Mindful Hooper #1 | Inner Confidence

newsletter Oct 06, 2023

#1 - October 2023

Draw Your Confidence From Within

Welcome to The Mindful Hooper, a monthly newsletter that helps you enhance your basketball mental game and stay up-to-date with everything Basketball Mindset Training.

This month's theme: Inner Confidence.

Playing with more confidence is a desire that a lot of basketball players share in common. So why do so many players struggle to play with confidence and be confident in themselves no matter what? Well, I believe it's because they lack inner confidence. Read on to learn all about inner confidence and how you can develop it for yourself.

What's inside:

💬 Quote of the Month: Marcus Aurelius was ahead of his time.
🧠 Mindset Tips: If you want to develop unshakeable inner confidence, here are some tips and a mantra to help you.
🎦 Content Recap: The latest videos and posts from BMT in case you missed it.
💡What's New: BMT got a make-over.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own."

- Marcus Aurelius

A major part of having inner confidence is placing more value on your opinion of yourself than on other people's opinion of you.

When you care more about what other people think of you, you need them to think highly of you for you to think highly of yourself.

This sounds something like:

"My friends think I'm a good shooter, so yeah, I'm a good shooter." -- You draw confidence from their praise.

Or on the flip side:

"So and so doesn't think I'm good enough to make the team, so I guess I'm not good enough." -- You allow others to take away your confidence.

More Quotes About Inner Confidence

• “If you find yourself constantly trying to prove your worth to someone, you have already forgotten your value.” - Unknown

• “You don’t have to be Magic to be special. You’re already special, you’re you.” - Magic Johnson

• "I never tried to prove anything to someone else. I wanted to prove something to myself." - Kobe Bryant

MINDSET TIPS: INNER CONFIDENCE

What is Inner Confidence?

Confident basketball players have inner confidence. This means that they draw their confidence from within, not from other people.

When you have inner confidence, you don't need other people to think highly of you, for you to think highly of yourself.

Your confidence as a shooter, for example, isn't reliant on someone saying something like, "Hey, you have a nice jump shot." Players with inner confidence give themselves confidence. "I know I have a nice jumper. I know this. I don't need someone else to tell me this for me to believe it."

You don't rely on an outside source to give you faith in your jump shot. You have that faith already.

You feel confident based on your own beliefs about yourself. You have confidence because:

you know how hard you've worked up until this point to become the player that you are now
you know how much you've improved and how far you've come
you draw your confidence from your improvements and your efforts everyday
you understand that you aren't perfect, and that's ok. You know that it's ok to make a mistake, or miss a shot, or have a bad game

Your confidence comes from within - from your own beliefs about yourself. From your own hard work. From your own experiences.

The Problem With Externally-Driven Confidence

When you rely on other people to give you confidence in yourself, you're also at the same time giving them the power to take that confidence away from you.

What happens when someone doubts you, or starts to talk trash or hate on you? Well, then you're going to feel less confident. That doubt or criticism is going to affect you.

But when you draw your confidence from within, it doesn't matter what anyone says. Since you don't rely on other people to give you confidence, you aren't affected when they try to take it away from you. You don't give them that power.

Your inner confidence acts like a shield, and that shield will protect you from any doubt, noise, hate or negative criticism.

Can You Relate?

When I was younger, I remember always waiting for someone to say something nice about my jump shot whenever I made it. When I made a shot, I'd look around like, "Hey did anyone see that? Is someone gonna compliment me on that or what? Please, someone say something nice to boost my confidence."

Over the years as I've worked on this part of my mindset, now none of that matters to me. I appreciate the compliment, but I'm not relying on it. I'm not seeking it out. I know how hard I've worked. I know how many hours I've put in. And that's all I need. That's enough. No one can take that away from me no matter what they say.

When you draw your confidence from within like this, it frees you. It frees you to just play and not worry about what other people think.

Whether it's shooting or any other part of basketball, when you draw your confidence from within, you are free to play with full confidence, without fear, without any worry of what other people say. Whatever they say will just bounce right off you.

Takeaway

You have what it takes to be a fully confident basketball player within you already. The idea that someone else can give you your confidence is really just an illusion. So turn your focus inward. Remind yourself how hard you've worked. Remind yourself that you deserve to be great. And draw your confidence from that.

Reflect on your own basketball career right now. Are there times where you let other people's doubt about you affect your confidence?
Moving forward, try to become aware when this happens and remind yourself that you don't need any external approval. Your belief in yourself comes from within.

Mantra

I know who I am, what I can do, and how hard I've worked to become the player I am. This gives me confidence.

CONTENT RECAP

In case you missed it, here's the latest content from Basketball Mindset Training:

Best Shooting Drill to Build Mental Toughness | Star Drill

This is one of my favorite shooting drills to increase shooting confidence, resilience, and mental toughness. Think you can complete it?

Watch here

How to Handle a Lack of Playing Time Mentally

Learn how to stay mentally tough, confident and resilient when you aren't getting many minutes, or none at all.

Watch here

WHAT'S NEW

I recently redesigned the BMT website to give it a fresh new look and make it easier to navigate and find the type of mental training that's best for you.

Check it out below!

(Btw, there's more free stuff now too. Click on "get started free" to...well...get started lol)

Check out the new site

You've made it through, but your mental training doesn't have to stop here! Here's how to take it a step further:

Mental Greatness Blueprint is the complete basketball mental skills training program where you’ll master all 7 elements of your basketball mindset so you can achieve mental greatness and unleash your full potential. Master your mental game today!
New to the Mindful Hooper? Check out the archives for more free basketball mindset tips.
Also, if you found this newsletter helpful consider donating to help support BMT. Anything is appreciated!