Play smarter basketball. Play better basketball.
10-steps to elevate your game and get in the zone
Step 3: focus and build on successes
One of the keys to playing at your best and getting in the zone is to focus on the successes, and build on those.
During the course of a game, a season, or a career, you'll have many good and bad things happen to you. You'll have lots of wins and lots of losses. You'll likely get lots of praise and lots of criticism.
So one of the keys is to focus on the positive. Remember only positive. Build on the positive.
You'll make plenty of mistakes during a playing career, and your coaches will be sure to point those things out to you. And that's fine. That's what a coach is supposed to do, and it's all part of the learning experience. And quite frankly, it's part of what's going to help make you a better player over time.
So learn from your mistakes and the coachig and criticism that comes your way (if it's constructive criticism and there's something to learn from it). Learn from it, but don't dwell on it. And above all, don't let it get you down or discouraged. The worst thing you can do is to let mistakes or negativity take its toll on you and get you down.
One of the keys to playing your best ball is to build on the positive, and quickly forget about the negative (once you've taken any lessons you can away from those negatives).
By focusing and remembering the positive, you're creating a positive feedback loop for yourself. Here's how it works: you have success, and that feeds more success, which makes you more confident, which in turn leads to more success, and so on, and so on.
Now, this isn't to say you should get a big head or full of yourself and think that everything you do turns to gold. Not at all. In fact, setbacks and adversity are some of the best fuel to help push up to improve and do better. But an easy trap to fall into is to recall a bad play, or a missed shot, or a bad game, and let that chip away at your confidence, and make you doubt yourself.
Don't let that happen to you. Learn from your mistakes, then forget them. And at the same time, use the positive experiences and the successes you have to generate even more success, and drive you to even greater heights in your playing career.
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