mentality Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Building a Winning Mindset

Affirmations for Athletes

Afffirmations 4 Athletes by Coach Wheeler Affirmations are a powerful way for you, as an athlete, to overcome ways of thinking that are holding you back from becoming your best. Society has programmed many “limiting beliefs” into your mind over your lifetime. If you have read my post about Mental Management, you will notice that affirmations are one way that you can use your Conscious Mind to program your Subconscious Mind and improve your Self Image.

You will also find that doing affirmations on a regular basis will improve your focus on positive outcomes or goals while pushing out thoughts about the obstacles / limiting factors / fear of the unknown you might be experiencing.

This article will define affirmations, show you how to build effective ones as well as provide some samples that you can use or adapt to your own situation.

What are affirmations?

Affirmations are statements that you write down and say on a regular basis, ideally every day, multiple times a day. Repetition is key. The more often you say the affirmation, the more likely it is to come true.

Don’t believe me?

It is good to be skeptical, especially when we are talking about changing how your brain is programmed. On the other hand, if there is something that will make your life better, don’t you deserve to learn about it? Here is the link to an article by the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, Scott Adams, that talks about why he thinks affirmations work. He also talks extensively about his experiences using affirmations in his book, “How to fail at almost everything and still win big“. Let’s assume that between what Coach Wheeler and Scott Adams have said, you want to learn more about how to use affirmations to improve your life.

How do I create effective affirmations?

The key to making affirmations that work is three-fold…

(1) Affirmations must be in the present tense. They might start with “I am…” They are built on the assumption that the goal or state of being that you desire is already happening. This is important since your mind will begin to believe whatever you say, especially if it is repeated enough. I am sure you have seen this happen to someone, maybe even yourself, where sticking to their story for so long that you believe it is true. Even if the person is delusional (i.e. disconnected from reality), their decision making is based on the “future reality” that they desire and believe. Because of this, their actions fall in line with that reality. The result? You create the reality that you believe.

(2) Don’t use negatives. Replace negative statements with something positive that overcomes the negative. For example, if you want to reduce the number of turnovers you commit in games, don’t use “I won’t turn over the ball.” Instead, focus on the positive condition that removes the negative, such as “I am an excellent passer.”

(3) True or Not? A successful affirmation should represent what you want to be true, not necessarily what is already true. Some people have trouble imagining a different life where they enjoy an upgraded existence, especially if they are in the middle of some sort of crisis. When things are not going your way, that is exactly when you need to develop a vision for a better tomorrow. The easiest way to make that “better tomorrow” happen is to imagine how it will feel and consistently program your mind to believe it will happen. Affirmations are the perfect tool to use the power of words to start thinking differently about your situation. Once you think different, you will act different and things will change.

Sample Affirmations for Athletes:

Below are some examples that you can use or adapt to fit your own situation. These sample affirmations are geared toward somethings that athletes may find helpful. If you have additional ideas, please be sure to leave a comment below!

I make every open shot.
I control the game.
I make my team mates better.
I deliver the ball so my team mates can easily score.
I am in amazing shape and better conditioned than my competitors.
I am mentally tough. Nothing can stop me from achieving my goals.
I am a winner.
I constantly learn, grow and improve my game.
I perform well under pressure.
I am a good team mate.
I work hard and produce results. *
I can be trusted and never let down my team. *

* These last couple affirmations are more “character-related” (versus skill-related or outcome-oriented). For a downloadable Character Assessment Worksheet based on the work by Brett Ledbetter from “What Drives Winning”, check out the link to this article. [link coming soon]

Bottom Line:

Warning… Don’t compare your affirmations with what other people are doing. Your affirmations are specifically for YOU and YOU can be great! Don’t let anyone tell you that your aspirations and goals are “unrealistic”. Greatness, by definition, requires you go beyond ordinary to achieve the “extraordinary” !

