“Lisa, thanks for what the Courage to Win has done for our basketball training this year.
You’ll never guess what happened to Ashley, a fourth year player and starting shooting guard. She was having
one of those nights where nothing was working. We were playing the #7 ranked team in the country and
the game was close. The other team was keying on her and she couldn’t get a shot to drop. I ran a couple
of plays especially designed to get her an open shot and even those wouldn’t go in.
–University of Calgary Basketball CoachShawnee Harle
This is an incredible success story.
…both from an athlete and a coach.
What To Do When Your Mental Basketball Game Is Slumping
See, when you are slumping, there are two things going on with your mental game at the same time. First, you have learned helplessness. You’ve become passive because you tried to succeed, but an opponent overpowered or out-smarted you in some way.
Second, you’re feeling sorry for yourself. You think it’s not fair that YOU, someone so talented and special, should have to suffer the agony of personal failure or defeat.
I’m here to tell you:
Boo Hoo.
No one cares.
No one is even remotely interested in your self-pity. What they ARE interested in is what you’re made of.
Everyone fails in sport from time to time.
There is an agony to competing that will always find you, no matter how good you are.
That’s what Ashley figured out. She figured out that it was time for her to grow up and make a choice: will she be passive or aggressive?
The only way to break out of a slump is an aggressive, attacking mindset. That’s the psychology of sport that works.
As for Shawnee, the coach, she is a genius, because she laid the choice out for Ashley — in public, in front of her peers. What competitive athlete wouldn’t respond to that?
Nice work, ladies.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I really need to get my basketball mental game handled now, you can get access now to more sports psychology and mental toughness tips.
