One of the biggest pet peeves I have as a coach is the damaging words that players sometimes use. As we get older, we appreciate how important the words we use are and, as a coach, one of the worst things to hear is when one of the players on the team says “I can’t”. I know how much damage those words are doing to that player in terms of confidence and future potential and I can feel my blood pressure starts to rise. I would much prefer them to say “I am not yet able” and I will tell you why…
Words program our minds
We all have an “internal dialog” going on in our head. We are telling ourselves what everything means that happens to us and this often leads to the mood we are in, or worse, whether we quit and never reach our full potential.
The good news is that we can take control of our internal dialogue and start to program our mind to take us where we want to go in life (and on the court). The first step to controlling our internal dialogue is noticing what you are saying and putting a stop to the words or phrases that are holding you back.
As I mentioned before, one great example is “I can’t”. Whenever you catch yourself saying, or thinking, the words “I can’t”, immediately STOP and take another look at the situation. When you say “I can’t” that implies that you never will. The reality often is that you simply have not trained long enough to accomplish the task or have not learned what is required to do it. I always come back to the idea that if someone else has done it, then I can too. I just need to find out what they did and do the same thing (or at least use their path as a guide to my success). This is called “modeling” and is a powerful tool to get what you want.
What words or phrases are holding back your players?
Another word that I hate to hear are the infamous, “But”. “Coach, I know that is the right way to do it, but…” Typically the word “but” is followed by an excuse. At the very least, it says that the statement they just made is not true or they don’t believe it is possible. As a speaker friend of mine likes to say, “You can either have results or excuses. Your choice.”
Are there words or phrases that you hear that are holding back players? What are they? How do you turn them around? What words are better replacements? Leave a comment below and let us know!
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!
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.
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.
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.
One of the biggest pet peeves I have as a coach is the damaging words that players sometimes use. As we get older, we appreciate how important the words we use are and, as a coach, one of the worst things to hear is when one of the players on the team says “I can’t”. I know how much damage those words are doing to that player in terms of confidence and future potential and I can feel my blood pressure starts to rise. I would much prefer them to say “I am not yet able” and I will tell you why…
As I mentioned before, one great example is “I can’t”. Whenever you catch yourself saying, or thinking, the words “I can’t”, immediately STOP and take another look at the situation. When you say “I can’t” that implies that you never will. The reality often is that you simply have not trained long enough to accomplish the task or have not learned what is required to do it. I always come back to the idea that if someone else has done it, then I can too. I just need to find out what they did and do the same thing (or at least use their path as a guide to my success). This is called “modeling” and is a powerful tool to get what you want.
Let me start off by telling you…