knew what hit us. To compound the situation, it was against our toughest rival who had beaten us multiple times the year before. If things kept going this way, it was not going to be a pretty picture by the end of the game. What would you do?Need more information about the situation?

We were taking good, high percentage open shots that just were not going in. They were shots that we typically make. We also did not get as many offensive rebounds as we had against other teams. (That could be because of the competition or our own effort… hard to say.) Our full court press, which was one of our strongest weapons, had yet to be applied since we had not scored. I called a timeout. What would you say to your team?

Here is what I said in the timeout.
Do you agree? Or would you have done something different?

“OK, we are taking good shots and we got the misses out of the way. Keep moving the ball and shooting those open shots. Do you know why we were missing? We were TOO open. We had time to think about the shot before we shot it. We don’t have to think… just pull the trigger and put it in.

What we do need to do is hustle after those offensive rebounds and get more shots. Keep playing hard, especially on defense and we will wear them down. They can’t keep up with us!”

What do you think happened?

Leave your comments and ideas below. Once I get a comment or two, I will let you know how this challenge turned out and break down the psychology of it as well.

Be sure to add your own COWs to the comments as well. It might be chosen for next week’s COW discussion!

Building Basketball Confidence – The Keys to Success

Confidence is critical to success both on the court and in life. Do you have the confidence to take the shot with the game tied as the closing seconds wind down? Can you step to the foul line and make your shots to win the game? Do you have enough confidence to ask out someone on a date? Can you try something new without knowing if you will succeed? It all boils down to one thing… Confidence.

After watching the video on this page featuring the Dena Evans story about her loss of basketball confidence when she was playing at Virginia, you will start to see some of the ways that a basketball player can undercut their own confidence as well as some ideas for building it back up.

There are 3 keys to Building Confidence, whether it is on the basketball court or in real life. They are:

Your Habits of thinking,
What you Focus on and
How you have Earned confidence.

How does your loss of basketball confidence start?

It would be nice to know where the basketball confidence went to in the first place. A loss of basketball confidence might start with a bad game. Maybe you were not feeling 100% or were coming back from an injury and did not perform at the level you expected. You might not even notice when it exactly started. Dena doesn’t go into much detail in her video. The important point in time is when you start to question your skills, your abilities and once that happens, it can be like a snowball rolling down a hill, gaining in size and momentum until it cannot be stopped… or can it?

Your confidence is built on the words you use in your head. Maybe a coach or a family member noticed your poor performance and gave you a “suggestion”. They probably were trying to be helpful but you translated that into something like, “I’m not good enough” and the snowball started rolling.

Each failure or non-success after that was noticed by your mind and added to the “evidence” that you are not good. Pretty soon, it was all that you could think about.

Where do the words in our head come from?

Most of the rules we have for ourselves, the beliefs we hold about the world, were all, at one time or another, presented to us by other people. It starts with your parents when you are a child and is built on by the friends you have growing up and into adulthood. Coaches can give us words or rules that we carry into life and apply not just on the basketball court. On top of this, there is the media … with advertisements and any number of “talking heads” telling us what is right or wrong and what type of car or perfume we need to purchase. All these words mold how we think and how we act. In many ways it is helpful since we are able to understand and interact with society, but in many ways it prevents us from become the best that we can become.

How do I overcome the beliefs holding me back?

The first step in taking back control of your mind and restoring your confidence is to notice the thoughts that are causing the problems. Every time you think, “I messed up” or “I’m not good enough”, ask yourself “How could I look at this differently?” Almost every situation can be seen from at least two different “angles” and once you start noticing your negative thoughts, you can decide that belief would be more empowering and would make you more confident in your basketball game.

For example, if you notice yourself thinking “I can’t believe I missed that shot. I am a lousy shooter”, you can step back and realize that even the best shooters miss and, assuming it is true, you have practiced that shot enough that it was a good shot to take and a miss is not the end of the world. Maybe you were even defended well on that shot. Don’t look for excuses but also be sure you are dealing with the reality of the situation. You don’t have to beat yourself up for every miss. If there is something to learn from an experience, take the lesson, apply it somehow and keep getting better.

Confidence is a habit.

As you start to notice your thoughts, positive and negative, you will probably find that you have to make an effort to correct your negative thoughts, at least in the beginning. This is part of training your brain to work for you. Eventually, more positive thoughts will fill your mind and fewer negative thoughts will find their way in. Your confidence will grow as you build the habit of controlling your thoughts… but that is not “the end”.

