The 3 Mindsets That You MUST HAVE To Reach Your Potential As A Hooper

I can almost guarantee, if you're watching this right now, that the majority of your struggles on the court come from not doing these three things. As important as it is to be physically skilled, athletic and everything like that, if you don't have the right mindset, you're never going to be as good as you want to be. And it's as simple as that. I spend time around a ton of different players that I'm always watching and observing to see what separates the best players from everybody else. And to me, it's these three mindsets. If you can adopt these mindsets when you play, you're going to put yourself ahead of a lot of players who might be more skilled than you, they might be bigger than you, they might be more athletic than you, but if they're missing any of these three things, eventually they're going to break. So if you want to make yourself into the best player possible and have the most amount of success on the court that you can, let's get into it. The first mindset, or even mental ability, I guess you could look at it as that great players have. That, I think is a requirement to be a great player. Is the ability to be present. The ability to, to be where your feet are right now. A superpower in basketball and really in anything that you do is just your ability to be present in the moment that you're in and not worried about the past or the future. Not thinking about the turnover you just had or the missed shot you just had. Not being worried about what's going to happen if you miss another shot or if you get beat on defense again. But being able to take 100% of your mental energy and focus and place it into the present moment, into what you're doing right now. And, and this is a superpower because so many players struggle to do this. They either get so caught up in mistakes or it was happened in the past that they're not able to get themselves back focused into the present moment. Or they get super caught up in worrying about what could happen. Right. Like I mentioned, what happens if there's another shot? Is my coach upset with me? What are the people watching thinking about? What are they going to think if we lose this game or if I don't play well today? And they get so caught up in those things right there that they can't put their pre. Their focus, their attention into what they're currently doing in that present moment. And because of that, a lot of players might only be able to use 60 to 70% of their focus on what's actually happening in the present moment. And maybe even less than maybe it's 30 or 40% can be focused on what's actually happening, what they're actually doing. And everything else is worried about what's just happened, what could happen. And this is obviously not a place where you want to be, right? The only thing that we can control is the present moment. There's something you're going to do to. To fix the past, right? And we talk about future moments. You're not going to actually be able to affect that until you're in that moment, right? But everything you do in the present is going to lead you to that future moment. The only thing that you can control is what you do in this current moment that you're in right now. So nothing else matters. And nothing else in a game deserves your focus or attention other than the present moment that you're in, the present play that you're playing. That's the only thing that matters, right? So it would make sense, right, that if the only thing we have control over is the present moment, the more focus we can bring to that moment, the more likely we are to do well in a game, because the more likely we are to do well in that moment if we can bring more focus to that. So it's crucial that you can bring as close to 100% focus, 100% of your focus to the present moment as you can, as much as possible, right? That is a. It's a superpower. Because if you can bring 100% of your mental focus and effort to the current moment that you're in, and everybody else in the court is only able to bring 60 or 70%, think about where that puts you, right? How much more likely it is that you're going to have a successful outcome or a better outcome that you would if you couldn't do that, right? And it's a struggle because a lot of players are so caught up in all these other things that they can't do this, right? So this is a huge thing to be able to develop. If you want to be great, let's talk about solutions for this, right? How can we actually start to put ourselves in that present moment? And the first thing is just being able to recognize when you're worried about the future or you're focused on the past and you're frustrated with something, right? Being able to identify those moments when it's happening and being able to just remind yourself about getting your focus back on the present moment, right? So it can be as simple as just telling yourself, next play, right? If you, if you find yourself worried about a turnover or a missed shot or you're focused on something, just next play, right? That being the thought that you replay in your mind to get yourself focused on the current possession, what you can, what you can control. Or you could say something like, be where your feet are right, or be here right now. And I like that because it allows you to really add like a physical connotation to what you're saying, right? To make it even more real, be where your feet are. Being able to just remind yourself of that. When you find yourself starting to worry about the past or the present or, sorry, the past or the future, what could happen going forward, right? Be where your feet are next play. Just phrases that can, that you can remind yourself of when you start to recognize that you're not where you need to be in the present moment, right there. And then another thing that I think is really important, that I don't hear a lot of people talk about, I don't think a lot of players really think about and is psychological momentum. So this is another huge thing that can help you take yourself from being in your own head to just playing, right? That's where we want to be. So think about if you wake up