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.