This is what will happen as you start doing affirmations. You will begin to notice when you are in situations like the ones in your affirmations. This recognition along with the memory of what you have stated in your affirmation will move you toward achieving your affirmation. Will it happen immediately? Not likely… but it could. You might realize that you were closer to your affirmation than you imagined. If not now, when? In other words, how sure are you that it will it happen eventually? 100%. The sooner you start your affirmations, the sooner you will see results.

36 Questions Generate “Closeness”

What if there were a series of 36 questions, a structured conversation, that was designed to make two people feel closer to one another? Could that increased connection or trust between teammates translate to higher performance for the team on the court or field of play?

There are indeed 36 questions and they only take about 45 minutes to discuss—and they almost always make two people feel better about each other and want to see each other again, according to social psychology researcher Arthur Aron of the Interpersonal Relationships Lab at Stony Brook University in New York. Arthur published his results in “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 1997.

You can try these 36 questions with anyone, even a teammate. You could even try them on a date, but they’re not necessarily only applicable to fostering romantic closeness. You can also try them with people you already know — friends, family members, even long-term partners—to deepen your connection and feeling of closeness.

This is how it works…

Each person should take a turn answering each question. The order is important since the questions are designed to build on each other. Here are 36 questions to generate closeness, in order:

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

3. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?

4. What would constitute a perfect day for you?

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

8. Name three things you and I appear to have in common.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

11. Take four minutes and tell me your life story in as much detail as possible.

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamt of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

17. What is your most treasured memory?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of each other. Share a total of five items each.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For example, “we are both in this room feeling…”

26. Complete this sentence “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

27. If you were going to become a close friend with me, please share what would be important for me to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them: be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

… and a few variations (from Psychology Today):

If you could choose the sex and physical appearance of your soon-to-be-born child, would you do it?
Would you be willing to have horrible nightmares for a year if you would be rewarded with extraordinary wealth?
While on a trip to another city, your spouse/lover meets and spends a night with an exciting stranger. Given that they will never meet again, and could never otherwise learn of the incident, would you want your partner to tell you about it?

36 questions for your team

Did you find this article interesting? How could you apply the 36 questions to your team? Would you would them roll out over a few days? a few weeks? Perhaps as team-building exercise? What questions do you have about the questions? Please leave a comment below with y7our ideas or feedback!

Mental Management – Marksmanship, Basketball and Coaching

Below is an excerpt from The Red Circle, My Life in the navy seal sniper corps and how I trained America’s deadliest marksmen, by Brandon Webb. In this excerpt, Brandon Webb talks about Lanny Bassham’s Mental Management concept and how it relates to performance under pressure. After the excerpt are some ideas for applying the ideas to basketball.

The Red Circle by Brandon Webb
“Earlier I said that intellectual capacity was the first trait we look for in a sniper, that physical ability, as important as it is, is only 10 percent of the game. Of all the changes we made in the course, the one that felt most significant to me and that I was proudest of was our system for mental management.

When we first encountered the concept of mental management it was being taught exclusively to instructors as a way to help us coach and teach more effectively. In essense, it was all about where we as instructors focused a student’s attention

Say you’re doing batting practice with a kid and you notice he’s standing with his knees buckled in, shoulders misaligned, hands spread wide apart on the bat. Your impulse might be to start telling the kid everything he is doing wrong. If you focus his attention on all these wrong things, though, what you’re really doing is imprinting them into the poor kid’s mind, with the result that they start becoming ingrained habits. If you say, “Hey, you’re flinching. Every time the ball comes at you, you’re flinching! Stop Flinching!” then what the hell’s that little kid thinking about? He’s thinking about flinching.

If instead you say, “Hey, put your hands closer together, like this, and look: feet apart.” Then you’re showing him what to do rather than focusing his attention on what not to do.

A beginner typically starts out very focused on everything that’s going on. He’ll tend to absorb whatever is thrown at him. He is, in other words, highly programmable. The question is, as an instructor, what are you going to feed that rapt attention: bad habits or good habits?

