REHAB AFTER INJURY: HOW SPORT PSYCHOLOGY CAN PUT YOU ON THE FAST TRACK

CARL, A 23 YEAR OLD PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER, contacted me one month after surgery to repair a meniscus tear. He was frustrated and discouraged, in large part because he had joined a new club where he expected to have more playing time, and generally looked to this to be a breakout season for him.

Having been away from playing for a month, he felt disheartened as he watched his teammates making progress and feeling like he would never catch up.

I shared with Carl the fact that nearly every player experiencing injury feels a sense of loss because he is no longer an active part of the team and feels like “what should have been” was taken away from him (in a small way not unlike what we experience after the loss of a loved one). Beyond this, it is typical for a player to feel a loss of identity because of the temporary inability to experience the on-court achievements that typically contribute to an athlete’s sense of identity and even his sense of self-worth. 

THE FIRST THING I WANTED TO HELP CARL WITH WAS TO CHANGE HIS ATTITUDE AND FEELINGS from discouraged to hopeful. He had many weeks of rehab ahead of him before he was likely to return to the basketball court and if he couldn’t see the “light at the end of the tunnel” he would have a pretty tough time.  So we talked about the progress he had made since he began his rehab work a few weeks ago. He told me things had gone rather well… in fact he was already running and going harder and further each day.

I suggested he write down once each week the progress he had made that week so that he could not only reflect on feelings of accomplishment, but also after three or four weeks he would be able to see an accumulation of successes which would really help him feel encouraged.  Beyond that, a series of successes would be a great source of motivation to keep working – even though he had many more weeks to go. (As the saying goes, “nothing succeeds like success.”)

I ALSO EXPLAINED TO CARL THAT BY SETTING WEEKLY GOALS   it would make things more manageable for him than the larger goal of returning to playing condition. Smaller goals that we can reach in shorter periods of time offer a greater sense of control than a single large goal whose accomplishment is a long way off, and when we feel in control we are more able to take action.

THE SECOND THING WE TALKED ABOUT WAS USING VISUALIZATION and three ways it could help him: 

(1)  To picture performing the rehab exercises properly and effectively. This can help an athlete get the maximum benefit from when he does the exercises by managing complete focus rather than just going through the motions.  Sometimes it can help an athlete to envision achieving greater range of motion in his mind than he is actually able to execute which can in turn speed up the rate of his progress in that respect.

(2)  To use visualization to picture some of his best moves and games from before he was injured, which can help him remain positive and confident about his game during this period when he cannot actually play.

(3)  To use visualization as a way of envisioning the moves and skills he needs to work on in a way that is available to him during his time of injury. When the American football player Michael Vick was in prison he spent time visualizing the plays as a way of staying ready to play. As he told the Wall Street Journal, “I was locked down for 23 hours of the day with only one hour to go out and walk around the yard. I used the time visualizing myself coming back and doing great things.” Other athletes also report successfully using visualization to simulate the kind of training they are unable to physically engage in, paving the way to a much quicker comeback once they are cleared to train and compete once more.

THE THIRD THING WE DISCUSSED WAS HOW TO BEST KEEP CONNECTED WITH THE TEAM PRACTICES EVEN THOUGH HE COULDN’T BE OUT ON THE COURT.  Carl told me that this also was very frustrating for him, as he watched his teammates working and improving while he sat on the sidelines. Of course it is much easier to learn and practice moves when you can actually do them, but it was important for Carl not to throw up his hands in frustration because he couldn’t do that.  Most of us would find it hard to keep a high degree of focus at practice in those conditions, but I asked Carl if he thought he could maintain total focus for five minutes, and he told me he could. I asked if he could maintain high focus for 10 minutes and he said he could do that too. Also, he agreed that he could keep his focus for 15 minutes. 

The point here is that trying to stay focused for a full two-hour practice when watching from the sidelines might be a daunting challenge, but doing this for 15 minutes is very “do-able.” I told Carl that if he could do this for three or four days in a row before long he would find himself able to stay focused for 20 minutes and soon for 30 minutes, and so on.

