CHAMPIONS: Getting past the cliches

I just saw a tweet by a former NBA coach who wrote:
"... champions see challenges for their unpredictability and hardships that come their way, and their inner voice says, 'OK. Time to get going!' "

Of course this is the IDEAL. But I believe that most of us don't exactly come by this quality naturally.

So on a scale of 1 - 10 how much of this quality do YOU show in the toughest times?

The idea behind Mental Coaching is to help those of us who are TYPICAL rather than EXCEPTIONAL to increase our mental toughness in such situations NOT to a 10 but at least by 1 or 2 points further up the scale.

To me, THAT is what being a CHAMPION means... doing what DOESN'T come naturally.

Your thoughts?

HOW MENTAL SKILLS COACHING CAN HELP YOU

THE GOAL OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTING is to help you achieve a valuable set of MENTAL SKILLS which are key to playing at a CONSISTENTLY high level in each and every game. This involves helping you identify the best combination of performance goals and outcome goals to reach your objectives.

Sport psychology consulting involves helping athletes in in such areas as concentration, mental rehearsal, self-confidence, and stress management.  

Consulting with athletes is always designed around the athlete’s personal needs, typically focusing on such matters as:

• Self-confidence

• Ability to stay focused in competition

• Rebounding quickly from mistakes and slumps

• Anxiety management and coping with stress

• Goal Setting

• Overcoming negative thinking

• Motivation 

• Visualization & Mental Rehearsal

• Relaxation

• Recovering from injury

TYPICAL OUTCOMES FROM SPORT PSYCHOLOGY CONSULTATION INCLUDE:

• Greater personal satisfaction in practice and games
• Greater sense of control in reaching personal goals
• Better production (stats)
• Acquisition of skills which are applicable to other areas of life (persistence in the face of obstacles, self-confidence in confronting challenges, effective communication with coaches and teammates)
• Increased professional opportunities (team offers, salary)

For more information, contact MitchSmithMentalCoach@gmail.com. Mental Coaching can be conducted via Skype, Facebook, phone or email.

ALL CONSULTATION SESSIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE IS 100% CONFIDENTIAL

HEAT'S 2012 VICTORY POINTS TO LIFE LESSONS LEARNED

   If America is the land of second chances, LeBron James and the Miami Heat certainly offer a prime example. It was only one season ago that King James talked about taking his talents to South Beach, and well before the first tip-off of the season, the celebrations were already underway. True, the Heat made it to the 2011 NBA Finals, but by the time the team was struggling in game after game of sub-par fourth-quarter play, more people were cheering against LeBron and the Heat than for them. 

   Just one year later the confetti poured from the top of the American Airlines Arena and the champagne flowed as the Heat won the 2012 Championship and “the King” was crowned as Finals MVP. With less braggadocio and more maturity, the Heat had become a truly formidable foe and underlying the stellar offense and unrelenting defense, a number of changes had taken place in the soul of the team and its star player – changes that helped propel them to victory.

   So what happened? There are a number of things the Heat did to transform themselves from “losers” to “winners” – things that any team, player, or coach might want to consider when it comes to finding your own path to championship performance.

Pain and tears can be the impetus to turn things around

   In 2011, the Heat had clearly set themselves up for a big fall. With all the celebrations that took place before a single game had been played, these guys had put the cart before the horse. Reflecting on this a year later, Dwyane Wade said, “This team, we had so much pain, so much hurt, so much embarrassment from last season that … nothing needed to be said. From the first day (of this season) we (were) on a mission, and that mission was not complete until tonight.” 

   When things don’t work out like we had hoped, we are tempted to blame anyone and anything. Not surprising, that’s exactly what LeBron did – at first. “When we lost, I blamed a lot of people besides myself,” LeBron admitted. “I wasn’t ready to own it.”

   It took growing from that pain for James to position himself for the chance at redemption, and to capitalize on it. True champions look inside, don’t get caught up in all the “what if’s” and “if only’s,” but find the grit to go forward.  “I realized there were no short-cuts,” LeBron said shortly after being named the Finals MVP.

What’s the real goal?