in the morning and you have a great workout and then, you know, you, you go to school and you have a big test first thing in the morning and you do really, really well on it. That's going to set you up to continue to do well throughout the rest of the day because you've built psychological momentum. You got up, had a great workout, there's a win for you, you got to school, had a, you know, test that you did really well on, another win for you. You've already started off your day by winning. So there's momentum that's built for you psychologically. So you're probably going to have a better day than if you woke up, had a, you didn't go to the gym at all, and then you go to school and did. Did poorly on your test. It's going to be much more difficult for you to have a great, a great day or as great of a day than if you get up and have those, those small wins to start your day off right. And that's essentially what psychological momentum is, right? If we can build small wins, generally they're going to snowball into more wins and more wins and more wins, right? So we want to start to build that momentum and that's going to help us to Just be better and more successful overall right there. So that's really what you got to understand about psychological momentum. It's just the momentum that you feel when you start to accumulate those small wins. And those small wins are going to lead to bigger wins because they start to add up, you start to build confidence. When you play with confidence, you have confidence in general, typically things are going to go better for you. You're going to have more wins, you're going to be more successful. So when we look at it from like a foundational perspective, psychological momentum starts with one small win. That's all you need to completely change the trajectory of your whole day or your whole game. Can we get one small win? So when you find yourself getting frustrated or anxious or out of the present moment, can you find a way to get one small win? What that might look like? Can you get a steal right? Can you say, hey, listen, I'm missing a lot of shots, I've had a pretty bad offensive game, but I'm just going to strap up on defense and find a way to go get the ball, right? Getting a steal, maybe you get a transition layup out of it. That is a small win that can completely change the trajectory of the game that you're playing. Can you get a great box out and a rebound, right? That's a small win right there, but it's an impactful play. And again, we're starting to build some success. But a little bit of momentum and that small play can again just change the trajectory, right? When you pull a big board in a must have moment, that's a huge play, okay? And when you're responsible for it, that can start to build that momentum that we need. Can you get a really, really good trap? Maybe. Maybe your team is pressing and you do a really good job getting a trap. You force a turnover, you force and throw it out of bounds. Again, building a little bit of momentum is a small win right there. Not something that it might not even show up in the, in the stat the stat sheet later. It might not, but it's a small win for you that can build on to other things. Can you run hard, run out in transition and get an easy basket? Simple play, but again, can we, we can build momentum with a small win right there. Can you set your teammate up with a great pass and like that? Can we find ways to build on that? Can you take a charge? Another big play right there. All those things are small wins, but let's say you're able to stack a couple of them. You make A great pass to your teammate, pull a big rebound, take a charge and three straight possessions. Now you're going to be feeling a little better, which makes it much more likely that you're going to be playing in the present moment, which we'll mention here in a second, and much more likely that good things are going to continue to happen to you. You probably are going to start making more shots now. You're probably going to start being more successful where you want to be because you're accumulating those smaller wins. They're going to lead to that psychological momentum being something that's working for you rather than against you. And when we're in that moment, right. Think about how you play when you get on the court and you're making all your shots and you're having a great game, you're just present and having fun, right? This is called being in the flow state where you're just kind of there like you're just doing and you're not thinking about what if or you know, you're not thinking about mess ups or things that you could have done better. You're just there playing. Things are going well for you and you're just playing. That's called being in a flow state where things are just happening, they're just flowing and you don't have to force anything. And it that's the most fun you're going to have on a basketball court, right? Think about a game where you're making all of your shots and that's you're typically going to be in that flow state where you're just in the present having fun. What these plays can help you do is get back into that flow state where we're just stacking up small wins right there. And you might go from being frustrated about a couple missed shots to all of a sudden you make a great pass to your teammate, you get a steal, you take a charge, and all of a sudden you're back into that flow state right there. And again, like I mentioned, when we get into that mode, much more likely that good things are going to happen because our attention and our focus is now back into that present moment. And as you accumulate those small wins, build that psychological momentum right there, they're going to add up, get you into flow state, which is exactly where we want to be if you want good things to happen. One of the biggest differences between great players and average players or mediocre players is how they treat challenge and how they treat games in general. Right? A lot of players want to be handed all the answers to things. They want their coach to tell them, hey, you're going to do this and then this and then this. That's how it's going