How To Eliminate Overthinking On The Court

Foreign. Welcome to the Vision and Basket Training Podcast. Appreciate everybody who is tuned in today, everybody listening, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Pandora, wherever else you listen to podcast, shout out to you guys and of course, everybody who is here on YouTube right now. I'm very appreciative of all you guys who tune in, especially you guys who were in here every single week, listen to every episode. You guys are awesome. And so if you guys are on Apple podcasts, like I always say, scroll down to the bottom of the page for me, leave a review, let me know what you think of the show. As you guys know, I read new reviews I get before every show. I've got two of them this week, which is great. So the first one says, amazing. My top podcast has really helped me with every aspect of my game and pushed me to get better. Something I didn't know a podcast could do. I'm on the Perimeter Score program and trust me, it's the real deal. You will get better for sure. Love it. Keep the episodes coming, coach. Appreciate that. And you know, like you said, the primitive score system guys, if you guys want to join, I mean, I've gotten so many reviews talking from players, talking about how they've transformed their game, transformed their offensive abilities, and even just this offseason, right, there's players grinding through right now, and it's awesome to see the progress that they're making and the strides that they're taking as basketball players and just the confidence level that that they're gaining through the program. So that's gonna be linked in the Description below on YouTube and Apple Podcast. If you guys are interested in joining that, go ahead and check it out. I have one more review says congrats on holding your first camp. And congrats on the camp, coach. You keep getting better at helping us get better. So I appreciate that. And yeah, first camp was this past last weekend and it was awesome. I really enjoyed it. Everyone who came there got better. And again, my goal is to do more of those and continue to expand the reach so that, you know, I can pull more of you guys who might not be local to Central Pennsylvania, but maybe you come in for a weekend or however long the camp is. You. You know, we just work and we get better. That's my goal ultimately. So shout out to you guys for that reviews. Like I said, guys, do me a favor. Helps the show grow. If you go down, leave a review for me to have a podcast. So shout out to you guys and of course, the Perimeter Tourism link below if you guys are interested in Joining that as well. So this week's episode is a question that I think a lot of players struggle with that I got a couple of times this past week which got me thinking about this. And that's the topic of overthinking. And I think that overthinking is one of those areas that really can derail you as a basketball player, right? It can completely overtake your mind when you're on the actual court. Right? So you might go in and feel like, okay, I'm confident in my skills, confident in my abilities to perform, but if you fall victim to overthinking, it can derail all, all of that. Right. And you can end up playing at way less than your potential, way less than your capacity to play, simply because the mental aspect of things. Okay, so I want to talk about this kind of from two different perspectives. The mental side of things, then the actual, like, physical on court side of things as well. So we'll start off with just the mental side of things. I think that's where it stems for a lot of players, right? I think it can be either side. Like, some players can struggle because of the, the mental aspect of it, and then some players can struggle because of the physical aspect when it comes to, like, their training or what they're actually doing to prepare themselves. And then some might be both or a mixture of both. Okay, but we'll hop into both of those things right here. So the first thing is that you guys have to understand that you don't control very much about the game of basketball, really in life, right? A lot of this episode is going to be it's going to relate to basketball, but it's also going to relate to just life in general. Right? You don't control all that much that happens to you. Okay? You don't control where you're born, you don't control who you're born to. You don't control, you know, what school your parents send you to. Right. That for the most part, I mean, you might have a little bit of say, but you probably don't. Especially you go to like, just the public school around you. You don't really have a say in where that is. It's kind of where you are, right? You don't control, you know what, you know, you don't control what your parents give you for food when you're a little kid. Right? You don't control, you don't, you know, you don't control your, the teachers that you get or like, there's so many things in life that you kind of are just a victim of circumstance, right? You kind of just are where you are, and that's what you have, okay? And basketball is very similar, right? You don't control the vast majority of things, okay? You don't control, ultimately, what your coach thinks of you, okay? You can try to influence that by being a good teammate and working hard and, you know, listening and putting in extra work. All these things that are good to do and may have an impact on it. But in the day, the coach is going to think