   After publicly announcing at the start of the 2010-11 season just how many titles there were going to win (not four … not five … not six …), it was clear that the Heat were playing to prove something. Winning the title had become an all-consuming objective, and “doing the work” kind of got lost.  LeBron recalled, “The best thing that happened to me last year was us losing the Finals… and me playing the way I played.  It humbled me. After the 2011 Championships I took a couple of weeks off and then I got back to the gym and got back to the basics. I had hit rock bottom. I really wanted it, but I wasn’t doing it the right way. I knew what it was going to take, and I was going to have to change as a basketball player, and I was going to have to change as a person,” LeBron said after Thursday night’s Championship win.

   What player doesn’t seek success, fortune and fame? What LeBron came to understand is that these qualities are rarely achieved by aiming your sights at them directly – they are mostly found when we focus on “doing the work” and let the results – the championships and the accolades – take care of themselves. In the course of my own work, helping scores of athletes arrive at this understanding has brought them the results they had hoped for … whether it was upping their points or rebounds per game, or helping teams to play better at “money time.” Key to the process was to stop agonizing over the results and make the pursuit of excellence in the quality of their play their chief focus.

Let go of the baggage 

   The way that LeBron left Cleveland did not sit well with a lot of people. “Last year a lot of people were saying I was a selfish person and a selfish player, and I really let it affect me.  All last year I was playing to prove everybody wrong.  I was angry and playing with a chip on my shoulder. At the end of the day I was basically fighting against myself.”

   Like so many players, one post player I worked with always did a great job in practice, but had difficulty bringing his “A” game in competition. I told him that trying to prove something out there was like playing with a 50-pound weight around his neck. “Just focus on accepting the challenge of the moment as a way of testing your talents and all your preparation. However you play isn’t going to really prove anything – and certainly not to the people who care about you.” Being free of the extra baggage helped him go out and play a more aggressive and confident game.

   Dr. Thomas Perls, author of the book Living To Be 100, reported research findings that individuals who are effective in “letting go” thrive much better than those who insist on holding on to past hurts or the need to prove something or to “even the score” with others. In sport this is certainly true!

Ego is fine… when held in check

   LeBron talked about how losing humbled him and made him re-assess his focus. When he talked about getting back to basics – the rebounding and the defense – he was focusing on the qualities that make him a champion. Sure – our ego is on the line (Are we going to start? How many minutes are we going to play?) But if we are able to put that aside and focus on “doing the job” – on the proper effort and constant improvement – we are more likely to keep growing as a player and stay on the path to reaching our goals. .

   Dwyane Wade, who himself had been the MVP of the 2006 Finals, put ego aside and accepted a different role in helping the Heat to hit their collective stride. “We made the decision two years ago to become a team, LeBron, Chris, myself, and the other guys decided to come together. So you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to make sure that you reach your goal. And I had a position (and) a role to play. It might have changed a little bit, but at the end of the day we all had one common goal, and that was to become champions.” 

Even champions make mistakes - they just bounce back faster  

   My conversations with many elite athletes lead me to conclude that at the highest levels of play, championships are won by players and teams who make the fewest mistakes. But the fact is that even the best athletes make mistakes. The champions are the ones who are resilient – who know how to move on quickly, so that mistakes don’t take them out of their game plan and lead to even more mistakes. Just as Mike Miller’s astounding seven 3-pointers fueled the Heat in Game 5, the mistakes that the Thunder made seemed to take the wind out of their sails. But, as players and coaches on both teams noted throughout the series, you have to keep “grinding it out,” no matter what.

   Bonnie St. John, silver medal winner in downhill skiing in the 1984 Paralympic Games, learned an important lesson at the time.  “In my first run of the slalom, I was ahead, but then I fell down and had to get up to complete the race. In fact, the woman who won the gold medal also fell down. I knew from previous races that I could ski faster than her. But what won the gold medal for her was that she got up faster than I did after falling down. I learned that everybody falls down, but Olympic athletes get up faster, and gold medalists get up the fastest of all.”

