Confidence Part 3

Point #2 was that in order to be confident, you need to learn to talk to yourself rather than listen to yourself. Point #3 is essentially this: beware of doing too much talking and too little playing.

Or to put it another way: If you focus too much on confidence, you are bound to lose it. You are best to just play.

As I said before, these points don’t contradict one another, but instead, complement one another. By themselves they are only partial truth, only part of the big picture. But put them together and you start to see clearly how you can grow in confidence as a basketball player.

Focusing on point #3 in particular, it is necessary to point out that basketball (or any other sport for that matter) is not a game you can play with a great deal of thought (at least if you want to play it well). After all, it’s not Scrabble or Chess. It’s not the sort of game that enables or encourages you to take your good old time thinking things through. No. Basketball is about rhythm and reaction. It’s about responding the right way right now. As a game, it doesn’t demand intense cognitive thought, but intense physical and mental response this very moment. If you want to think, do so before or after the game, but when game time comes, your instincts must take over.

As a player, you know this already. After all, how many times during a game have you thought to yourself, “Now, should I use a crossover dribble or go between my legs to get past this defender?” You know full well that you don’t have time to think about such things. For the moment you begin to consider your options, your opponent has stolen the ball from you and is going the other way. No. Rather than thinking you simply react. When you see your defender, you just respond. Your instincts and ingrained habits take over. You do what you have trained yourself to do. You either crossover or go between you legs. You either pass or shoot. You either go right or left. You don’t think about it. You just do it. There is just no other way.

I suppose we could make a nice little rhyme (one I use often actually): “You think, you stink.” Again, it’s not the whole truth, but it is certainly a big part of it. For when it comes time to play, you have to play. For good or worse, you just have to play. The game isn’t the time to think so much as it is the time to react. Sure, all your bad habits will be exposed, but what’s your other option? Well, your other option is to take the time to consider your options. But the problem is, you don’t have to time to consider your options. Indeed, if you consider everything too much, you are bound to find yourself on the bench. You are best to be aggressive, to respond, to react…to simply play.

One practical thing that is important to note in all of this is the profound difference between practice and the games. I don’t have the time to go into it all right now, but at this point, it is necessary to point out that practice is the place where you can think some things through. Well, actually, it is better said that practice is the place where you can devise and do drills that train your mind and body to react the way you want it to react when game time comes. That is why, in my opinion, practice is better called training; for that is exactly what it is: Training your body and mind what to do when you don’t have time to think about what to do.

For example, in practice you can set up a drill that demands you to pump-fake, dribble right and shoot a jump shot from 15 feet (with a goal of making 10). And though doing the drill might seem monotonous or boring at the time, you have to remember why you are doing so. Why are you doing so you ask? Why in order to train your body to do so instinctively during the game of course! That is what practice or training is all about. And that is why it is so essential to possessing consistent confidence.

I could say more about that, but I don’t have the space here. To conclude, let’s summarize our three points. First, we learned that confidence, in order to be real and rich and abiding must be based on reality. And practice is a primary means of building confidence because it gives us reasons for our being confident (making shots in practice time and again gives you good reason to believe that your shots will go in during the games). Second, we learned that in order to grow in confidence, we have to battle for good thoughts about our game. And third, we learned that when game time comes, we can’t talk to much, but are oftentimes best to shut up and play. To react. To respond. To lose ourselves in the game, embracing the instinctive nature of the great game of basketball.

As I have said time and again, each of these three points complement one another. Taken by themselves they might cause confusion, but when combined with the other two, they form a sweet picture that, when rightly understood and embraced, will enable you to play the game with much greater confidence.

Remember, confidence is the difference maker. It’s the X-factor. So take pains to practice, preach, and play.

Growing in confidence with you,

Joe