This translated directly to instruction on the sniper course. In the old days instructors would bark at us for everything we did wrong. “Stop! You’re putting your finger on the trigger wrong! When you pull the trigger, you’re flinching! You’re jerking the barrel! You’re fucking up!” Suddenly we’d be thinking, Holy shit, there’re twenty things I’m doing wrong! Instead, we learned we could give a student three positive commands, three things he could do to correct those errors, and now he’d be developing good habits from day 1.

I have to admit, I was not completely on board with the whole concept of mental management when I first bumped into it, and I had to overcome my own skepticism. Shortly after Eric and I checked into NSWC to start working with the basic sniper course, we and a handful of other instructors were brought out to Scottsdale, AZ for a one week course taught by a champion marksman named Lanny Bassham, one of the pioneers of mental management. I was pretty dubious. Mental Management? What, like some positive-thinking guru? Oh boy. “Great,” I said to Eric, “when is Tony Robbins gonna come in and blow smoke up our asses?”

My attitude didn’t last long. Bassham is such an amazing, down-to-earth guy – and what he taught us was nothing short of incredible.

“I wasn’t good at sports,” Lanny told us. “I was of this weak, goofy kid. My dad said, ‘Hang in there, we’re going to find something for you. Everyone has a talent.’ ”

Lanny found his talent when he got into competitive shooting. After college he joined the army and was assigned to their marksmanship unit, which is comprised of the best match shooters in the world. By the time he went to shoot in the 1972 Olympics in Munich at the age of twenty-five, Lanny was famous the youngest world champion in the sport, and everyone expected him to shoot gold.

“I was on the bus with a bunch of competitors from different countries,” he said. “I heard some Russians in the seat behind me talking about how much pressure I must be under, with the entire reputation of the United States on my shoulders, and how they were glad they weren’t me – and they started getting in my head.”

By the time he stepped off the bus, Lanny was completely rattled. “I shot the worst match of my life,” he said. This being Lanny, the worst match of his life meant he came in second – but he was devastated. He came back to the States and visited with a handful of sports psychologists to see if he could understand what had happened to him, and they all said the same thing: “Hey it’s okay to be number two. Olympic silver is a great achievement, Lanny. You should be satisfied with that.”

Lanny said, “Screw that. I don’t think so!”

He spent the next few years interviewing dozens of gold-medal champions and recording all the specific traits he could identify in his interviews. They gave him an earful; you don’t get to be a gold medalist without doing an awful lot of self-examination and studying the best practices and key practice/performance tactics and strategies. Out of everything he heard, he found there were two specific traits they all shared in common.

First was complete and total confidence. Not arrogance or cockiness, but an absolute, unshakable confidence in their ability to perform regardless of adversity. Here’ how Lanny described this trait:

If I’m a champion tennis player, playing a championship game, it doesn’t matter if the strings start popping off, or my favorite racket breaks in the middle of the game. I’ll pick up a piece of plywood, tape it to a stick, and I’ll still beat you on the tennis court.

It’s an attitude that says, I will win no matter what. These people didn’t just want to win, they expected to win. When they went out to compete, they had already won in their minds.

We’ve all seen people who have the talent and skill to win, but at the last minute something goes wrong; their favorite bat breaks, or a golf swing misses, or something in their environment distracts them – the way Lanny was psyched out by the Russian taunts – and their game unravels. It didn’t unravel because the bat broke, Lanny was saying, or because the pitch went wild, or because of the other team’s taunt. It unraveled because it was vulnerable.

For champions that doesn’t happen. Their game is invulnerable. That’s the kind of confidence Lanny was talking about – and that was the kind of confidence we wanted to instill in our sniper course graduates.

The other trait was that they all did some kind of mental rehearsal- closing their eyes and practicing their winning game in their heads, over and over again.