What you Focus on Increases

Aside from “catching” negative thoughts, it is important to use your Focus, or attention, to build your confidence as well. Dena Evans talks about how after her sophomore season, she needed to write down 10 things she did well after every pickup game or workout. At first she struggled but eventually she was able to Focus on what was going right during a game which make it easier for her to write down her “10 Good Things” and start reviving her confidence in her basketball skills & abilities.

Note for Coaches:

If you are a coach and you see that your team lacks confidence, maybe you are focusing on the wrong thing. I am not suggesting that you avoid correcting mistakes. That’s an important part of learning and developing as a player but don’t forget to reinforce the good things that your team is doing, especially as they learn new skills. They might not recognize in the heat of a competitive game or scrimmage that they just successfully used the move you have been teaching them for the past three weeks. Applaud the successes and you will get more of them. Focus on good things and they will multiply. As the coach, how you deliver your feedback is a critical part of your player’s basketball confidence.

Thinking isn’t enough

After reading this article, maybe you have come to the conclusion that all you have to do is 1) Create the Habit of controlling your thoughts and 2) Focus on the good things. Those are two important elements but basketball confidence is not that simple. You don’t get confidence without EARNING it. What does this mean? It means that you work hard on your moves. It means you put in extra effort so you are in peak physical shape. If shooting is an important part of your game, it means that you have shot more shots than probably anyone else you know. You KNOW you are good because you have put in the effort, learned what you need to know and have built your basketball confidence based on results.

You know that you can hit that shot with the seconds winding down because you have practiced it. You know that you can execute a spin move that leaves the defender looking stupid … because you have practiced it… and practiced it… and practiced it. You have earned the right to be confident … and now you know how to control your mind so that it is there when you need it.

Publish or Perish… at least for this Basketball Coach

Motivation by Wager It has been a while since I last posted on this blog and I know that unless I post on a regular basis (at least once a week) there will be very little motivation for readers to come back and follow along.

A keynote speaker friend of mine who is working on building his audience in the personal development world, started shooting some short motivational videos during a recent trip to New Hampshire with the goal of turning them into a regular feature on his Facebook page or other websites. Of course I encouraged him to do it… and to do it regularly. [It is always easier to give the advice than to follow it, right?]

The more I thought about how I could help him stick to creating & publishing his videos long enough to build some real momentum, the more I realized that I needed to do something similar… so I offered him a wager.

We would both commit to completing a post (me) or a video (him) every week for 52 weeks with the first one to miss a week to pay the other person $100. Then, if we got to the end without either of us missing, we would take the $200 and figure out a way to celebrate. We both liked the idea… although we did not want to wait a whole year to celebrate so we dialed it back to 26 weeks… STARTING TODAY.

So this is my first post… about the contest… but also about how I will motivate myself and what methods I will put in place to make sure my ideas make it from the concept stage to the publication stage (and, if they are good ideas… the implementation-by-others stage).

½ Done is “NOT Done”

True productivity requires something to be produced! If you don’t finish something, it is as if you did nothing. Not sure who said it, but it is true, “Compete is better than perfect”.

I’ve been doing lots of research, reading and thinking over the past few months but aside from creating the blog (and some graphics and some video intros), I don’t have the quantity of content that I feel I need.

Why do I need it?
What’s my real goal?

My goal is to move up the basketball coaching career path. My next step is a varsity high school team and while I have done more coaching (fairly successfully I might add) in the past year or so, I have also found that most coaching jobs are filled by coaches that have built up a reputation in the basketball (and athletic director) community. This blog is one attempt to showcase my philosophies & knowledge of basketball and position myself as someone worth hiring to coach your school’s team. That’s why I need to complete this bet !

Next Question: How am I going to do it?
If you have not read the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, you need to get a copy now. Here is the link to the Amazon page so you don’t have to look it up.

Why did I say that? Because our life is ruled by habits. Good, Bad, deliberately created or ingrained long ago it doesn’t matter. Habits are how we get stuff done and contrary to what most people think, there are some tricks to changing your habits into ones that support your goals.

I won’t go into all the details (you really need to buy Charles’ book), but the simple way to look at habits is 1) they get replaced, not eliminated and 2) they follow a structure that you can hijack. Anyone who has tried to “stop eating” something knows that unless you replace a bad habit with a good one, the vacuum created by trying to eliminate a habit actually makes it harder to “not do it”.

Quick example…
If your “go to snack” at 2pm is a chocolate bar and you want to lose weight, then you need to find something that will replace that snack with a healthy alternative. Maybe nuts or popcorn. The key is to recognize the habit and replace what makes it bad with something better.

