If you want to win games, you have to be both physically and mentally strong. During the tensed moments in the game, your mental toughness can give you an edge over other athletes by blocking distractions and focusing on the game. If a physically sound player develops cold feet in the midst of a highly charged climax situation which demands the best performance, a game almost won could be lost. For this reason it is important for coaches not to only train the players for physical endurance, but also work on their basketball psychology. Developing your mental game for basketball will help you give your best in tough moments. There are many ways to boost your mental and physical performances to obtain peak performance; like exercising your mind and body every day, having a positive attitude, setting realistic goals, maximizing your chances of winning by self assessing, turning weakness into strengths and concentration. Below are more ways to enhance mental and physical performance through sports psychology for basketball.
Confidence – Great players who have achieved success had belief in themselves, i.e. confidence that they would be able to achieve it. When a you have confidence, half work is done. Confidence gives a positive spin to all things. The brain and body feels energized and focuses the energy on achieving the goal. There is an old saying epitomizes the same view – “great battles are won in the mind and not in battle grounds”. One may know everything theoretically, but to make it happen practically, you have to have the courage and mental toughness to take up the challenge and channelize all the energies to make it happen. You must sustain confidence. The belief in yourself that it is achievable and it is within your reach. “I can make it happen”.
Awareness – Human beings are unique in the sense that they possess this unequaled ability to be aware of their actions. They can assess their abilities, reflect on their past from a distance, learn from the mistakes and benefit from the experiences. This awareness about self, i.e where do I stand amongst others athletes can be used as a tool to enhance your mental toughness and physical performance. As you accurately reflect on what your weaknesses are and how you can convert them into strengths learn from other athletes experiences that’s willing to share. Take the best of what you observe and what your mental game coach teaches you and put together a style that is uniquely designed for you to help you reach peak performance.
Self Control – Self control is about making the mind and body disciplined so that both are synchronized and co-ordinate in the best possible way to achieve a goal. When the focus of the mind and the body is the same, it becomes easier to achieve the goal. Self control is necessary for maintaining discipline, avoiding procrastination and to train the mind to achieve emotional stability so that rational decisions can be made in a split second. Developing your mental game for basketball and self control will also help you become resilient, rebound quickly, bounce back from the setbacks of missed shots and bad plays.
Attribution Training – Attributes or certain criteria that athletes associate with the outcome of their success or a failure, may have resulted from their learned behaviors and their past experiences. If you can identify those attributes and work towards them, you can enhance your performance to a great extent. To clarify, let’s take three players who could not score a basket in basketball- if you ask them, all three of them may cite a different reason for their unsatisfactory performance, one may refer to their inability, another one may blame the noisy atmosphere and the third one may blame the lack of knowledge of technique. Once, you realizes the attribute and the root of the problem, you can change it by logical reasoning, positive actions, mental game coaching and finding a realistic solution to the problem. This will yield better results and increase the mental and physical performance, which in turn will give you peak performance.