AND ONE LAST POINT I discussed with Carl to keep in mind during this period that can be highly frustrating. In such circumstance, friends and family want to help and often offer suggestions that may or may not be welcome … things like “Have you tried… ?” or “You should …” or “Why don’t you …?”  Such suggestions and advice may originate more in the needs of the giver to feel helpful than in what the injured athlete is ready to find actually helpful. For many of us, this only adds to the frustration (these “suggestions” sometimes make us feel like the other person thinks it’s so easy, and all you have to do is __________.) Of course, if you find such suggestions helpful that is great, but sometimes we find benefit in handling things in our own time and fashion. While we should be wary of indulging in self-pity, we all get to the point where we just want someone to know how frustrated we are without feeling that they have to either help us solve our problems or make us feel better.  I told Carl if he could find one person who would allow him to just “vent” – to just listen when he needed to share his frustrations without feeling the need to respond, he might find it helpful. While keeping in mind the critical importance of doing the work that will help you heal as quickly as possible and return to playing condition, a certain measure of “grieving” is not inappropriate. And just as mourners may find such comments as “God needed your wife/mother/sister, etc more than you do” to be unwelcome even if well-intentioned, the same thing might apply to similarly well-meaning comments (e.g., “Look on the bright side… ) made by friends and family.  As in all things, a measure of proportion is always suitable.

THOUGHTS FROM THE FOUL LINE

You’re at the foul line in a 1-and-1 situation. If you sink both shots you could tie the game … so the first shot is particularly critical. As you picture this scenario, do you make the first shot? The second?

Eddie was a college sophomore who was going through a tough patch. Among the areas where he found himself struggling was at the free throw line. He was a proficient free throw shooter in practice, averaging well over 80% of his shots, but in a recent game before contacting me he had gone 2-for-9 from the line.

Against a backdrop of some other problems, including an injury from which he was still coming back, Eddie told me that the one thought that had been going through his mind in that game was “What if I miss?”

When I asked Eddie to tell me about the period in his life when his passion for basketball was at its greatest he told me it was when he was 14, and he would go out to the playground and practice his moves for hours.

In recollecting this time in his life, Eddie recalled that it didn’t matter if he missed a shot, he would just take another. It was the activity itself that was fun, not the results.

He also remembered a game in which he had scored 56 points. “I didn’t even notice the crowd. I remember being really relaxed and not even caring about anything.”

I pointed out to Eddie how the “not caring” was an element often associated with being “in the zone” while his worry about whether the shot would go in was just the opposite – a source of stress certain to keep him OUT OF THE ZONE.

I also shared with Eddie how the thought “I hope I don’t miss” was directing his mind to the very thing he DIDN’T want to happen: missing. I explained that if he was standing at the free throw line with his CONSCIOUS self hoping to make the basket while his SUBCONCSIOUS self focused on missing, he was expending energy fighting himself. The mental tension he was creating was likely resulting in physical tension as well.  Eddie knew that any shot is best taken when a player is relaxed, as Eddie was in the 56-point game, and he needed to stop working against himself.

Another problem caused by his concern about missing is that it was FUTURE-focused rather than present-focused. I explained to Eddie that he couldn’t control the future, all he could control was the present, specifically if he took a fluid shot, had a good release, etc. So by worrying about the RESULTS of his shot as opposed to the QUALITY of the shot was also distracting him from his best execution.

At this point I had Eddie close his eyes and picture himself at the line during the game in which he was struggling, and seeing himself taking the shots that he did.  I then asked him to take several slow deep breaths, and afterwards I asked him how he felt.  “Relaxed,” he told me.  His body language confirmed this.

I asked Eddie to close his eyes again and picture himself at the free throw line, and when he was ready to see himself taking the shot, this time focusing only on the quality of the shot and not worrying about the results. He saw himself sinking the shot. He repeated this action two more times and felt very comfortable that he could go out in games and remain FOCUSED and RELAXED at the free throw line.

