“The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.” – Bill Russell

When it comes to on court performance, basketball mental toughness is a key trait for every athlete. Many athletes can get swept up in the plethora of emotions and thoughts that are generated in the build up to and when competing on the court; often resulting in a dip in their performance and mental game. Basketball psychology, and its applied benefits, can be taught to any athlete. This knowledge will hopefully unlock the door to understanding and adapting their own basketball mental game in order to elevate their overall performance.

By establishing process goals an athlete may find themselves spending less time worrying about things they cannot control, such as the end result or what others may be thinking about them and more time focusing on actual execution.

This can be done by establishing process goals. Process goals are comprised of performance goals (i.e. goals based on measurable goals or “tasks” such as offensive rebounds, free throw percentage, etc.) and mental goals (i.e. goals or “tasks” that are based on the mental game that help athletes to focus on one play, one shot or routine at a time, etc.). The mental goals can be worked on by an athlete by committing to a plan of visualizing their shots going in before the start of the game.

There is a four step process that can help athletes orient their mind to the process of execution and performance rather than on the end result or things beyond their immediate control. In other words the mind is being re-trained to let go of all the pointless thoughts that produce anxiety and distractions; with the athlete’s thought process now being more in their own control, focusing instead on matters of their own choosing. These are matters that they can personally affect and which can have a positive and tangible impact on their game. The steps to this process have been outlined below:

Step One: The purpose of this first stage is to identify what is important and therefore worthy of the athlete’s attention and focus. This can also be referred to as the performance cure.

Step Two: In the second stage the athlete is to identify and eliminate what is not important to think about during their performance.

Step Three: Based on what has already been identified as the individual “tasks” that are important in step one, an athlete is to now identify process goals that will help them focus on the execution of that task as well as performing it in the moment.

Step Four: The final step involves the athlete becoming immersed in each of their process goals that were successful in helping them execute at their best levels during competition.

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