what he thinks, okay? And that might have more to do with him or her than it does do with you. So that's one thing to keep in mind. And aside from that, like, there's so much you don't control. You don't control how the refs call a game. You don't control if they call a foul or they don't call a foul or they miss something or they don't miss something, right? You don't control if, you know, the opposing fans are on you the whole game or not. You don't control what teammates you have for the most part. I mean, you don't control who. Who you're playing with, right? You. You can influence to an extent the way that they work, right? You can try and get them to come in the gym and try and get them to show up and do all this stuff, but in the day, they make their own choices. You don't really control that, okay? So, you know, there are certain circumstances where you might be blessed to have teammates who are real committed, really good, and you win a lot of games, or you might be in the exact opposite boat. You got teammates who aren't committed, aren't very good. You don't win a lot of games because of it, okay? There's so many things you don't control. Then we can talk with the actual physical part of basketball, right? The actual game. You don't control whether or not the ball goes in, right? You might. You might think that, oh, yeah, I control the ball goes in. Like, if I shoot it well, then it goes in. Well, I guarantee you, you shot the ball before and it felt like, oh, 100% is going in, and then it misses, right? You might shoot the basketball perfectly and then it rolls in and out, okay? Or, you know, here's an even better example. You might go up for a layup, and the layup's right on. If somebody comes out of nowhere and blocks your shot, okay? You don't control whether or not somebody can get up and block your Shot, you don't control whether or not, you know, the air conditioning is on and it, you know, may have just affected the ball by a fraction of an inch and that was enough for the ball to miss, right? That's like, you have to understand that, right? You don't ultimately control players ball going in the basket or not going in the basket, okay? So even the most fundamental aspect of basketball, which is putting the ball in the basket, you have, you don't have control over it, you have influence on it, okay? If you're a better shooter, there's a higher chance of it going in, but at the end of the day, it's still just a chance. It's not like you can't 100% make the ball go in the basket, right? You just can't. And so that's one thing to understand. You don't really have control over, over very much, okay? And a lot of times where players start to, to like, they start to overthink is when they don't recognize this. They don't realize they don't have control over most of what happens. So they become, they fall victim to getting really high when they play well and really low when they don't play well, okay? You have to understand the fact that you're going to have games where you make every single shot and you make every perfect decision. You have no turnovers and you play great. And then you're going to have games where you miss a bunch of shots and you just don't make good decisions. You turn the ball over. That's how it is, okay? There's going to be good, there's going to be bad, and there's going to be in between. So you have to first of all understand and accept that, that not every game is going to be your best game ever. And that's okay because that's how it is, right? That's just, that's just how basketball is. You have to accept that and be okay with that before you can actually move on and figure out how to, how to adjust to that. But going with that, guys, there are only two things really that you control on the basketball court, and that is your effort and your energy, okay? Or your attitude. We can't even say so when it comes to effort, you know, how hard you play, right? That is something you control. You know, you going up and, and you know, whether or not you make or miss a shot, sprinting back on defense and playing hard, that's something that you do absolutely 100 control, okay? You know, you turn the ball over, and instead of putting your head down and sulking about it, getting back on defense or whatever, right, Your teammate turns the ball over instead of, you know, getting. Getting, you know, mad or whatever and, like, losing your mind. Like, you know, you going over and being like, hey, man, let's, let's. Let's get it together. Let's go like, you know, let's get. Let's get a stop right here, right? You going back and playing hard on defense, those are things you control, right? Whether or not your team is winning or losing, you going through and, and, you know, playing hard offensively, right? And going through, doing the right things, right? Running your system the way that your coach has you run it, doing all the little things correctly, even when things might not be going well, that is something you absolutely 100% control. And what you guys need to understand is that the better energy that you give, the higher likelihood of you playing well. When you give your best effort, your ceiling or your capacity to play well is at its maximum. Okay? So the only way that you have any influence on the outcome of the game or the outcome of your own personal game is through the energy, the effort that you give and all that. That means that if you focus on giving your best effort at all