How To Deal With The Pressure Of Playing Basketball (Change Your Mindset)

When we talk about handling pressure from a. Like a more. A more figurative sense in terms of the pressure that comes along with whatever, whether it's the pressure of trying to perform, the pressure of trying to get a spot on a team or keep a spot on a team, or the pressure that comes from, you know, the people in the stands watching you, pressure coming from your family or from your friends or from whatever. Whatever. The pressure your coach is, whoever's putting pressure on you, wherever you're feeling pressure from, dealing with that. And I think that becomes a little bit more nuanced, I would say. One of the first things to understand is a lot of times pressure is so. It's so overblown, and it's hard to tell from being in the situation. Right? It's hard. It's hard to. Because you feel that, but it's hard to actually know how accurate this pressure, like, is. There. Is there actually this pressure here. A lot of times there is not. And it's not. It's an unnecessary amount of pressure being put on yourself. So, you know, for example, a lot of times you might think, okay, well, you know, what if I go out there and what if I miss a layup? Right. Maybe that's where you're putting pressure on yourself is, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to take it to the basket and miss. And you think about it all the time, and that's what you're worried about. You get into a game, you're just worried about, hey, I get in there, what if I. What if I blow a layup? What if I miss inside? If you go and do that, you go and miss a layup. Yeah. At the time, people are gonna be like, oh, come on, man. But 20 seconds later, nobody's gonna remember, you know, so how consequential, actually, is that? A lot of times we think that the consequence for something is much greater than it actually is. You missing a layup, you turning the ball over at the time, it sucks, but usually it's not that big of a deal. Now, if it's repeated and you do it all the time, it's a different stuff story, okay? But these different isolated incidents where things go wrong, that's basketball for you. Like, I'm constantly on the players that I work with to not keep themselves in a box and to constantly try to branch out and try new things. And if we. If we're working on something and they have an opportunity to focus on that and. And try something, because in order to get better at Something, it's not going to be a natural thing if you aren't. If you are not somebody who drives to their weak hand ever. Like you just never have done it. And that's a weakness. That's a limiting factor in your game. You can work on your weekend 24 hours a day for a month straight. If you don't, in the context of a game, make a conscious decision to say, hey, you know what? I'm going to try and get to my left here. Even if it's just at first, you're going to have to consciously do that a little bit. And, and then once you get. Once you get comfortable doing that, once you get familiar with doing that, it becomes less of a conscious decision choice you have to make. But if you don't make that decision, then you're going to struggle. But what that means is that you're probably. The first few times you do that is a good chance that it's not going to go quite as well as you probably hope that it would go. Gonna lose the ball, you're gonna not get to the basket, you're gonna not get to where you want to get to. It's not gonna work. But the, the results, the success comes after you actually make that commitment to try it and to become comfortable doing it. I think that's an important thing for. For players to understand when it comes to improving and dealing with that pressure. The other thing that I would say is, like, part of it is you have to appreciate the fact that there is pressure, right? I think a lot of times people want to deal. When people say deal with pressure, they mean like, oh, how do I get it so I don't feel pressure anymore? I'll reframe that for you in two ways. First of all, if you're doing anything of consequence, if you're doing anything of meaning, there's going to be pressure involved with it somehow. Okay? So there's. If you're doing something that you enjoy and that is any bit competitive, there's going to be pressure. So there's never a. You can never say, hey, how I deal with pressure so that I don't have it anymore. That's just not possible. What I will say is that adding to that, if you are doing something and there's no pressure involved, it's. You might. It might feel like in your mind, oh, it'll be great, there's no pressure, but it's actually way more boring. If there was no pressure involved in basketball, you would not enjoy it as much. Right? It would not be as meaningful to you. The pressure is a very necessary part, and it's part of what makes the game enjoyable. Even if you feel like at times it's like what makes it not enjoyable for you, obviously too much of it is not ideal, right? There's. We don't want to go overboard with it, but there's always going to be a little bit of pressure right there, and you actually need that pressure. So the first thing is, is I. Is I, like, understand that, identify it, but then appreciate the fact that there's pressure. Appreciate that you're doing something, that you're in a position where there's pressure on you, you know, because if there's no pressure on you, then you. There's no need for you to get better. There's no need for