A few days later Eddie got back in touch with me to say that he was more relaxed but wanted advice regarding another problem that he had at the line.

“Sometimes I hear a little voice inside of me saying, ‘You’re not that good a shooter.’”  he told me.

While my first inclination was to help Eddie deal with that part of him that would throw out thoughts of doubt as to his ability to get the job done by helping him to respond to that voice with some convincing thoughts (I call these COMPELLING THOUGHTS because we so connect with them that they become our most compelling voice, thus causing the other thoughts or voices to be effectively silenced).  However…after giving it a bit of thought I decided that the most efficient way to help Eddie (that is, the way that would be the quickest) was to give him a different strategy to silence that voice by “changing channels.”

A channel is a way that we experience things.  When he heard that voice he was in a COGNITIVE channel … what we call “being in his head.”  To stay in his head and find the compelling arguments against the voice is an option, but I went for a quicker one by explaining how he could change channels (“Think of it like you are watching ESPN and then you change the TV to a different channel … then you will no longer be receiving ESPN).

I told him that when he heard that voice to focus on taking a few slow and deep breaths, and to really focus on inhaling and exhaling: “Not only will this help you relax, but it will get you to a different channel – in this case your body – and away from your head.  As a result you will no longer be on the channel where this voice is transmitting from.”

Admittedly, Eddie is still a “work in progress” … he recently contacted me about another situation that got him out of his game – but that is for another article.

SORRY THIS ARTICLE IS A BIT LONG BUT I HOPE YOU FIND IT HELPFUL!!

Did this article resonate with you? I welcome your thoughts/responses to this or any other article at MitchSmithMentalCoach@gmail.com All correspondence will be treated in full confidentiality. 

STEP UP YOUR GAME BY "CONTROLLING YOURSELF"

Are you one of the many players who need to be pushed by others or by outside circumstances to step up your game? The following article addresses the ONE critical skill that may be more important than any other in getting you to be a more consistent player....


ONE OF THE MOST FREQUENT CONCERNS raised by athletes I have worked with is how much playing time they receive. At the professional level, this can even be a matter of ones contract not being renewed. 

Matt, a college athlete with whom I had been meeting for most of a season, was particularly concerned when, at one point, he had hardly played at all in two consecutive games, which he found immensely aggravating.

This wasn’t the first time he had been in this situation, but his growing impatience had a surprising twist to it.  The next week in practice, out of frustration, he said to himself “Screw this!”  As it turned out, his “I’ll show them!” attitude prompted a greater than normal amount of energy and aggressive-style play out of him, resulting in a high level of execution.

In the next game, and much to his surprise, Matt was asked to take a key leadership role. This also had an effect on his play. “I felt that the team was behind me, like it was my job to be one of the best performers out there … to be a leader.” Matt found himself playing with heightened confidence, which elevated his game.

WHAT NEARLY EVERY ATHLETE STRUGGLES WITH...

I pointed out to Matt  how these two situations, the anger and frustration of NOT playing and the assignment of a leadership role, both had similar -or at least related - results enhancing his level of play.  The energy that came from his anger, the heightened confidence that came from the leadership role he was given, and the increased boldness in his play, are all hallmarks of top athletic performance.  And that was the very thing - top athletic performance - that we were working together for him to achieve on a more consistent basis.

But there was one aspect to this that champion athletes do that Matt was NOT doing, so I asked him to consider what these two situations had in common  as events which drew these qualities out of him.

After some prompting, Matt understood that both of this situations had their origins OUTSIDE of himself (i.e., his being kept on the bench in the first case, his being given a leadership role in the second). Just as Matt’s great performances were brought out of him in response to events external to himself, he realized that frequently his sub-par performances were also caused by events external to himself and how he responded to them. 

As we discussed it further, Matt saw how this situation (having circumstances mostly happen TO him) could keep him on an emotional roller coaster .. going from the highs of playing major minutes and feeling supported to the lows of not playing and feeling marginal – seemingly because of decisions of the coaching staff. I asked him what it felt like to go back and forth from the highs to the lows and the whole thing being out of his control.