Lanny told us about a navy pilot he met in the seventies name Captain Jack Sands. Captain Sands was shot down while serving in Vietnam and spent seven years in a prison camp in Hanoi, confined in isolation with no phyical activity. In order to preserve his sanity, he decided to practice his golf game. Of course, he couldn’t physically play golf – but the 5′ x 5′ cage he was in couldn’t prevent him from creating a course in his mind. In his imagination he evoked an image of a beautiful country club course, placed himself there, and let himself experience it all in great detail. He saw himself dressed in golfing clothes, smelled the trees and grass, and felt himself making each stroke as he played. Every day, for seven years, Captain Sands played a full eighteen holes in his mind while his body sat in his cage. He played it perfectly, never hooking slicing, or missing a single shot or putt. Hey, he was making it all up, right? Why not make it perfect?

Here was the amazing part. Before joining the navy, Captain Sands was an average weekend golfer, barely breaking 100. After he was finally released from his captivity and made his way home, he eventually got out onto a real grass-and-air golf course, and his first day out on the green he shot a stunning score of 74. He had taken more than 20 strokes off his game – without one laying a hand on a club. (By the way, some have claimed this story is an urban legen and there was no such person. It’s no urban legend: Lanny sat next to the guy on a seven-hour flight to a world championship match they attended together.)

The point, said Lanny, was that your reality is defined by your mind, not your external enironment. Jack Sand’s golf game changed so dramatically because that was how he had programmed his brain to see it.

Lanny went on to tell us about a national shooting championship he participated in. As part of his preparation, he had spent time mentally rehearsing the moment when he would be kneeling there and suddenly realize, Holy shit, I’m about to shoot a perfect score. What so often happens in a high-stakes situation like this? The realization that you are on a roll knocks you off balance. It’s that Uh oh, I’m so close, what if I screw up now? moment that can come with asking someone out on a first date, taking your driver’s test, asking for a raise, or doing anything risky and important in life. We’re not ready for this place of victory and don’t know how to react now that we are here – so we choke. Not Lanny. He’d rehearsed that moment so many times that it was now as familiar to him as coming home.

“When I hit that moment in that championship,” he said, “I recognized it like an old friend. Just like I’d done every time I’d rehearsed it. I took two deep breaths, said to myself, I’m shooting the next three shots perfectly, then took my time. Boom. Boom. Boom.”

He shot a perfect score.

Lanny returned to the Olympics in 1976, and this time, using his mental management system, he took the Olympic gold. Over the following years he dominate the field, winning twenty-two world individual and team titles and setting four world records on top of the gold medal he took in Montreal.

Lanny incorporated what he’d learned into a whole mental management program, which he wrote about in his book, With Winning In Mind. His system became so popular that other coaches and athletes started having him come train them.

Mental Management to basketball

The obvious application is visualizing free throws but it could be used for nearly any part of the game. Late in the season, when the body gets worn out, how about taking some time to relax and visualize actions instead of running up and down the court?

As the state playoffs approach, wouldn’t the concept of Mental Management help your team perform better? Imagine what it will be like when you have a lead in the game and realize that you could actually win the championship? Or you face a challenge from the other team, maybe they make a couple of 3 point shots in a row… how are you going to respond? With confidence that you will overcome the challenge and emerge victorious? Why not?

Please post your thoughts on Mental Management for Basketball in the comments below. We would love to hear what you think or how you have applied these ideas!

Power of “Optional”

If you think about it… Basketball is “optional”, especially in middle school and high school. As far as I can tell, no one is ‘required’ to play basketball. Just like no one is ‘required’ to go to college or earn an above average living from a career they enjoy. Almost every great experience or achievement is ‘optional’.

We each get to choose what optional things we want in our life and what optional activities we are willing to put in to our life to get exceptional rewards! As I heard on the Pure Sweat podcast (paraphrasing a bit), “Winning is earned by what you do in the unseen hours.”