Hijacking a Habit…
The process of hijacking a habit is very similar. Habits have multiple parts (explained better in the book) where you can mold the habit into something that supports your goals. For example, a habit has a Trigger, an Action and a Result or Reward. If you recognize the Trigger that gets your habit started, you have a chance to hijack the trigger and point it toward a better action. Alternatively, if you look at the other end and identify the Result or Reward that you are getting you may be able to think of an alternative Action which would yield a similar result but one that is more in line with your goals.

It seams simple but like most things in life, we rarely think about how our habits are shaping our lives. For me, I have part of a good habit… I take a half hour every morning, after making myself some tea, to meditate / think about ideas that I want to implement. Usually I can come up with at least 3 and then my day has some creative energy to use as fuel.

The problem comes in when I have the ideas laid out, but not ready to publish. My change will be to tie my lunch break into a “get on the computer and type” session. It isn’t really a question of ability… I can type pretty easily… I just need to make it happen and it is very likely that I will be creating much more than one post per week.

Where the bet comes in is when life gets too busy or distracted or whatever… it is like a backstop or brick wall that says “You will not go to sleep without publishing something.”

[As you might notice, this post was released very late on Wednesday, our posting deadline, so the bet is already serving its purpose.]

Additional Motivation…

What other forms or methods of motivation can I employ? I am sure that I will get a sense of accomplishment with each new post and maybe the comments from readers like you (hint, hint) will inspire me to tackle new topics or try new ways of providing value to the readers of my basketball coaching blog. Since I have not accomplished a whole lot just yet, at least as far as the blog goes, it is hard to see how this will be a large motivation but I will keep an open mind. Maybe I will build a “momentum of accomplishment” as my string of weekly posts grows… tune in to find out !

One last piece of Motivation… you !

I’ve always found that a public commitment is a great form of motivation. Even if the only person who reads this post is the person who I have the bet with, it is still out there and I want to win. Besides, that’s the title of this blog, “Building the Winning Mindset” so a public commitment to win this 26 week bet had better hold up… especially if you are going to believe all the other ideas I will be presenting around the topic of Winning!

How can you help?
I know you want to help, right? To be perfectly honest, I could use your help. I want to deliver articles (or videos or interviews or whatever) that are of interest to you ! What are the biggest challenges you are facing as a basketball coach? As an Athletic Director who hires (or fires) basketball coaches? What questions need answers? I am here to help and I read all comments on this blog. (Even the spam ones for “male enhancement” or “jump higher in 7 days”.) I look forward to hearing what you are encountering and what is working (or not working) for you!

What’s next?

Over the next 6 weeks I will be working on pulling together my Score More Basketball Camp and will probably try out some ideas here on the blog. In particular, the section of the camp that deals with Mind Control and a Winning Attitude will definitely be of interest to my blog readers, right?

Keep Your Focus !

Score More 2016 Basketball Clinic scheduled

The new date for the basketball scoring clinic has been finalized…

The Score More Basketball clinic / one day camp that was originally scheduled for July will be held at Keene State College’s Spaulding gymnasium on Saturday November 5th from 11-4pm.

ADDED BONUS…
Camp participants will also have the opportunity to stick around and watch the Keene State Owls Men’s Basketball team practice starting at 4:30pm.

This camp is produced by InviteOnlyBasketball.com. If you are interested in being invited to this camp, be sure to apply for an invitation at this link.

Is Winning Important?

CW-blog-WinImportant Do you want the short answer? Here it is…Yes.
Winning is important… but not for the reasons that most people think. Let me ask you, “What is your relationship with the concept of winning?”

Sports are a metaphor for life…

… and if a person doesn’t learn what it takes to win through competition and sports, it is very likely that they will struggle to learn it in other ways throughout their life. The idea of “Winning” is not without controversy. It is a concept that many people have deeply held beliefs around, often to the detriment of the people they are trying to develop… their players.

The 3 Faces of Winning

There seem to be three reactions to the topic of “winning”; not counting Charlie Sheen’s “approach”, which we won’t be addressing.

First, there is the “winning at all costs” camp which justifies all kinds of reprehensible and sometimes immoral or even illegal behavior in the “pursuit of winning”. Eventually though, these people are removed from their positions of authority because their behavior is not tolerated by their players, parents and their organizations.

On the other hand…

On the other (second) side of “winning” are the people who feel “everyone is a winner” and their downfall is that as they pass out trophies for everyone, they create youngsters who feel entitled to win at everything they do. Sadly, these kids will either be disappointed when they realize that the real world doesn’t work that way or they will simply give up without putting in any serious effort. This philosophy of “winning” takes away the reward for effort and improvement and cripples kids chances of achieving their dreams in the future.

