ARE YOU SETTING YOUR FOCUS ON THE RIGHT TARGET?

With the Cleveland Cavaliers down 92-90 to the San Antonio Spurs and 9 seconds left on the clock, LeBron James had the ball on a coast-to-coast push to tie the game when he committed his fifth turnover of the night. 

Afterwards he said, “I felt like I could get to the rim … to get a shot for myself or my teammates. Maybe I was thinking too much because I left the ball behind me.” Even the King is human, demonstrating one of the most common challenges that even the best athletes face: staying focused in the moment. If only by a few seconds, LeBron was getting ahead of himself, thinking of what he was going to do and not what he was doing. Basically he was splitting his focus between two things: the act of bringing the ball down court, and the goal of tying the game. Like the driver who is holding a conversation on his cell phone while driving through traffic, there is only so much focus to go around. 

This is one of countless examples of the critical role of focus in athletic success. Professional athletes with whom I have spoken who made the transition from college sports have all said pretty much the same thing – “At this (professional) level you can’t afford to lose focus for a moment. In college you could always get back into things, but in the pros you lose your focus and your opponent is going to take advantage of it.” Champions do three things: (1) figure out what aspect of the task they are performing requires their focus, (2) direct their focus there, and (3) fend off all possible distractions. The fact is that at any level of sport, and certainly at the elite levels, athletes will find themselves constantly subject to distractions and having to make mental adjustments to get back on focus. (And really, we don’t so much “lose our focus” as allow our focus to shift to a secondary concern that has somehow gotten our attention.) So the best athletes are typically the ones with good re-focusing strategies. 

 Here is an instructive example of refocusing that anyone who does much driving at night will identify with. You’re driving down the road, or stopped at a light, and the lights of the car opposite you are too bright (either because he has his highway lights on or his lights are not properly calibrated - in either case the guy has pissed me off lol!). While keeping our gaze fixed ahead of us is the natural thing to do ... and while we are instinctively drawn to looking at the bright lights, doing so will be blinding. In such instances, the experts recommend shifting your focus to the white strip (or margin) on the passenger’s side of the road. This allows you to eliminate the distraction of the bright lights and properly attend to the task of driving safely. (Directing our focus to the bright headlights is an example of an involuntary focus - something that we do before we realize we are doing it. The “corrective” act of shifting our focus to the side of the road is a voluntary or strategic focus, and in this case a strategy intended to correct the involuntary act that preceded it.) 

With nine seconds to go, the ordinarily highly-focused James got caught up in the demands and pressure of the moment, and his focus jumped from what he was doing to what he hoped to achieve. In another situation, LeBron might have gotten away with splitting his focus in this way, but not on this occasion. The bottom line is that focusing on what you are doing at the moment is usually the best mental course to take. Dr. Bob Rotella, one of the first sport psychologists to work with professional golfers, noted that players “don’t always stay in the present on every shot … but they strive to as much as possible. The good ones constantly monitor themselves (to catch themselves) when their mind starts to wander.” And don’t forget…. You can’t execute what you don’t practice! What are YOU doing to train YOUR focus muscles?

MENTAL SKILLS IN SPORT: WHAT IF YOU HAD UNLIMITED CONFIDENCE?

I have asked dozens of basketball players this very question. Before I tell you what almost all of them said, ask yourself that question and see what you come up with…. Confidence is considered one of the best predictors of sport success. A confident athlete is more likely to play his best. So as mental tools go, it is a pretty important one to have. Unfortunately, most athletes’ confidence tends to go up and down like a roller coaster. In this article, I will address that situation and tell you what you can do to overcome that and maintain a consistently high level of confidence. So first let’s consider some important sources of confidence. One thing that gives us confidence is having coaches, teachers, parents or other important people in our lives commenting on our success and telling us we did a good job. 

Another source of confidence is when we work on something and achieve success, and in particular, when we see our own efforts as having brought about that success. A third source of confidence is the knowledge that we put in the hard work to get ready for competition. Most Olympic athletes talk about the confidence they get from feeling they left no stone unturned in the months and months of preparation that preceded the Olympic Games. So let’s say you have a pretty good history in all three of these factors. Then it’s safe to say that your core self-confidence is relatively strong. So far so good …. But enter the dangerous “confidence feedback loop.” For example, you hit three baskets in a row. You’re hot. And you are feeling pretty darn confident. Each made basket tells you that you are a good player, and that becomes your feedback loop. 