Great = Optional

As Jim Collins pointed out in his book, Good to Great, “Good is the enemy of Great.” The reason we have so few things that are great is because what we have is generally “good”. Most people are ready to settle for “good enough” and never discover that they could have achieved something great.

It is very simple. If you want to be great at anything, you have to do things that average people don’t do. You have to do the ‘optional things’. In basketball, if you want to be an all-state player, you need to work on your shot and your athletic ability (assuming those are areas that will make you successful). In school, the optional things could include an extra study session every night or finding a new way to study that is more effective.

Optional is not easy… or hard

Doing extra things, optional things, can be hard. It might involve working harder, getting up earlier than your competition and putting in longer hours. That might be hard… or not. You might actually find ways to enjoy the optional activities. Many athletes are proud of the hours they put in and it gives them a sense of confidence that they would not have otherwise.

On the other hand, optional things could actually BE easy. Finding a new way of doing something can almost instantly take your performance to a new level. Reading on your topic of interest, while perhaps mentally taxing, can be a physically relaxing activity that can give you an advantage over the competition.

Referring back to Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great, one of the counter-intuitive findings that he came up with, and documented with a number of stories in his book, is that it isn’t really harder to go for great than it is to settle for “good”. Are there some different activities? Sure. Do great teams do things different from good teams? Sure. But does it have to be harder? Definitely not.

Quick Mental Training Tip…

Whether something is easy or hard, good or bad… is your choice. You get to define the meaning of everything in your life. A person’s definition of ‘reality’ can be very subjective so why not choose the meaning that gives you the best results. If you want it to be easy, make it easy. If you want to challenge yourself with something hard, make it hard. You get to choose.

Bottom Line…

The optional effort is what makes you stand out. As I’ve said in another article, Hustle is a way to stand out… and Hustle is clearly ‘optional’. What other activities do you need to do to get what you want? By doing the ‘optional’, you are setting yourself from the pack, from the ‘average’ results and shooting for something better. How far are you willing to go? Your limits are just an illusion set up by other people. You can do more than you even imagine!

Next Level Basketball

What does it mean for a player to “take their game to the next level”? It sounds like a good thing but without understanding the meaning it is hard to get there, right?

Plus… even if you have an idea of what the “next level” is for your basketball game, the question of “How do I take my game to the next level?” is still critically important.

This article will answer those questions (from Coach Wheeler’s perspective) and provide you with an example of a player who might Coach Wheeler could help “take their game to the next level.”

What are “the Levels”?

Below are the various levels from middle school through high school and even into college. If you are interested in seeing some of the skills that are typically developed at each level, check out Coach Wheeler’s article on a Player Progression Plan.

Middle School
High School – Player / non-starter… Losing team
High School – Player / starter… Losing team
High School – Player / non-starter… Winning team
High School – Player / starter… Winning team
High School – Player / starter… college-level skills (D3/Community College)
High School – Player / starter… All-state-Honorable mention
High School – Player / starter… All-state-2nd Team
High School – Player / starter… All-state-1st Team
College Starter – D3 / Community College
College Player * – D2
College Player * – D1

* There are obviously many levels within “college”. Most players won’t need to worry about this since even “best in state” does not mean that you are guaranteed a scholarship at the college level.

There could be even more levels if you include various AAU team or individual milestones (tourney wins, elite team participation, etc.). Again, this is a simple framework for players that are working on their game, probably at some level in high school, and looking to go “to the next level”.

HOW do I go to the “Next Level”?

As mentioned earlier, Coach Wheeler’s article on development of Player Progression Plan has lots of clues for players looking to improve.

Beyond skill development, WINNING is another way to move up a level or two. Players on teams that win get more attention from people who evaluate players.

Since basketball is a team game, if you want to win more games, you need to look at your role on the team. What does the team need to win more games? How well are you performing your role on the team? How can you do more? Or better?

