How To Build HIGH Level Confidence In Basketball If You Struggle In Real Games

So many players struggle with confidence in games. Maybe you're a player who plays really well in practice or in workouts, but when the actual games get here, you struggle to carry over those results. Or maybe you struggle to stay confident on a consistent basis. One day you feel really good about yourself, but then the next day your confidence is completely gone. Regardless of the exact situation in this video, I'm going to take you through three steps to becoming a more confident player. To not only increase in your own self belief, but also making sure that you see results in actual games as well. The first way of gaining confidence and then solidifying that confidence is understanding the importance of how you talk to yourself. So many players struggle with self talk. They miss a shot or turn the ball over and they immediately tell themselves that they suck or that they don't have it today, or a million other negative things about themselves. But this is usually a self fulfilling prophecy. So if you say that to yourself, chances are that's the direction you're gonna go. And typically this is a habit that players have built up, but it's a habit that you need to change. Everybody has problems, everybody struggles, everybody makes mistakes. But the question is, are you problem focused or solution focused? A problem focused player is going to beat themselves up over their problems. I can't shoot today, I can't handle the ball today, I look so bad right now, or some other negative thing and they start to feel sorry for themselves. This is not going to help you at all. If anything, it's going to make you play worse. You have to become solution focused. When you start to miss shots, give yourself a solution. I keep missing it short, so next time I'm going to shoot it longer. I've turned the ball over, so next time I'm going to pass it earlier or avoid the trap spot, or drive the other direction or use my offering to protect the ball or whatever the solution might be to that problem. You need to create the habit of offering yourself a solution when you struggle and this can completely change things for you. You can go from playing poorly to playing well just because of how you talk to yourself. So start to build that habit. When you catch yourself being problem focused or negative in workouts or games, stop yourself and come up with a solution instead. As you do this more often, you'd become better and better at it and you'll perform at a higher level more consistently. And this leads to my next point, which is perspective. Things will generally go better for you when you do things with confidence. At times that might even mean you have to fake it, but that's okay. You have to have a self belief that remains even when things don't go as planned. And talking to yourself in a positive, constructive way. That solution focused is a big part of developing a good perspective. But here's the third part and the part that most often holds players back from being able to play with confidence in games. And that's asking the question, does your training actually prepare you to be successful in games? You might be working hard, you might be consistent, maybe you get in the gym every day and get your shots up, work on your skills, hit the weight room and do whatever you can to get better, which is great, but it won't matter if you aren't training the right way. Here's the thing. Having actual basketball skill is about three things. Perception, decision and action. You have to perceive the situation first. Am I open? Is my teammate open? Where's the defender? Do I have an advantage? How much space do I have? What kind of shot can we get here? And probably a dozen other things subconsciously at the same time. And then you have to actually make the decision. Do I pass? Do I shoot? Do I drive? Which way do I drive? What kind of path do we need to make here? Amongst other things. And then you actually complete the action, which is shooting the ball or passing the ball or dribbling or whatever other physical action you execute right there. You go through that entire three step process every single time you do something in a game. The problem is most players only train the last part, which is the actions. They don't train the perception or the decision aspect of completing a skill. So then when they get to the game, they don't do nearly as well because they're missing 2/3 of the actual skill. If you feel unsure of yourself in games and you struggle, struggle to make the right decisions or you feel overwhelmed in games, it's likely because you don't train the perception and decision aspect and you only train the action. What is important that you get your shots up and you work on your dribbling and all of that. But that alone doesn't translate to actual in game skills. So how do you start to train this entire process so that you perform better in games? The first thing is that you need to be in situations that require perception and decision making as much as possible. I'll have some clips here as examples, but all these drills require players to go through the entire skill process. They have to perceive and decide and then they have to complete, complete the action. This can be as simple as setting up a one on one or a two on two situation that may simulate the game. For example, a ball screen or a driving kick with defense on the court. But these live situations are super important to train. And what you'll notice is that when you start to add this into your training, you're going to do worse in those training sessions. You won't make as many shots, you're going to make more mistakes, and in general, it's going to be uglier. But science has shown that this type of training will actually translate better to the game. So you may look worse in training, but you'll be way better when the actual game comes. Training should look ugly at times. That's the only way to improve. But maybe you don't have access to people to train with all the time. That's okay. You just need to make sure that you're playing against defense as much as possible. Play as much pickup as you can, because then you'll be forced to go through that three step process as well. Even if it isn't always five on five, just play as much as you can. This is such an important thing if you want to start seeing better results in real games. And be purposeful when you do this. If your goal is to get better at driving, make it a point to try and drive as much as you can. You're going to fail, and it might be ugly sometimes, but eventually you'll figure out what works for you and you'll get better at it. But you can't skip the ugliness. In fact, you should embrace it as a necessary part of getting better because a lot of players won't. So you put yourself ahead if you're willing to fight through failure and struggles. Additionally, the game is imperfect. Things don't always go according to plan. People make bad passes. The defense makes a great closeout. You sometimes don't always have a lot of time to get a shot off. There's a ton of variability within the game. You have to train this as well if you want to be successful in games. So work on shots where your feet aren't perfectly normal. Or work on shots coming from a bad pass. Work on being able to make different shots back to back like you do in games. You have to be an adaptable player. So training for imperfect situations is crucial. Research shows that highly skilled people don't have one certain form that never changes. It's actually the opposite. Highly skilled people can slightly adapt their movements from rep to rep to adjust to the situation. Meaning a great shooter can shoot when their feet are perfect and when they aren't perfect, they can make shots when it's thrown directly to their pocket and when it's thrown at their feet. Train to become a more adaptable player and you'll see your success level in games skyrocket. If you take these tips and apply them, then I promise you you're going to become a much more confident player. And like I said earlier, things are generally going to go better for you when you play with confidence. So you're going to see results in games become so much better and more consistent. If you got something from this video, make sure you drop a comment below. Also, like subscribe if you're new, click the top link down in the description below to get my free Leap Score workout. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.