times, the outcome is going to take care of itself. But, you know, think of it as like, I was just watching the Hunger Games the other day, and, you know, they put in to you guys who aren't familiar with what the Hunger Games is, it's basically. Basically a. It's a. A fictional dystopian universe where there's 12 districts. It's basically America and like a post apocalyptic, I don't know if that's the right word for that, but basically there was an uprising, and then America is now under a new control, and there's 12 districts across the. Across America. Just think of it as like 12 states. And every year there's a Hunger Games. They take a boy and a girl from each district and they have them basically do like a battle royale for one winner. Okay? So it's pretty, Pretty. A pretty horrible thing. But how they do it is that, you know, they draw names to determine who the two. The two candidates from each victor from each district will be. So they put all these names into, you know, a giant container, and then they just draw out a boy and a girl from each container, okay? And as you get older, your name gets entered into the. The. Into the jar more often. And also, I believe if you. If you get food, like, they'll give you food or something if you are willing to put your name in extra time so you can get more food from the government. If you put your name in more times. So basically, you're more likely to get picked. And you can think of. Right. To draw that analogy back to basketball, you can think of it as, like, the same thing. The more energy that you give, the more effort that you give, the more times your name is in that jar. Except in this time, your name being in that jar more times just means the higher likelihood of you playing well. Okay? So that's a great way to look at it, is that you want to have your name in the jar as many times as possible. And the way that you do that is by giving your best effort at all times. So what you need to do when you start to overthink, or if you have a habit of overthinking, is you need to just remind yourself whether that is out loud or just in your head during games. You start to overthink is just effort. I need to get my best effort, okay? My best effort is all that matters. I'm gonna get my best effort on this play. That's the only thing that matters because it's all that you control. So if you can now focus on just thinking about that, everything else is gonna take care of itself, assuming that you prepared yourself physically for the game. So that's one thing to understand. The other aspect of that is your attitude. Okay, so are you a positive person, right? When you. When you play poorly, do you, you know, just shut it off and do you just tap out and be like, oh, I guess. I guess I'm just not going to, you know, try very hard today. I guess I'm just not going to have a good attitude today. I guess I'm not going to be a good teammate today because I'm not going to be coachable today. Is that what happens to you when you don't play well or you miss a shot or your coach yells at you? Do you. Do you resort to having a bad attitude about it? Because that is the other thing that you control. And, you know, think of it as, like, you know, whenever your attitude is bad, your coachability is bad. Oh, this is bad. Think about it is taking names out of the jar, out of the container. So now you have less of a likelihood of playing well. So your effort and your attitude are the two things you control and the only two things you really should be focused on as you play. Okay? We can curb overthinking just by focusing on Having those things at high level. What I want you to do is from now on, when you play, don't judge your performance based on points, based on assists, based on turnovers, based on whatever, right? That, that's obviously, I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying if you can start to get to a point where you think that, okay, if I gave my best effort today, like that's a win, right? I might not be able to control if I had a horrible shooting game, because that just happens sometimes. But I did give my best effort. I put myself in the best position to succeed. And I know that because of the work I'm putting in, if I continue to do that, eventually it's going to work out for me and I'm going to have some good games, okay? But really what I'm getting at is you have to be a process focused basketball player as opposed to an outcome focus. The outcome focus is, okay, I got to go out and score 20 points today. I got to go and I got to shoot 8 for 8 today. I got to go out and I got to do this, do that as opposed to, I'm going to go out, I'm going to put myself in the best position to be successful. I'm going to give my best effort today. I'm going to play as hard as I possibly can today, okay? And I'm going to control what I control and then the pieces will fall where they do, right? That's what you got to get to as a basketball player if you want to continuously, you want to have longevity and be successful and you want to be able to kind of weather those ups and downs that come with being a basketball player, where you're going to have great games, going to have bad games. But if you know that every single game you give your best effort again, your name is in the jar more times than most, most other players and you're going to have a chance to be more successful, more consistently, okay? So focus your energy, focus on your, on your effort, on your energy, on