You might have some ideas for these questions but don’t settle for your own answers. ASK others to get a better idea of what will take your game to the next level. ASK Coaches… your current coach (obviously), past coaches who have seen you play recently, AAU coaches, assistant coaches and even players whose basketball knowledge you respect.

When you ASK, you could say something like, “I want to take my game to the next level, what do you think I need to improve?” Be open to the answers but look for common answers that come up often. Also, don’t get upset if someone identifies a weakness that you are not proud of. Many people will only give you “good news” and it is important to value people who will “tell it like it is”. You don’t want sugar-coated feedback. You want the truth… and you need to act on the truth!

Coach Wheeler’s “Next Level real Player Example”:

I coached this player as part of an AAU team when he was a freshman and he was a pretty good shooter. I won’t “name names” since I don’t want to embarrass him. Plus the advice could apply to a number of players.

As a sophomore, our “example player” saw some good minutes on his varsity team but he played a secondary role to seniors who played a similar position.

When I saw him a year later in a summer league, he had improved his ability to drive and make shots. The team he played on did not have great players so he probably had to carry a bigger scoring load than he might on another team.

Next Level tip:

This player has pretty good court vision since he handles the ball most of the time and rarely dribbles into traps or places he might lose the ball. His court awareness is part of how he might take his game (and the success of his team) to the next level.

He should work with his team so that they move into scoring position as he drives. For example, wing shooters need to get open to potentially receive a kick-out pass. Big men need to recognize when he is going to drive and find a lane where they can be open if the opposition collapses on the driver. Even if the driver shoots, big men should be actively getting in position for the rebound.

How are all these things the responsibility of the player with the ball? First, basketball is a team game and even if you are the best player in the world the other players on the court need to be active. Michael Jordan did not win a single NBA championship before Coach Phil Jackson brought in the triangle offense and convinced MJ that involving others was in his best interest (especially if he wanted to win).

Second, if you are the primary ball handler (as this player is in our example) your key responsibility is to distribute the ball for the highest percentage shot possible. That means “getting the other players to move to the right places”. Sometimes the coach sets up plays for the team but more often players have to work together on the court in various situations.

This is just Coach Wheeler’s idea for how this player could get to “the next level”. As we mentioned earlier, he should be getting feedback from all the coaches in his life… and taking action.

Bottom line…

If you want to get better, you will have to take action. Basketball is highly competitive. You are not just competing within your school’s division. You are competing against everyone near your age who is playing basketball and trying to get to the next level. Remember, after your senior year in high school, no matter how good you are, the next year you are a freshman in college. From the big fish in the small pond to a small fish in THE OCEAN! The time to move to the Next Level is NOW. Don’t wait. Your future depends on it!

Program Turnaround Plan

If you are a coach interviewing for a leadership position with basketball programs in need of a turnaround, it is important to have a solid idea of how you will improve the situation right from the beginning. That is what they are hiring you for, right? How are you going to create a “Culture of Winning”?

What is considered a “Turnaround Opportunity”?

As I discussed in an earlier post, there are typically 3 levels of “Winning” and most turnaround opportunities are in the Type 3 category [“Participation Awards”] where the program loses 2 or more times more often than it is winning basketball games. Occasionally a Type 1 program will drop to a Type II level [Mediocre] and decide that they need a turnaround so they can return to their tradition of winning. In either case, there are certain elements that need to be established before the program can start to see more wins.

It all starts upstairs.

Before I get into the specific skills that need to be developed I should point out that winning starts with the mentality or “way of thinking” of everyone within the program.

A successful mindset can be built over years of winning traditions but in a turnaround situation you need to convince all parties (players, parents, fans and school administration) that 1) winning is possible and 2) they have the tools they need to build a winning team.

Once these two beliefs are in place, the next step is to have a plan to develop the specific skills/tools needed to actually win games. It is critical to get everyone to buy in to your plan and be willing to work hard to create positive results. Once the positive results start rolling in, it makes it easier and easier for more people to “get on board” and build that winning momentum !