Hang in there 

   

   Coach Eric Spoelstra, whose own job this season was at times thought to be on the line, was asked what the biggest challenge was as the man charged with bringing the team back from last season’s loss. “Just to pick up our spirits and stay on course. We knew we could do it, but it would be a long season and a tough road. We got knocked down two or three times this playoff run, but the thing that matters, we got up and we kept on working.”

   In 2000, tennis great Gustavo Kuerten took an early two-set lead in the finals of the French Open, when he got trounced 2-6 in the 3^rd set and was in danger of losing the fourth set as well. After winning that set, the match, and the title in a tie-break, he said that when he felt his game slipping away he told himself that if he could just hang on, his game and his confidence would return – and all he needed to do was just keep believing in himself. More recently, New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin told reporters that as long as he had one person who believed in him, he could keep going during those tough times before he got picked up by the Knicks and life became rosy.

You have to please yourself

   In the press conference, LeBron was asked what he learned about himself as a ballplayer and as a man on the journey to the championship.

   “The biggest thing I learned,” he replied, “is that you can’t control what people say about you, what people think about you. You have to be true to yourself, to the people that surround you, and to your loved ones. I put a lot of hard work into this … It just shows when you’re committed and you give everything to the game, the game pays off and it gives back to you.”

   In the end, redemption came from “doing it the right way.” And while the spectacular play of LeBron and D-Wade, and the way that the rest of the team rose to the occasion, brought them the championship trophy, perhaps in the qualities that make for true champions, the Heat players and Coach Spoelstra really aren’t all that different from the coach and players of runner-up Oklahoma City.

   My own work in helping athletes and teams to “do it the right way” has often given them the tools to achieve top performances. But mostly, when we have talked about it afterwards, I remember their profound feelings of pride in having hung in, worked hard, and regrouped as necessary to reach the goals they had set for themselves years earlier, and attaining in the process a deep sense of personal excellence.

TRYING OUT FOR NATIONAL TEAMS AND PRO CLUBS - PART 1

Few opportunities in life come without some measure of stress.  This is particularly true when it comes to basketball players who are looking to get a spot on their national team, playing in a showcase camp, or trying out for a pro club.

Take the case of Michael, who has been invited to try out for his country's national team for Eurobasket play. Michael had previously been a member of his U20 team two years' running. 

But when it came to trying for the senior team, he felt a great deal of pressure.

"It can be tough, with everyone competing for those spots. With my desire to be on the team, I worry what the coaches are thinking. And I worry about what the other guys are thinking of my play, too."

The paradox of Michael's situation is that the very goal that motivates him is also the thing that gets in his way. He wants to make the team, but the worries that this generates cause him to doubt his abilities to rise to the occasion and keep him from playing at his best.

Perhaps nothing demonstrates this better than what happened on a previous occasion. After sub-standard play, it became readily apparent that Michael was out of consideration for a spot on the team. At that point he said to himself, "Oh well, f*** it!" and then went out and played great basketball. Once the worries of whether or not he would get selected for the team were out of the equation, Michael was rid of the stress that had gotten between him and his abilities.

So I helped Michael develop a better approach by way of the following analogy.  I told him to think of watching TV.  Let's say he is watching golf on one channel. But then he switches to basketball on a different channel. Once he is on the basketball channel he can no longer follow the golf match.

I told him to think of his motivation to make the team as the golf channel. The motivation includes thinking about making the team, pushing himself to be in the best physical condition, working on some of his moves and shots, etc.

However, once he is in the tryout camp, he will be better of by changing to the other channel (and no longer going back to the first channel) where the goal is to play in the moment as a fierce competitor who is also having fun - without reference to the outcome of his play (just as when he played with the attitude of "F*** it" he was not thinking about any outcome and this allowed him to be focused just on playing).

In  order to succeed at this strategy of being exclusively on one channel, I suggested that Michael use visualization skills to see himself doing this successfully, including getting back on track when he found himself entertaining worries about what the coach or other guys were thinking about how he was playing. I recommended that he do this with enough frequency that he would be able to do it for real when he was at the national team camp.

By focusing on the quality of his play rather than the outcome, and by setting as the goal to play as a fierce competitor and have fun, Michael could more easily rid himself of the worry that got in the way of full use of his talents and abilities.