to happen every single time, right? They don't want to have to actually be the one to figure things out because a lot of players are looking for somebody else to blame if something goes wrong, right? They don't want to have to take the responsibility of trying to find solutions. But when you look at the best players, they're always focused on finding solutions. They're never focused on the problem and waiting for somebody else to figure it out for them. Right there. A good player is not going to accept not knowing something. They're going to figure it out. They find a solution. They're going to recognize the spot and the press that they're playing against that's vulnerable, and they're going to start to exploit that. They're going to start to help their teammates understand, hey, we got to get the ball there. They're going to be weak there. Hey, get the ball there, then look up there and they're going to start to find solutions. And not only that, they're going to share them, share those solutions with their teammates, right? And they're going to build the people around them up. They're going to recognize how the defense is guarding screens and they're going to communicate it effectively to their teammates and say, hey, they're really overplaying those screens, so look for that backdoor or, hey, we turned the ball over a couple times doing this, look to do that next time or, hey, guys, we should try and do this because they're playing this a certain way. They're constantly finding solutions and not accepting, not knowing something or something going wrong. And they're constantly working on solutions. And they think in solutions, they don't think in problems. Average players, when I say average, I mean the majority of players that, that I'm around, that I, that I watch, the majority of players are caught up in the fact that somebody didn't work, something didn't work. And their immediate thought is, oh, well, sometimes it's apathy and other times it's okay, who, like, it's not my fault, it's their fault. Right? And that's where a lot of players are when things don't go well in a game, right? The best players, good players, don't think that way. They think, okay, that didn't work. What can I do differently next time? What can we do differently next time? How can we figure this out? And they're constantly in that state of trying to be better, trying to figure things out. And the average player is going to wait for somebody else to tell them what to fix. They're waiting for the coach to tell them or for a teammate to tell them. And they're constantly waiting for the at that external source to figure it out for them right there. And that's again where the majority of players are. Basketball is not a black or white game. Right? There's not one solution that's always going to work. There's not one thing that will work. 100 like no one's figured out the perfect defense to play. Nobody has. Nobody's figured out the perfect way to guard a ball screen. Nobody's figured out the perfect offense to run that is going to score 100% of the time. No one's figured it out yet. So there's a bunch of different ways to do things. And. And you have to be able to make decisions for yourself in those moments. Meaning you also have to be able to find solutions when things don't work. And the better you are doing that without having to be told by a coach or a teammate or somebody else, the better you're going to be. It's a requirement of being a good player is being able to find solutions. A good player is going to go out and figure things out for themselves. They're going to get the job done by any means. The third mindset that you need to have and the outlook you need to have is the desire to run towards hard. The best players run towards challenges. And again I'll go back to it and I'll say the same thing. The average player runs away meaning the majority of players run away from difficulty. They run away from challenges. When you have to be at your best, when you're playing against a team that is going to require you to play well. Good players play well. They show up and they play well. Average players, bad players, they might not. They might show up and they might. It might be moment where they need to be good and they aren't. A good player is going to be good in those moments. They need to be. When there's pressure on you to play well. Good players do. Average players might not. When your coach gets on you or yells at you for something, a good player is going to use that to be better. And on the flip side an average player is going to lose confidence in themselves when their coach gets on them about something or they're going to get upset about it. They're going to pout about it, they're going to do what, whatever, but use it positively, right? And same thing. In those moments where they need to be good, an average player, a bad player, you can't really count on them, right? They're not going to run towards that sort of challenge right there. And this is why those players don't usually win. That's why they're not good players. You have to love difficulty and challenge if you want to be a consistently great player. I stay consistent because even a bad or average player can have a good game here and there. They play against a bad team. They can have a good game, right? They have a day where they just happen to hit a bunch of shots. They can have a good game, but they're not going to be able to say, hey, I'm going to bring it today because I know I need to. Like, they can't do that because they're not used to running towards difficulty and finding ways to be successful in spite of that right there. So you're going to, you're going to hit a wall. There's going to be a, a ceiling that you hit pretty early. When you start to play against, you know, difficult teams or matchups or you, you go against different challenges, you're going to struggle if you don't build that mentality, that, that mindset. You can have all of the physical ability in the world, but if you don't have the ability to deal with being challenged, with things not being perfect, with teammates or coaches having certain expectations of you, and if you can't compete