Let’s start building…

Everything starts with a Winning Mindset. I require any team that I coach to adopt 3 core values that we will hold onto no matter what. These key parts of our winning mindset are 1) We never quit, 2) We control our minds, and 3) We overcome challenges. These 3 ideas or “tenets” shape how we approach practice … which shapes how we play in games. I went into these 3 core values in another article on this blog, as well as in person during various interviews. Let me say that they were chosen very carefully and, when given time to fully implement them, they translate into powerful tools that help you create the mindset you need to win in both sports and in life.

What does a “Culture of Winning” look like?

Practice like a champion.
Expect to win / Refuse to Lose
Win with class.

1st Principles for a Turnaround –
3S: Shooting, Strength and Speed

First, I should point out that I believe in the Growth mindset (vs. the Fixed or Talent Mindset). This means that nearly everything is a skill that can be learned and developed. On the other hand is the Fixed or Talent mindset which says that a player either has a talent or doesn’t. Their potential is “fixed” and cannot change.

What most people forget is that a varsity basketball program is the result of years of basketball going all the way back to shooting the ball in the driveway at home. Kids develop at different rates and someone who is the best in grade school can be easily passed by someone who continues to work on their skills through middle school and into high school. On top of this there is the literal “growth” that happens and is not always easy to predict. Growth spurts can happen at almost any age and can completely change a player’s abilities on the court.

Having said that, Shooting, Strength and Speed are all skills that can, and should, improve year after year as an athlete goes through high school. These are the foundation that other skills and strategies are built upon and it makes sense to adopt a Growth mindset so you keep getting better.

Some might say that a team needs height and it is genetic which means it is not subject to development. While it is nice to have a height advantage, many games can be won without a height advantage. Plus, the ability to jump CAN be developed and when combined with speed and strength, a shorter team can often perform much better than a “tall” team.

Shooting Development

This might be a little controversial, but my experience has shown me that every high school that wants to be competitive should have a Dr. Dish or Shoot-a-way basketball shooting machine. It allows players to get in a high volume of shots by themselves. The machine collects the ball after it is shot and passes to the player for the next shot while keeping a tally of makes & misses. It is a valuable tool that every team should have and should be used CONSTANTLY. More shots in practice (with a little coaching) results in more makes in games. It is also a good goal for booster clubs and coaches as part of their fundraising efforts.

This is in line with my 3P’s of shooting…
1) Practice,
2) Practice while moving and
3) Practice at game speed.

My shooting development program also includes the following concepts/drills…

[Shooting] confidence is earned.
More shots made in practice = more confidence in games.
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Shooting accuracy and range is a function of strength.
Your leg strength and arm/wrist strength determines your working range. Putting up lots of shots will help but a strength program is also an important part of a successful basketball program.
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Shooting form typically need to be corrected in high school.
As strength is added, a better, more effective shooting form often needs to be adopted. This typically happens in the transition from Middle School to High School but whenever it happens the new (correct) form needs to be “burned in” with repetition so that it becomes automatic.
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Center Swish Drill. This helps players target the very center of the basket and can be useful when they are making adjustments to their shooting form, ideally over the summer when they have loads of time to put up shots.
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Quick NBA Legend story:
The idea of “center swish shooting” came from something I heard about how Larry Bird practiced his shooting. Someone saw that on some days Larry would shoot a tone of shots while on other days he shot only a few. When asked about it, Larry said that he shoots until he is happy with the results (he shoots for the very center of the basket). Some days his stroke is 100% and it is a short practice. Other days he needs to “dial it in” which can take more shots. If you aren’t yet as good as Larry Bird, how many shots do you think you will need to shoot?

Strength Development

Consistency is the key for strength development. It does little good to burn out your muscles by lifting too much weight and then being too sore to work out for a week. Consistently lifting enough weight to stress your muscles so they will adapt and get stronger is the key. Don’t lift so much that you are too sore to lift in two days. Effort is important but consistency (with proper recovery) builds results.

