“Me shooting 40% at the foul line is just God’s way to say nobody’s perfect.” – Shaquille O’Neal

The whole notion of achieving perfection is not only limiting on performance; it is also the equivalent of chasing an illusion.

The high standards and goals that are set by elite athletes is part of what defines them from the normal or casual athlete.

In terms of basketball psychology, chasing perfection can a have negative and dangerous effects on an athlete’s mental toughness, overall mental game and even their long term career (i.e. burnout).

It is beneficial for both athletes and coaching staff to become aware of the characteristics of perfectionism, so that it can be identified early on and the negative outcomes avoided.

Perfectionism is considered to be a personality characteristic. It reflects an individual’s obsessive pursuit of exceptionally high standards and overly critical appraisals of performance.

Sports psychology for basketball has found it difficult to foresee or predict if perfectionism will manifest itself as a positive or negative outcome for any given athlete. In part, basketball mental toughness, coping style, self-esteem and performance success and failure all play their part.

In the mental game of basketball there are athletes that fall into the maladaptive coping style (negative – avoidance and emotion focused) and those that fall into adaptive coping style (positive – problem focused coping).

Avoidance coping results in an athlete ignoring stressful situations and problems, while emotion focused coping involves dealing with negative thoughts, such as fear.

Problem focused coping traits make it more likely that an athlete will deal with any setback effectively, as they tend to target and then face their problems head on and therefore manage to quickly move past them.

The way in which a perfectionist also sees themselves, in terms of a success or a failure, is also significant, as they tend to view failure in an objective way. This leads to the distorted view of taking a loss as a failure.

Perfectionists fail to recognise any form of improved performance (e.g. an increase in their pass completion rate, as compared to the previous game) as a success. This is especially true when improvement is achieved when the athlete or the team has taken an overall loss.

Perfectionists also tend not to factor in any valid mitigating circumstances (e.g. playing with an injury) when self-critiquing their performances.

Although, perfectionism can be a constraint, it can be overcome. This can be achieved by learning not to focus on it, choosing to measure performance based on incremental improvements and to pursue the immediate challenges that have been placed before you. By never backing down and moving forward when knocked back, you will, at some stage, manage to break though and reach new levels of improvement.

Improvement is a game of patience, resilience, adaptability, experimentation and, most importantly, it cannot be reached without experiencing failure along the way.

Once failure is accepted as being, not only a stepping stone to improved performance, but also a key and vital component to the bigger picture, there is no need to fear it. Embracing failure is the key to basketball mental toughness and all performance improvements.

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