He recognized that this was not a good situation, both in terms of the quality of his play and the mental wear and tear it took out on him.

But Matt is not alone.  Most of the  athletes I work with or have talked to over the years report the same experience - an inconsistent quality of their performance from game to game, usually dependent on decisions or remarks made by the coach.  Matt and other athletes allow themselves to become “prisoners” to the actions of the coach.

FINDING OUR OWN "CONTROL PANEL"

Matt and  other athletes have continually allowed their confidence and boldness to be dictated to them by these external circumstances. Few athletes - or few of us in general  - have been taught the skill of regulating these matters independent of our environment through conscious and deliberate effort. 

Athletes with a high capacity for self-regulation - who are better able to “override” the manner in which outside events might dictate emotional highs or lows - are better able to maintain a consistent mental state and an internal energy-promoter that keep their performance consistently close to the top of their abilities.  They have learned to stay off the emotional roller coaster that produces the moments of high energy alternating with times of demoralization or low energy.

UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGE - THEN FINDING STRATEGIES TO MEET IT

As in most matters of inconsistent athletic performance, it is one thing to identify the problem (a vital step to be sure) and quite another to find the right strategies to solve it. Having been told that his game would benefit by taking greater control over his highs and lows, Matt was left with the question of “how exactly do I do that??”

any athlete who is already at a reasonably high level of play will already have some experience having played to the full extent of his talent, so I asked Matt to simply envision a game where he had performed well, with high confidence and high energy. I asked him to relive that game in his mind, so that he could feel in his body how he had felt in the game itself. 

Then I asked Matt if he could find a word, an image or a phrase that captured for him that feeling, a word or image that when he thought of it, it would trigger in him - IN HIS MIND AND IN HIS BODY - the same feelings of energy and confidence.  

Next, I asked Matt to recall a situation (game or practice) where he felt challenged to find energy or excitement, and to go back to that game in his mind so that he might re-experience that very sense of low energy. 

When Matt was able to recall that sensation, I told him to now say to himself the word or picture the image that he associated with that high energy game, and to repeat it and intensify it until he was able to feel himself shifting from low to high energy.

Matt told me that he could feel some success in making that shift. As we discussed it further, Matt was able to focus in on a particular “prompt” - picturing a past coach, someone who really believed in Matt, getting in his face and yelling at him to get out there and play the kind of game of which he was capable.

The message I left with Matt was that it was not his lack of playing time that caused him to “lose” energy, but rather the way he was responding to that lack of playing time. The challenge for Matt was to take more responsibility for self-regulating his energy and emotions in order to play his best on a consistent basis.

I told him that the goal – or at least the ideal – would be to enable himself to attain the same level of energy, confidence and aggressive spirit through his own efforts that he had seen himself experience in response to those events that had originated outside of himself (NOT playing, and being given a leadership role).

THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT AND FOCUSED PRACTICE 

Like any PHYSICAL skill (dribbling, passing, defending) Matt could only expect mastery of this vital mental skill through frequent and repeated practice …. and to make a point of keeping this goal central in his mind.

To that end I encouraged him to spend 10 minutes every day visualizing making the shift from low to high energy... picturing in his mind having his coach get in his face and recalling how it feels to play with high energy.  And when he said that his goal was “to play like this every time out, and to get my game up when I am down,” I suggested that he write that phrase down on a large sheet of paper and post it where he would see it frequently (a good place is on the bathroom mirror, on the refrigerator, or on your locker).

Don't expect change if you aren't willing to put in the work.  BUT... if you commit to this, you will be pleased with the results!!