ATHLETES WHO PASS ON A GOOD THING

As a sport psychologist I am biased about the value of the services offered by me and my colleagues. Of course, I have the Thank you’s of the many athletes I have helped, and a high number of Olympic athletes employ the help of sport psychology to prepare them for competition on the highest stage in sports.

I am always curious when athletes (and coaches, too!) elect NOT to work with me as to why they would pass on a proven service. When I told one basketball player that I could help him pinpoint some of the mental areas where improvement would have a near immediate pay off, he replied, “That’s okay; I’ll just work on EVERYTHING.”  Which to me meant he would actually work on NOTHING.

I have had many players tell me they can’t afford my services. I have worked with players for free, and the moment (after several sessions) when I tell them I really need to start charging for continued work, they are “out the door.”  I have told other players that I would charge them as little as 5 Euros/$10 just to just get them on board with the benefits of what I have to offer and they still say they can’t do it… and you know these guys easily spend double that without batting an eye on a snack or a movie.

Recently I have been coming across another reason guys don’t take advantage of this.  Last summer I ran a Big Man Camp in Europe with former Detroit Pistons “Bad Boy” Rick Mahorn.  The camp was very successful (as proof, every single guy from last summer plans to come back AND they all asked to make the camp longer this year!) and Rick did a phenomenal job. Apart from his teaching and drills, his playing experience that he shared with the guys was a treasure.

(The fact that this is the only high level basketball camp that includes mental coaching is worth mentioning – though I understand that Rick – and not me – is the primary attraction!!)

Several European players, including guys playing in U.S. colleges during the season, told me that they have a personal coach they work with during the summer.  While this can be valuable, in my estimation what this kind of work primarily does is help guys execute better IN PRACTICE!!!  It is NO GUARANTEE of how they are going to perform IN GAMES – WHEN IT MATTERS!!

In my opinion… a big reason that an athlete would not take advantage of a situation that can help him step up his game is that he is NOT READY TO VENTURE OUTSIDE OF HIS COMFORT ZONE.  Working with his personal coach is kind of a predictable affair. It is kind of like when trainers say that after a while if you run the same distance at the same speed day after day your body adjusts and the continued benefit becomes increasingly minimal.

Sure, venturing outside of our comfort zone can be uncomfortable… but I have never talked to an athlete who regretted having done so! Hmmmmmmmmmm……

So what do you think? 

SEE THE NEXT ENTRY ON THIS BLOG… “Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone” … to help you explore some of your own possible resistance to taking steps that could help YOU to step up your game. 

GETTING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

REFLECTIONS ON TAKING YOUR GAME UP TO THE NEXT LEVEL

A few years ago I was invited to speak to players at a Big Man’s Camp for NBA hopefuls. During the sessions, as I observed the ball-handling and low-post drills that were being run, I noticed a number of guys who, rather than really try to work on some of the weaker parts of their game, seemed to just be "going through the motions".  In scrimmage games, these players fell back on the moves they already had, rather than take advantage of the opportunity to try to master the new moves. I concluded that these guys either didn't want to be bothered, or they decided they would rather "look good" (since we all look a bit awkward at first when trying out new skills) than "play good" (by developing a stronger game).  Apparently, they preferred to stay in their comfort zone. 

  We all have our comfort zone – learned behaviors that are our customary ways of handling all sorts of situations.  Human nature being what it is, we all develop routine ways of responding to various events on the playing field or in life.  These responses (like sticking to the skills we have mastered rather than giving new skills a shot) serve an important need: they keep life predictable. Staying within our comfort zone reduces our sense of stress that comes with the fear of not measuring up to the moment, our fear of “looking bad”, or the anxiety that we experience when we don’t feel in control.  

   But doing so also stops us from growing and developing.

  Take for example, the case of Michael Chang.  As one of America’s top-rated tennis players, Chang was considered a gutsy player who would run down every ball, playing to his strength as a baseline player.  But at one point in mid-career, he took stock of things, and decided that in order to stay among the top-ranked players in the world, he would have to develop a net game, and he committed himself to doing so, even though it took him outside of his comfort zone. He devoted many months to this task, and understood that during this interim period – while he was looking to develop this weaker part of his game - he was likely to lose a larger number of matches than he would have liked. But he stuck it out, and eventually emerged a more skilled player.  The resulting improvement enabled him to retain his ranking among the game’s best for several more years.

