Teaching Mental Toughness

Teaching Mental Toughness

Concentration is the ability to focus on what’s important and let go of everything else.
Identify the most important thing to think about at any given time they’re on the court.
The key to effective concentration is always being in the present moment. A lot of athletes “time travel”—they think about something that happened earlier in the game or what will happen next if they miss their shot.
Everybody loses focus at one time or another, but it doesn’t’ necessarily have to hurt their performance. What hurts performance is when yo lose your focus and don’t bring it back right away. You hang on to the mistake you just made, and that gets you into trouble. Your ability to stay calm under pressure and rebound from setback is a direct result of your ability to concentrate.
One of the biggest mistakes players make is to focus on stuff they have no direct control over, like how good their opponent is, playing time, officiating, things people in the stands are saying, and so on. When you focus on those uncontrollable, three things happen: Your stress level goes up, you get tight and nervous and your confidence level drops.
The best way for coaches to combat a team’s misplaced focus is to define those uncontrollable, collect them into a list and post them in the locker room.
These thoughts apply to all of us as coaches and players.
--From “Teaching Toughness” by R.J. Anderson