to the best of your ability all the time, especially in those moments where you need to, then, like I said, you're going to hit a wall eventually. And it's probably not going to be your physical abilities that cause you to hit that wall, but it's going to be because mentally you don't know how to handle yourself, right? You don't know how to handle yourself when things aren't easy. And that's going to be something that's going to hold you back. A great player is going to see a challenge as the best thing possible, right? That's what they, that's what they want. That's what's going to push them to be at their best, right? They're going to view a challenging moment or a challenging matchup or a challenge coming from a coach or a teammate as a way to elevate themselves. Hey, that's a goal that I can hit now, right? That's something that I can chase after now. And that's What a great player thinks. An average player is going to see that and say, I don't really want that. I'd rather it, it would be easy. And because of that, they're never going to be someone who you can really rely on in those difficult moments right there. And the difficult moments are what matters, right? No one cares about the games where it's a bad team. You're going to win by a lot. The games that matter are the games where I say, hey, this, this, this game means something, right? And that's where you want to be at your best. That's why you have to be able to run towards an embrace, challenge right there. This obviously means that you can fail like you could fail in those moments. And there's going to be times where you absolutely will fail. If you really are chasing after difficulty and you're putting yourself in a position where, where things are a challenge, you're going to fail at times. But failing is a great way to show you what you need to improve on. So in a lot of ways, it's a necessary thing, right? It's a win, win. Either you face that challenge head on and you win, which is great, or you face it head on. You, you lose or you fail, but that pushes you. That shows you something that you need to be better at, something you can work on, something that you might have missed out on. This ultimately going to force you to become a better player. So it's a win in that aspect as well. The only way that you lose is if you avoid the challenge completely right there. And when you don't avoid that challenge and you embrace it and you chase after it, then you are going to learn a lot about yourself, right? And you're going to actually see what you are. And good players want to know what they are. And how can I be better? Both of those outcomes, either winning it or losing it, but learning a lot about yourself are both great outcomes. And good players constantly put themselves in positions where they have to, they have to deal with that sort of challenge, right? So this means not shying away from pressure moments, not shying away from, you know, having a coach say something to you, like not being afraid of those moments or not letting those moments put you back into your show. When you start to embrace these three mindsets and you start to make them a part of who you are, then you're going to see that success on the court follow. I think the disconnect for a lot of players out there is that they think that it's all about, oh, how good of a shooter am I? How good of a ball handler am I? How good of a finisher am I? You know, what's my basketball iq? Like that. That stuff all matters. It matters a lot. At the end of the day, though, if you don't have these three things, that stuff doesn't really matter. It doesn't. And I, I say that because, again, I've been around a lot of players, and all of them who enjoy basketball put in the work physically, right? But there's differences still, right? There are certain players who outwork other players, and yet they. They aren't as good or they aren't as successful, and it's because they don't. They're missing one of these three things or all three of these things, right? And at the end of the day, basketball, when it comes down to it, is about competing. And what these three things do is they put you in the best position as a competitor. And if you're not an elite competitor, you're going to lose to players worse than you who are, right? So that's really what this is about, is that, hey, I don't care about how good you are as a player. How good are you as a competitor? Because if you aren't a competitor, I don't want you around me, I don't want you on my team. I don't want you as a teammate, like, because I know that they can't be trusted when things get difficult. They're not going to be there. They're going to run away from that right there. They're not going to be able to get themselves out of the past moments, out of the future worries, and in the present moments, they're not going to be able to do those things. They're not going to look for solutions. They're going to wait to have other people tell them what to do or how to fix things. It's really important that you develop these three things, guys, because if you don't have them, eventually you're going to break. Like I said, you're going to break. And it's probably not going to be because of your physical skills. It's going to be because you're missing one of these right there. So adopt these things. Make them a part of who you are. Become the player that you want to be, but let that be who you are as a person, though, right? I think there's, there's not. Like, this is something that I think a lot of players overlook. Who you are as a person matters just as much as who you are as a player when it comes to being a great player and being able to produce consistently. If you're not the person you need to be, then doesn't matter how skilled you are, how athletic you are, you've got to become that person who earns it as well. And that's what these three things are going to help you to do. So hopefully that helps you out, gives you a focus going forward. Make sure you click the top link in my description down below. Get my free Elite Perimeter Score program. I appreciate you guys for watching. 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