HOW MENTAL COACHING CAN HELP YOU

The goal of MENTAL COACHING is to help you acquire the mental skills which are key to playing your best with greater consistency in each and every game.  This includes helping you strengthen and add to the tools in your mental skill set, including

• Self-confidence
• The ability to stay focused throughout competition
• The ability to quickly recover from mistakes and slumps
• Overcoming negative thinking
• Setting effective goals and monitoring your progress
• Staying motivated despite the ups and downs of competition
• Effective use of visualization and mental rehearsal
• Learning to manage stress and intensity of play
• Coping with and recovering from injury

TYPICAL OUTCOMES FROM MENTAL COACHING INCLUDE:

• Greater personal satisfaction in practice and games
• Greater sense of control in reaching personal goals
• Improved production (stats) AND quality of performance
• Acquisition of skills applicable to other areas of life - like persistence in the face of obstacles, self-confidence in challenging situations, effective communication skills with colleagues and supervisors)
• Increased opportunities for those pursuing professional careers (team offers, salary)

For more information, contact BigMan.MentalCoaching@yahoo.com
Mental coaching can be conducted via Skype, Facebook, phone or email.

ALL CONSULTATION SESSIONS OR CORRESPONDENCE IS 100% CONFIDENTIAL

A LESSON FROM THE HEROES OF 9/11

WHAT WE LEARN FROM THOSE WHO WERE THERE FOR US AND FOR EACH OTHER

Today is 11 September… the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, along with those at the Pentagon and in an airplane in the skies above Pennsylvania, reportedly headed for the White House.

Reflecting on the tragic loss of nearly 3,000 lives, people of every race and color, along with the heroes who saved many other lives or gave their own lives in that effort…. It is worth noting what one firefighter said when rushing into the burning towers.  “It’s my job … and some of my fellow officers may be in there and need my help.”

Apart from the honor which their memory asks of us, I mention this because I have found those thoughts to be very relevant to athletes who look to succeed and are often faced with challenges and obstacles.

“It’s my job.” Not all ball players have things go their way. They don’t always get the minutes they would like. Sometimes they don’t get the ball passed to them by selfish teammates.  It can be very frustrating!!

One way to overcome that frustration and keep the game positive is when a player reminds himself about the value of being a professional, the kind of player who accepts the bad times along with the good because “it’s my job.” I once worked with a team where we spent some time exploring issues of team leadership.  It turned out that one player, who only got into games when the team was up by 25 points, was seen by his teammates as one of the players whose leadership meant the most to the team’s success. He could have easily become frustrated by his lack of playing time… but he always chose the attitude of “doing his job” over feelings of frustration.

Being ready to help your fellow officers. – or your teammates – is also an attitude that can mean a lot. In wars, from World War 1 to the present-day, soldiers have often reported that the one thing they kept in mind during the heat of battle was to be there to help the guy next to them.   (See my previous post "Lessons from our Fighting Forces")

A ball player who was frustrated by mistakes he would make, and by the yelling he frequently got from his coach, sometimes found his game spiraling downward. After talking about things, we decided that a good way for him to stay motivated to play his best was to tell himself “I am out here to help my team as much as I can.” When he took the focus off of his individual play and put it on the team instead, his play tended to stay at the top level, and he also reported feeling better about things when he was out on the court.”

Eleven years ago we were reminded that some things are much more important than sports. But if we are able to draw inspiration from the heroes of September 11, it seems to me that is a great way to keep their memories alive.

DO WE REALLY LEARN MORE FROM OUR LOSSES?

The Waiter and the Unpaid Bill 

Many a coach will be heard to say “We learn more from our losses than from our wins.”  True, from a psychological point of view there is SOME validity to this statement … though I often wonder why you never hear them say anything like this after a win!  (If it is true , wouldn’t that make the worst teams in the conference the smartest???) But understanding why it might be true UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS can provide some helpful insights to both coach and athlete alike.

How we deal with the frustration of a bad game

Consider that, after all, the goal in any competition is to win. Thus, when we win we have accomplished our goal and the effort we put in is then relegated to the record books. After a win we are delighted and we sleep like a baby (or party like an idiot!). On the other hand, when we lose, we failed to accomplish our goal – and so the matter may continue to bother us.

As human beings, when we are frustrated, we are hard-wired to seek a resolution to this frustration – some way to eliminate it. (How many coaches have yelled at their players after a loss as a way of dealing with their own frustration? One coach I know yelled at his guys for 45 minutes after a loss … though you know sure as hell that they tuned him out after about two minutes!!!)  Saying that we learn more from our losses is one way to deal with the frustration of the moment – but the key to SUCCESS is to actually follow up and do this in a systematic way.   

