“I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.” –
Bobby Knight

Basketball mental toughness is usually spawned from the results of continuous dedication to the cause, it does not simply materialize. Positive progress in an athlete’s is sometimes slow in its developmental progress, with small incremental gains being the normal path to achieving peak performance.

The process, the amount of hard work and the levels of dedication that are required by the athlete are not for the faint hearted or for those that refuse to let go of their weak mental game. Basketball success favours the mentally tough. By only working on the physical aspects of the game athletes will be missing out on the key mental ingredients that will allow their physical skills to materialize and flourish in competitive situations.

The beginning of each year brings an opportunity for every athlete to look back as well as forward and assess themselves.

The purpose of this exercise is to enable the athlete to know where they currently are [i.e. their strengths and weaknesses] and what they need to work on in order to improve their mental toughness.

Some of the things an athlete can look at can be:

– Does the athlete have well defined goals? [If not, then the athlete lacks direction]
– Does the athlete perform better in practice than in competition?
– Do the athlete’s pre-game gitters go away within the first few minutes of the competition?
– Does the athlete become easily frustrated because of high expectations?

There are many ways that mental game coaching can help every athlete in fine tuning their mental game.

Most athletes are not self-aware enough or possess the knowledge that will enable them to perform and implement all the necessary and possible changes that are required to start on their own personalized path to achieving superior mental toughness.

However, tapping into the specialized and specific knowledge of a mental game coach will benefit the athlete the most. The benefits gained from strengthening any athlete’s mental game will be clear and will materialize both on and off the court.

While certain mental game coaches and sports psychologist possess the theoretical skill set and knowledge to help most athletes, finding a mental game coach that has the theoretical knowledge as well as having personally persevered the struggles of competition and come through in shinning colors would be the most beneficial.

Delice Coffey is just that; she is able to share from her own wisdom, experiences and her own secrets to her personal success while also drawing from her qualification as a psychologist and mental game coach when offering advice and support to all athletes she works with.

Download the free mental game assessment and get started on Improving your Mental Game in basketball