Basketball players should start learning basic lifting in 8th grade (age 14) with body weight exercises and focus on a consistent schedule. It will add up.

I typically have high school players do legs & core on one day and arms/chest/back on the following day. Ideally, they should not lift on the 3rd day. This gives two complete cycles per week with another day off. If a player is running and doing basketball drills, this should work his muscles sufficiently without interfering with any practices or games that come up.

Quick NBA Legend story…
Michael Jordan lifted weights throughout his NBA season and he would have sometimes 4-5 games per week. He famously would lift on the morning of a game day to stay on his strength building program.

Most under-utilized weight training tool:

Kettle bells are becoming more common but they are still very often sitting around unused. In particular, kettle bell swings are a great way to strengthen your core all the way from your thighs, through your glutes and abs and the rest of your core muscles. Having a strong core gives you a strong foundation when making twisting moves around the basket while also helps prevent back injuries.

Other ways to improve strength and mobility include yoga and other activities that involve balance. These types of exercise help tone your core muscles which helps to prevent back injuries and give you some great looking abs!

Speed Development

I have found that there is no replacement for a timed full speed sprint. It is simple to time yourself and by measuring your speed, you are able to see improvement.

Another way to develop speed is by using HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training. Basketball is a game of sprints, not jog-jog-jog. Joggers get beat by sprinters.

There is a good app I have on my iPad called Tabata Stopwatch Pro which allows you to set your exercise intervals (e.g. sprints) as well as the rest interval. This brings up another aspect of “speed” as it applies to basketball. It is not only how fast you can sprint but also how fast you can recover from sprinting and sprint again. Building your ability to recover is something that the Tabata or HIIT workout does well.

Favorite Speed Drill: Jump Rope

A jump rope is an inexpensive way to improve your foot speed as well as hand/eye coordination. Players are surprised by how much quicker they can become by something as simple as jumping rope.

Another Favorite Drill: Lunges

The lunge is another underrated drill. In fact, the trainer who helped Michael Jordan go from a 35 inch to a 46 inch vertical jump uses an adapted form of the lunge as part of his “Jump Attack” training program. I like to use either weighted lunges with the rear foot on a bench as part of a weight workout or step lunges as a warm-up.

Jumping is not just about muscle strength but also involves flexibility, especially in the hip joint, so a lunge exercise helps in a number of ways. Jumping also requires quickness and technique which are also skills that can be developed. If you have a jump program that you would like to see reviewed on this blog, leave your contact info in a comment and we will be in contact.

Player Development Timetable:

High school players need to be developed starting in elementary school where the key is building a love for the game. Playing basketball is fun. Getting better at basketball is fun. It is sometimes challenging but it is still fun. At the higher levels, the game becomes more challenging but the satisfaction of overcoming those challenges, combined with the thrill of winning take the “fun” to a whole new level.

Need Year Round Basketball to win?

With AAU and other leagues, it is possible to play year-round. Is this required for the successful turnaround of a basketball program? Probably not but the best players will find opportunities to play year round, often in addition to other sports. Weekend AAU games are a great complement to a school soccer or cross-country team in the Fall or a track or baseball season in the Spring. The key is to make all coaches aware of the player’s schedule. No one wants surprises when it comes to game conflicts. The last thing a coach wants is worn out players when they should have been resting up for the next day’s game.

What’s next to Turnaround a basketball program?

wheeler's Pyramid of Winning Basketball The Winning Mindset and the 3 S’s get you about halfway up the pyramid of winning basketball. Looking ahead, there will be articles on this blog about Skill development and Strategies. These are things that many coaches focus on … without the strong foundation of a proven strong mindset and 3S’s. In a turnaround situation, that is a recipe for disaster (and more losses). Be sure to sign up for our email notification service. Don’t miss the future articles. They will go further up the Pyramid of winning and how to turnaround your basketball program!

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.