So the loss creates a need in us that doesn't exist after a win. And that "need" exists until the goal is achieved, and then (and pretty much ONLY then) we put it out of our mind. The real question, however, is what follow-up steps will be employed to insure ACTUAL learning. 

What happens when we don’t achieve an important goal?

Back in the 1920s, a professor named Kurt Lewin, who taught psychology in Berlin, would gather with some students

in a café after class where they would continue to discuss the topic of the day’s lecture.  The waiter would take everyone’s order… and return sometime later for the next round, until finally he would come to take the final payment. The group noticed that at any point the waiter knew (without the benefit of a calculator) exactly what the tab was… but once the bill had been paid he could no longer recall the amount even a short time later. They concluded, and later demonstrated in a series of experiments, that mentally we hold on to matters as long they represent an unfulfilled goal (such as paying the tab or winning the game) but once the goal has been met we put the matter behind us and move on.

A good example is that of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but could only think about the two events in which he HADN’T won the gold, and THAT is what motivated him to train so hard for the next Olympics four years later. LeBron James and the 2011-12 MiamiHeat are another good example, after the unfulfilled hopes they had put into the previous season, when they lost to Dallas.

Lewin referred to this as being in a state of tension (with respect to a still “active” goal that has not been achieved) – and this tension exists until the goal is achieved.

A player or coach who has lost is like the waiter who has not yet been paid... the matter is still very much in his mind. A good example is Olympic swimmer, who won six gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, but could only think about the two events in which he HADN'T won gold!

And so – coming back to the famous (or infamous) coaching quote about learning more from our losses than our wins, the question is how do we use the so-called tension that results from the loss in the most effective and productive manner?

Doing the actual work of learning from our losses

It can help an athlete or team to figure out the obstacles that prevented them from playing to the fullest extent of their ability.  After all, if a team played the very best of which they were capable and still lost – to a stronger team – what would there be exactly to learn? But that is rarely the case.  Did the team lose focus at some point – or rush shots out of desperation – or miss defensive assignments due to being flustered?    Did they fail to maintain trust in one another? Or work at cross purposes by letting egos get in the way? Did an athlete get down on himself and mentally give up or lose the grit and determination to go hard in the final minutes and seconds?

So what should we learn after a loss? The athlete or team who views a lost game as indication of talents that need to be further developed will emerge with greater toughness, increased resilience, and an improved quality of performance. After the 2012 NBA Finals, LeBron said that it was by embracing the pain of the previous year’s Finals that brought him to the Championship moment; that he “owned” how it felt to fail. Kevin Durant noted when the Thunder, too, were struggling some years back, “We weren’t losing – we were learning (what it takes) to win.”

And finally (as Professor Lewin would say) when we DO achieve success, we can use our victories to re-set the bar ever higher in our quest for competitive excellence.

In the end, the champions aren’t the ones who make the fewest mistakes but the ones who are best at letting go of the mistakes the quickest when they do make them. When a player misses a shot – for example a lay-up – and continues to focus on it as he heads downcourt on defense – he risks the possibility of missing his defensive assignment and allowing his opponent to score – and then becoming further 

taken out of his game as he goes back on offense. (A made basket is quickly forgotten, not so a missed one.)  Such a player would do well to develop strategies to quickly and effectively let go of the missed shot by mentally overriding the built-in tendency to hold on to the moment.  When we accept adversity (such as the frustration of a loss) as an opportunity to explore how we need to grow as a player or a team – we are taking an important step in the direction of joining the ranks of those very champions.

© 2016 Dr. Mitch Smith

FROM LOSERS TO WINNERS: AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP

HEAT'S NBA VICTORY: FROM LOSERS TO WINNERS

The Mental Side of a Championship Season

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 failure can lead to turning 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 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.

© 2012 by Dr. Mitch Smith