What is the source of confidence? A lot of players and people struggle with confidence. Did they have it and lose it? Did they ever really have it to begin with? How do you get it, or get it back?
Confidence can be stated, “I can do it.” Does that mean, “I can do it right now,” or does it mean “I can figure out how to do it if I keep trying?”
We hear it all the time from inexperienced players. “I can’t do that.” We always add one word to their sentence. Yet. I can’t do that yet.
From more experienced players, it’s not about being able to do something. It’s about being able to do it well enough or consistently enough.
In our experience, confidence in either situation with basketball comes from consistent intentional work. It’s giving yourself the permission to fail. It’s allowing yourself to be imperfect and working to improve. It’s It’s being able to watch yourself improve to successfully perform first in non-competitive situations and then against other people. That takes a lot of the right kind of work. It’s easy to get better on day one. Every day after that though it keeps getting a little bit harder to improve.
It’s hard to get the number of repetitions that it takes to be comfortable if you’re running around to AAU tournaments all the time.
Coaches can make players lose confidence. There’s no doubt about that. But in many cases, that lost confidence might be the realization that they aren’t quite as good as they thought to start with.
Comparison is the thief of joy. There’s nothing wrong with not being the best player around. That’s not unusual. There will probably always be someone better than you. And if there isn’t, there will always be disagreement. Jordan or Lebron? Should Steph be ranked ahead of Kobe? Your confidence can’t be based on someone else’s opinion, no matter how expert or qualified they are.
There’s nothing wrong with consistently evaluating your abilities. But the biggest comparison needs to be based on who you were yesterday or last week or last month? If you are constantly comparing yourself to something you see on social media, you’re probably never going to be happy. When it comes to playing competitively in high school etc. what happens in middle school is irrelevant. The same can be said in the transition from high school to college, and from college to pro. Scoring 20 a game in college is a lot harder than 20 a game in high school. If you’re just consistently focused on being better than you were yesterday, the rest doesn’t matter.
Many players spend way too much time thinking that the highlights are the whole truth. They don’t understand that even the best players make mistakes. They don’t understand that being ranked in middle school is irrelevant. They don’t understand the unseen hours that it takes to be successful and that anybody can look good in an edited video.
Players are in tournaments where they constantly compare themselves to everyone else (whether it’s conscious or not). They know deep down they need to improve. A big part of that improvement might be in worrying less about what other people think. Reclassification wouldn’t be a bad idea either for a lot of players, but at the end of the day, confidence is built.
Coaches can certainly help or hurt confidence. But the best thing that I can do for a player’s confidence is put them in situations where they learn to handle adversity and find ways to be successful through that adversity. When players come in the gym asking to do something that is challenging or hard, it means they aren’t worried about their confidence. They just want to get better. That’s the kind of players we develop. The players who know that growth is in the appropriate response to failure.
Too many environments don’t challenge players in ways that actually help them improve. It’s a lot of window dressing that sounds good or looks good but is really a waste of time.
I would encourage you to pick a random year in the last 15 years. Go to the ESPN top 100 rankings and see how many players you recognize. How many of those players have had successful college or professional careers? You can do the same thing with a lot of different NBA draft classes over the last 10 to 15 years. Not every lottery pick has had a successful career. There are always players that come out of nowhere who are more successful than some of the big names. Hype might garner some attention in the short run. But it is the consistent intentional work that will pay off in the long run.
If you’re struggling with confidence in basketball, don’t play AAU. Stay off social media and stay in the gym. If you’re struggling with confidence in something else, ask yourself, are you getting better every day? If not, what needs to change in your life to help you develop that confidence in your life?
