ARE YOU LOSING CONFIDENCE WHEN IT COUNTS MOST?

"GO FOR THE BUICK"

Athletes spend many hours each week (and some devote several hour every day!) to prepare for athletic competition.  BUT simply acquiring the skills and plays or routines you need isn’t enough.  Ask yourself – What is the one thing that more than any other causes otherwise skilled athletes to perform poorly in competition – especially WHEN IT COUNTS!!?

A COLLEGE BASKETBALL PLAYER, his team’s starting center, who had received prominent mention in SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and USA TODAY, found himself mid-season struggling at the foul line.  He told me: “Lately, when I step up to the line, I feel like my legs are going to give out from under me.  So I use my arms more to make up for my legs.”  Needless to say, as his free throw shooting took a downward spiral, so, too, did his self-confidence.

THE CAPTAIN OF ANOTHER TEAM was experiencing a great deal of frustration during games in which her team was losing.  “When we lose not because of the other team’s skill but because of our own stupid errors, I become extremely upset.”

In the Al Pacino movie “Any Given Sunday”, the back-up quarterback is called into the game when the starting quarterback goes down with an injury.  The young player becomes extremely nervous and starts to lose his lunch.  The coach calls him over and says, “Do you remember when you first began playing football?  Do you remember being with your friends out on the street, and you would tell one guy to run down the street as far as he could toward the Buick that was parked there, and you would throw him a long pass?  Well, it’s no different now.  You’ve just got to think: Go for the Buick.”

Consider the struggling basketball player with the free throw problem – making himself crazy trying to figure out the exact amount of extra force he would need to apply in his arms to compensate for the weakness he was feeling in his legs – he would have needed an advanced degree in physics! Talk about TRYING TOO HARD!!! 

I asked him instead to tell me a time when he didn’t have any trouble making his free throw shots. “Last summer in pick up games at the local playground,” he told me. “And what is the difference?” I asked him. “That is fun,” he answered.

When we discussed why games in season weren’t fun – at least not for him – it had mainly to do with the pressure he felt. The pressure to play well. The pressure to win. Pick up games were fun for him mainly because there was no pressure (just like the young player making that long pass to his teammate down by the Buick) – meaning that he played in a state of relative relaxation. The pressure he felt in competition prevented him from having fun – and thus prevented him from playing in an ideal state of mental and physical comfort.

THAT SORT OF PRESSURE typically causes the thoughts we hold to have a negative effect on our body, as was clearly this player’s case. That pressure or stress – originating in our thoughts – easily turns into physical stress that can prevent our muscles from operating in a smooth, fluid manner. Even the slightest excess muscle tension can throw your shot off or cause you to feel stiff.

ON THE OTHER HAND, when you’re having fun, it keeps you from feeling pressure (although you can still experience competitive intensity). That is what the captain of the women’s team discovered when she noticed the “Enjoy Coca Cola!” sign above the scoreboard, and decided, “Each time I felt frustrated or felt like swearing, I’d look up and see the word “ENJOY” as a reminder to – above all – enjoy myself. Even if the score indicated that we were really losing big, there would be that board telling me… just enjoy the game! And much to my delight, this strategy is most effective – to this very day!”   (Reported in Psyching for Sport by Terry Orlick) 

I asked the free-throw-shooting player, who wasn’t sure if he could enjoy the game because of his competitive nature, which player on his team seemed to have the most fun out on the court. I told him to see if he could compete with that player in his capacity for enjoying the game. With THAT as his primary goal and focus for the next two weeks, his game foul-shot percentage had gone from about 55% to nearly 75%!

EVERY SUCCESSFUL ATHLETE comes to realize what the captain of the women’s team discovered. “The only controllable circumstances within the situation are those that involve my own personal play. I realize that no matter how upset I get, I will never be able to control a teammate’s play. But I realize that I can control my own play. That’s all I can do, and the best thing I can do to alleviate the pressure of losing during a game.”

Sometimes the key to an athlete’s playing at his/her best when it most matters is not to add anything – not to train harder - but simply to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of their top performance. You can’t control whether the shot is going to go in… BUT you can control your state of mind, whether you’re having fun, and whether your body is tense or relaxed – all of which will permit you the fluid use of your muscles to maximize the likelihood that the shot will go in, that you will get and hold position, etc.

I once worked with a gymnast who, 30 minutes before a big regional meet, was extremely nervous. I saw that he was headed for disaster, so I took him aside and said, “Think about what you can control today and what you can’t. You can’t control whether you’re going to nail your routines or stick your landings. You CAN control whether you give the best effort of which you are capable, and whether or not you have fun. If you don’t do those things, you will have to answer to yourself at the end of the day. So worry about what you can control and let the rest take care of itself.” When the meet was over, he had won medals in 3 of his 6 events.

ONCE YOU’VE FIGURED OUT WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL AND WHAT YOU CAN’T, you’re ahead of the game – both ON and OFF the court. And once you’ve found your perspective in these matters, your game is most likely to take care of itself. And that should be fun!!