But what if you miss three shots in a row (or in the case of one NBA rookie, 10 shots in a row)? With each successive missed basket you might start to doubt yourself. Because the immediate thing you experience is the missed basket – and THAT becomes your immediate feedback loop. Even NBA stars can struggle with confidence. Few guys would seem to possess the confidence of a top athlete like Vince Carter, NBA All-Star and former Rookie of the Year. One season a number of years back, Carter returned to the rotation following a five-game absence due to injury. It was clear during the first few minutes of play that his game was suffering, his shot flat and off the mark. He missed a number of baskets until he finally banked one in off the glass. I got to speak with him after the game and asked him about it. “Well, I had my mom and my agent and everyone telling me not to try to make up for five missed games right away, and just to take it easy, but I kept thinking about that and couldn’t help myself, so I was pretty hyper for the first few minutes although after a while I settled down. Thank goodness for that three-pointer I shot going in, even though it was off the glass, or else I would have really felt embarrassed.” So although a seasoned athlete like Carter can have all the benchmarks of strong confidence, he allowed the immediate feedback loop to dominate his thoughts, and his game. 

The immediate feedback loop looks like this: missed shot leads to negative thoughts or feelings, which then challenge confidence. Typically athletes try to replace a negative feedback loop with a positive feedback loop by trying (often harder) to make the next basket. If they do, there confidence returns, but only till they miss another shot. The main problem with this strategy is that is makes your confidence dependent on your performance. The mentally tough athlete does the exact opposite. He makes his performance a function of his confidence. He interrupts the feedback loop in order get off the confidence roller coaster (up and down) and instead he finds a deeper sense of confidence which rests on the foundation of the three factors mentioned at the start of this article. So here’s the deal. Don’t get seduced by the immediate feedback loop.

If you miss a shot, take a moment, re-group, and remember everything you have done to be a successful athlete. (Even the most successful athlete misses shots). Relying on making that next shot produces momentary confidence. Relying on the solid foundation that produces confidence over time helps you activate that foundation to achieve a more consistent confidence. So how did most athletes said they would play if they had unlimited confidence? Nearly every one said they would be more aggressive … meaning that even if they made a mistake, or two, or three, they wouldn’t revert to a more tentative style of play. As a top European footballer once said, “When you’re confident, you’re not afraid to make mistakes.”

POST PLAYERS: DON'T WORRY ABOUT TRAVELING

A post player was having trouble when getting the ball down low because of frequent traveling. He told me that he was working on NOT traveling and I explained to him the value of re-thinking his goal in terms of what he wanted to do rather than what he was hoping NOT to do. 

 He then showed me the move he would typically make and I asked him to do it without the ball. After doing this several times he worked on getting the pass and making the same move, this time with the ball. So he came up with the thought of making this move assertively and confidently as his intention (rather than staying with the idea of NOT traveling)

A week later he told me “I'm actually thinking about what to do and not about what NOT to do, but it's not easy ....I have to get used to it so it will become natural.” 

I asked him to tell me what would help him do this and he replied, “I think how to make the move before I get the ball.” 


 I gave him the following additional suggestions. 

• When you are alone close your eyes and picture getting the ball and making your move. Repeat this a couple of times seeing yourself do it in a confident and aggressive way.
• Also picture this as if you were sitting in the stands and watching yourself make the move.Pay attention to your footwork and rhythm as you imagine watching yourself on the court.
• Pick out one place in your body that is especially key in this move.... your feet, your core, your upper body? This time use your sense of muscle feeling rather than vision to imagine this move, so that even though you are seated when you mentally rehearse this move you feel the very same muscles being activated that would be involved in the actual event.
• In the gym practice this move alternating between doing it without the ball and with the ball. Every 4
• 1th or 5th time do the move in your mind, and then go back to doing the actual move.
• Finally, think of one or two words that most describe how you want the move to go and write them down.

One last thing I shared with him was that if he was going to plan the move in his mind ahead of time it was important to be careful to NOT get ahead of himself. Other players have shared with me that on occasion that got tripped up by picturing something in advance and sticking with that when in the particular circumstances the defense played him differently and that turned out to not be the best move for that moment. Also, if you are too caught up in what you are going to do WHEN you get the ball you may be not leaving enough focus for the PRESENT moment. Without strong focus as the ball is being passed to you you are more likely to have it slip through your fingers or be picked off. So while it is good to feel confident about what you are GOING TO DO, it is no less important to stay focused in the moment and be ready to adjust to any last second changes in the defense to make the best possible decision/move.