     Sometimes it's not a technical aspect of your game that needs adjusting, but a mental aspect. NFL coach Jim Harbaugh, struggling during his playing days as the Indianapolis Colts’ starting quarterback, attributed his on-field difficulties to the fact that he put great pressure on himself to live up to other people’s expectations.   Seeing how this hampered his game-day performance, he concluded that he needed to stop demanding of himself to have perfect performances in every game and to risk just letting himself enjoy the game more - regardless of the outcome.  When he was able to trust himself enough to do this, his play improved and he led the Colts through several successful seasons.  

     To be sure, the beliefs that many athletes hold onto become powerful impediments to their venturing outside of their comfort zone.

   Some athletes tie their on-field performance to their sense of self-worth, and stay within their comfort zone in order to get "ego-strokes" for what they already know how to do, rather than focus in practice on the weaker aspects of their game in order to make them better. They would rather go over and over the things they already do well than give up (at least for the moment) their pride, the need to look good to teammates, coaches, etc.

   The question is: where will that get them … or you?

   When Warriors' head coach Steve Kerr graduated from the University of Arizona, few people believed he could make it in the NBA. The sharpshooting guard who played 15 seasons in the league, winning 5 championship rings and setting an NBA record for all-time 3-point field goal percentage (45.4%) once commented, "The thing that helped me find success in the NBA wasn't so much my ability as an outside shooter, but the fact that I was constantly working on the weak parts of my game.” 

Along the same lines, a one-time Kerr teammate by the name of Michael Jordan similarly noted that each summer, he isolated a part of his game that needed improvement, and focused on strengthening that aspect.

   If Jordan, of all people, was willing to make that effort, is there a single athlete in the world who can afford to take a pass?  Aside from acquiring the skills you need to be competitive at the highest levels in your own sport, forming the habit of accepting new challenges and the willingness to grow beyond your comfort zone, makes you not only a stronger athlete, but – as life brings new challenges along the way - a stronger human being.

© 2015 by Dr. Mitchell Smith.  All rights reserved.  

MAINTAINING COMPETITIVE FOCUS: Developing your FOCUS Muscles

FOCUS. It’s one of the critical ingredients 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 for just an instant and your opponent is going to take advantage of it.”

The subject of the recent ESPN film "I hate Christian Laettner" had an almost unparalled college career at Duke University, and was named the Player of the Year in 1992, when he beat out Shaquille O’Neil for this honor.  Laettner is remembered among American college basketball fans for his famous buzzer beater winning shot against Kentucky in 1992 in the quarter-finals of the NCAA Tournament, when Duke went on to win the “Final Four” that year.

But three years earlier, as a first year player, Laettner was a young and not so successful when Duke University was in a very close game against a strong team from Arizona. Arizona was up by two with just seconds to go when Laettner was fouled. He stepped up to the foul line with a chance to tie the score. He bounced the ball a couple of times, then readied for the shot. It closed in on the rim … and then bounced out. Laettner took his second shot … and missed that one as well.

What was going through Laettner’s mind as he stood there on the foul line. “If I make these shots we can still pull off the win.” ??? … “I MUST make these shot!” ??? …“I CANNOT let my teammates down.” ??? …Whatever it was, Laettner’s focus was likely NOT on the TASK of sinking those free throws, but on the CONSEQUENCES of his succeeding or failing

Chances are – in one variation or another – you’ve been where Christian Laettner was.

WHAT IS THE KEY TO STAYING FOCUSED? AND EQUALLY IMPORTANT, HOW CAN A PLAYER MOST QUICKLY REGAIN FOCUS WHEN HE HAS LOST IT?