Another way to look at this is through Carol Dweck’s framework from her book titled “Mindset”. She explains the difference between a “growth mindset” where a loss is simply feedback for future growth versus a “fixed mindset” which says that someone either has talent or they do not so any loss indicates a lack of talent and there is no reason to pursue future challenges in that area.

And this one is “Just Right”…

The third approach to winning, and the one that I support, leverages the challenges offered by competitive sports so that players discover what they might be capable through a sustained effort and focus. It is firmly planted in the “Growth Mindset”. I like to say, “Winning is a byproduct. It is what happens when proper preparation meets productive attitude.”

Sport is a unique opportunity for players to learn lessons not easily acquired in other ways. My teams pick up things like “How to work together as a team toward a common goal”, “How to push past discomfort to improve your physical conditioning”, and “How to ‘Master the Mundane*’ tasks that are part of repetitive drills that yield improved game skills.”

* “Master the Mundane” is a phrase I picked up when I interviewed Tom Brayshaw, the 1989 New Hampshire Player-of-the-Year and 2117 point career high school scorer.

The action of a game enhances a player’s ability to focus – identifying opportunities and reacting quickly to developing situations on the court or field of play.

This third view of winning, at least the way I see it, also treats losing a bit differently from the way the general public sees it. I tell my teams that they will never lose… if they can learn from every contest where they do not come out on top at the end of the game. I call it “Win or Learn” vs. “Win or Lose” and it is a way of turning every contest, regardless of outcome, into one more step in the process of ultimate winning… becoming the best that you, and your team, can be.

This also makes it easier to adopt an attitude of good sportsmanship since your competitor is not the enemy. They are simply the team or player(s) that are committed to bringing out the best that you have and identifying your weaknesses. It is hard to be mad at someone who is doing their best … to make you better !

Don’t Cheat your players out of a winning mindset !

While it probably doesn’t warrant a 4th view of winning by itself, I often see coaches who settle for “good enough” rather than holding their players and team to a higher standard. A standard that is focused on becoming the best and winning much more often than not.

Maybe coaching is not that important to these coaches. Maybe no one ever taught them what it means to be a winner so they can’t pass those ideas on to their team. I am not blaming them. There are many reasons why it happens and, sadly, many parents or school administrators simply let it continue. As Jim Collins says in his book, “Good to Great”, sometimes “Good is the enemy of Great”. If you are happy with “good enough” it is very easy to stop there and not pursue excellence.

Whatever the reason, coaches who settle for “good enough” are cheating their players out of critical life lessons that the pursuit of winning in sports could provide.

Agree? Disagree?
Oversimplified? Too Complicated?
Too Much? Not enough?

Leave a comment below. The only rule for comments is “Remember The Fonz”… be cool (and respectful).

Next article…
“How do you create an environment for winning?”

Do you want to know the mental framework that I use as the foundation for creating a winning team, even at the middle school level? What gets players motivated to push themselves and perform at their best? I will address these questions in my next article

If you want to be notified when the next article is released, please be sure to sign up for my email list. If there isn’t a signup form on this page, there will be on soon so check back in a day or two.

Let’s build a winning mindset

Let me start off by telling you…

I don’t have all the answers. I have some answers and I ask questions of some very smart and experienced people so that I can find out some clues to the answers, but I am a work-in-process and you should apply your own common sense before you try anything that I might suggest. (Or anything other people suggest.)

What’s so important about “building a winning mindset”?

If you have found this blog, I suspect that you already have an appreciation for the fact that winning starts in your head. Your mindset is made up of many components… values, beliefs, theories, hunches and much more (that I will explore on this blog). Having said that, we are usually our own worst enemy when it comes to achieving our goals, either in life or on the basketball court. Often we know what needs to be done but we don’t do it. Or we could figure out a solution if we would just recognize the problem.

Why is Coach Wheeler writing this blog?

Over the years, I have learned quite a bit about performance psychology and how the mind can be trained to improve your performance. As a basketball coach, I teach my players how they can control their mind to improve their skills as basketball players and, hopefully, they can apply those same lessons beyond the basketball court. If you are reading this blog, my hope is that you can use the basketball stories as examples and then apply the lessons to your own life as well.

Why are there questions before every paragraph?

I find that it makes the articles easier to read … and it helps me organize my thoughts. Does it bother you? Or does it make it easier for you to read the articles? Let me know in the comments section.

Do you have a question that you would like to ask… add that in the comment section too !

What if you have a question that you don’t want to make public? Use the “Contact Form” on my InviteOnlyBasketball.com site or on this site to send me a message.