your attitude, right? When you're in a game, like you're thinking to yourself, constantly, okay, effort right here. Got to get my best effort. That's what matters. And get my best effort, okay? Guess what? Coach pulled me out of the game. I gave my best effort, right? I did as well as I could do. And that's all that I can ask of myself because, you know, I am what I am as a player physically during the game. So I just got to go out and play as Hard as I can, right? Do the things that I can control. So that's the first thing to understand. You know, the other aspect to it is like, and this again, it's a life thing, not just basketball thing. But like so many players are super, right? They put so much stress on themselves to be good at basketball because they think of it as like a life or death sort of thing. They're like, oh man, I've got to be great at basketball. Like I have to succeed, I have to do this. How are you supposed to go out and just play freely without overthinking things when you, you put all that stress on yourself? Okay, basketball is, it's a game at the end of the day, right? It's a game, it's supposed to be fun. And when you go out there and you put all this pressure on yourself, it's for a lot of players actually a double edged sword where you actually are doing more harm than help to yourself. Because now you're so focused on the outcome of that game that you can't focus on the process. You can't focus on just going out there and playing as hard as you can and controlling things you control. So understand, like basketball is a game and you know, at the end of the day, you can't base who you are on, oh, if I played well or I didn't play well, right? If you go out and you give your best effort every single time, that's, that's a lot to be proud of. Because not a lot of players do that. Not a lot of players give consistent effort every single game. And if you can do that, then that's, that's something to applaud, right? So focus on being that sort of player. And then we talk about the physical side of things. This is where this is another area that is super important. And when it comes to overthinking, a lot of times it's because players don't have experience in those situations, right? If you have been in a situation, you've had to make those decisions, right? For example, let's say you've never worked on a ball screen before and then your coach puts you in a game and now you're coming off ball screens. Well, if you've never experienced it before, you're probably going to overthink things because you're not going to know what to do. You're not going to be very confident in yourself, right? A lot of times overthinking can come from a lack of confidence as well. So that, you know the point of that being you've got to put yourself in a position to experience those things. So for example, right, you know, calling up your teammates and getting some two on two going and working on those ball screen situations, right. The more that you see it, the more confident you're going to be in that or even just getting your teammates to run some three on three stuff. Like you being in a situation where you've got to face defenders and you've got to play, like that's where you gain that confidence as well. So it's not just the mental side of things, but if you feel like, oh, you know, the game is moving so fast and I'm not sure what I'm doing and I know I don't know what like that is where it's not just a mental thing, but it's also a experience thing. Like you have to get more experiences to play. You got to play more, more pickup, more one on one, two on two, three on three, four on four, whatever it may be. That's where you got to get to as well. And as you get more confident doing that, the game is going to slow down. You're going to overthink things less. That's super, super important. So a couple things to keep in mind. Mentally focusing on giving your best effort at all times, putting yourself, you know, having your name in that jar as many times as possible. That's how you become a consistently successful player. And then the, the physical side of things is putting yourself in a position in, you know, practice or even just pick up wherever where you have to actually experience and become confident in those situations that you're going to see. So hopefully that helps you guys out when it comes to overthinking this. I know it's such a big, a big thing and you know, there's, there's probably other avenues we can take in terms of like, why does that happen and where. But like this I think is a two things that really is going to help a lot of you guys. And even just the effort part of you guys, if you focus on giving your best effort in anything that you do, the likelihood of success is going to go way up. Right? Way up. As opposed to you trying to be perfect and trying to get this outcome or that outcome. So continue to keep that in mind. Again, I appreciate you guys who are tuned in today. If you guys are not podcast, like I said, leave a review, let me know what you think of the show. If you guys are on YouTube, drop a, like subscribe if you're new and leave a comment for me. You guys are interested in the perimeter score system as was mentioned earlier. Top link in my description below. Let's get to work. Have a great rest of our summer. It's kind of crazy. Summer's flying by right now, but I appreciate you guys who are listening and watching. I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.