you to elevate yourself. There's no need for you to see how great you can be at something. You could just, you know, walk through, you know, take a stroll in the park, going through everything and not have to worry about being better or being great at anything. And even if that seems like, oh, maybe that would be. It actually wouldn't be. I can promise you that it would be way less enjoyable and basketball wouldn't be what it is to you, okay? So appreciate that pressure and understand that at the end of the day, like I said, there's not the pressure that you have that you put on yourself probably is not as great as you actually think that it is. So a lot of times it comes down to taking a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the nose, three seconds in, hold it for a second or two, out for six, and just allow yourself to play. Right? And again, as simple as that sounds, that's how you deal with the pressure is just by understanding it's probably not as crazy as you think that it is. And just playing. I think the other way to approach pressure or anxiety when it comes to performing is. Is reframing what the goal is. Okay? And I think that a lot of times the goal for players is to not mess up or not look bad or to not lose out what they had. I think that's the wrong way to approach anything is saying, oh, I have this. I'm clinging on to what I have. I have this starting spot, or I have this playing time, and I'm just clinging on. I'm just holding on to try not lose it. A lot of players play with that approach. They just try not to lose what they have. They don't want to lose the playing time they have. I Don't want to mess up and lose what I have. But, but if that's your approach, then you're, you're never going to be able to maximize what you actually can be. And again, this is something that I always try and preach to my players because I felt it for sure, right? Where it's just like you never actually quite know what you are, what you're capable of doing because you spend so much time worried about not losing what you have. If I mess up, then I'm going to lose what I have. Even, even if you probably aren't where you want to be yet, you probably, you probably wouldn't say that what you have right now is your ultimate goal. But the, the paradox and the, the, the tough part about it is that in order for you to get what you want, you have to risk what you have. You can't just, you can't play it safe 100% of the time and expect to be able to push yourself forward. It's just not how it works. And that's the tough part of it, right? That there's no, it's not easy, okay? But again, being great at whatever. And whatever goals you have for yourself probably are not, you know, they're probably not little goals. They're probably stuff that a lot of people want, right? So you have to be willing to potentially risk looking bad, potentially risk messing up in order for you to get to where you want to get to, right? So if your goal goes from play mistake free, like if your goal right now is don't look bad, don't mess up, don't get yelled at by the coaches, don't turn the ball over, don't miss the shot, don't miss that layup if you can, if you can reframe it and that, that get rid of the, get rid of that being what your goals look like. And instead your goals being, hey, you know, did I get better today? Like, did I look to expand my game today? Did I look to try something new today? Right? Did I look to expand what I'm capable of doing? You know, if something you've been working on a lot is driving to your left, and in the context of a game, you drove to your left twice, maybe you didn't score on them, but you got to where you, you wanted to get to with your left, maybe that's something that you've struggled with. That's progress right there. So that moved you closer to becoming what you want to become, even though you had to risk potentially messing something up, right? So when you actually think about it that way, if that was your goal was, you know, get to get to left hand drives, that game, even if you turn the ball over a couple times, you've actually now moved yourself closer to what your goals probably are, which is, you know, whatever, whatever those ultimate goals that you have. Let's say you're a high school player, you want to be a college player, okay? But you know that you have to expand yourself offensively. Well, that game, you just did that, you know, so whether or not you scored 20 points, or you shot 100% from the field, or you had zero turnovers, the fact of the matter is the, the, the ultimate goal you have for yourself, you did something that pushed you towards that. So think about whatever that might be for you, and if that is your focus and that's all that you care about, right? That's what, that's the lens you view everything through, then the pressure is still going to be there, but you're going to be able to deal with it because, you know, like, you have focus and you know, like, hey, you know, even if mistakes happen, even if missed shots happen, it's a part of it. It's going to happen. I know it's going to happen because I'm trying to be better, I'm trying to improve. And that comes with those growing pains, okay? So when it comes to dealing with pressure, reframing how you view it, a lot of times can take that pressure from being something that's like, debilitating and holds you back to something that actually pushes you forward. And that, I think is the ultimate goal when it comes to press.