One of the things I most commonly hear from athletes is that when they make a mistake, miss a shot, etc… they get annoyed and it takes them out of their focus. Just the other day, I received an email from a post player telling me about a recent game when a missed defensive assignment led to shouts from his coach on the sidelines, which in turn led to a  missed shot on the other end of the court as he was focusing on his coach’s words (and worries about being taken out of the game.).

Anytime an athlete makes a mistake or misses an assignment, it is always going to present a CHALLENGE TO HIS FOCUS. Like anything else, an athlete’s focus will go up and down in the course of a game. So most of the time, the problem is to re-set your focus when it is starting to slip.

This has been the case with a tennis player I have been working with. Every time a shot went long or into the net, he would become annoyed. He would allow that feeling to stay with him, eating away at his confidence, so that he was thinking about almost anything EXCEPT having his head in the next point.

While making fewer mistakes is one way to deal with this situation, there is NO SUCH THING as an athlete who NEVER makes a mistake, so that is – at best – a very partial solution!!!

Furthermore, an athlete who plays to avoid making mistakes is not likely to improve; his play will often be tentative, rarely bold or aggressive.

Consider the attitude that helped tennis player Lindsay Davenport to win the 1998 U.S. Open:

“I didn’t want to just be out there getting the ball back in. I was going to go all out -
even if I made 60 unforced errors. I didn’t want to leave anything on the court.

One of the things that I had been working on with this athlete was HOW TO KEEP THINGS SIMPLE – both on and off the court. For example, he found that if, during practice, he decided to give his attention to one part of his game EXCLUSIVELY, he was less concerned with making mistakes in other aspects. So if, for example, he was focusing on his backhand, or coming to the net, then he was more “forgiving” of himself with respect to mistakes made in other parts of his game.

Furthermore, he found that by focusing on one aspect of his game, he would find himself making improvements in that aspect, and would notice a “SPILLOVER” effect so that the incremental confidence he began to feel would lead to stronger play and fewer mistakes IN OTHER PARTS OF HIS GAME in that same practice.

So I asked him to complete the following sentence: “I don’t care if I make mistakes as long as…”

Here is what he came up with (after I told him that a good answer would not be “as long as my opponent makes more mistakes!”)… “I don’t care if I make mistakes AS LONG AS I CAN KEEP MY FOCUS.”

IN OTHER WORDS, A MISTAKE DOES NOT NEED TO BE AN OCCASION TO GET OFF TRACK.

If anything I suggested to him that making a mistake could be an opportunity to actually strengthen his focus “muscles” in a way that would not be AS POSSIBLE if he were not making any mistakes.

Consider, after all, how we build muscle in the gym. When we lift weights, we are actually breaking down muscle tissue. Afterwards, when the tissue repairs itself, it comes back stronger than before. It is, after all, called “resistance” training. If we think of focus in the same way, then when we subject our focus to resistance (such as in making mistakes, becoming annoyed and “losing” our focus – BUT THEN WORKING TO QUICKLY REGAIN IT) we are building the “focus muscles,” making them stronger than before. The key, then, is in the “WORKING TO QUICKLY REGAIN OUR FOCUS.”

THIS INVOLVES CONSCIOUSLY DECIDING TO PUT ALL NON-RELEVANT THOUGHTS OUT OF MIND. Being annoyed at a mistake is understandable; we all experience that. But the more quickly you tell yourself to re-focus, the more effective a competitor you will be in games!!!

Consider the example given by skier Bonnie St. John Deane, silver medal winner in the 1984 Paralympics slalom. She noted that …

“In my first run of the slalom I was ahead, but then I fell down and had to get up to complete the race. In fact, the woman who won the gold medal also fell down. I knew from previous races that I could ski faster than her. But what won the gold medal for her was that she got up faster than I did after falling down. I learned that everybody falls down – but Olympic athletes get up faster, and gold medalists get up the fastest of all.”

Substitute “REGAIN FOCUS” for “getting up”, and you get the point.

NBA Hall of Famer Karl Malone once said that if you’re not willing to make mistakes you are never really going to improve as a player. Consider this, too: you are going to make mistakes. The more you are willing to develop an attitude that instead of letting the mistakes get the best of you, they can become opportunities to improve your ability to stay focused – the more competitive you are likely to become.