Mindful Hooper #2 | Resilience

#2 - November 2023

Mental Toughness Is Key

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: Resilience.

Being resilient. Having mental toughness. A necessary mental skill to have as a basketball player. It's virtually impossible to go through your basketball career without facing some sort of adversity. Having resilience and mental toughness is what helps you bounce back from adversity and use it as a stepping stone to growth and improvement.

You might like: Examples of Mental Toughness in Basketball (video)

What's inside:

• 💬 Quote of the Month: Another Nelson Mandela gem.
• 🧠 Mindset Tips: What it means to be resilient and how to be more resilient in your basketball career.
• ⛹️‍♀️ Player Spotlight: Candace Parker has been resilient her entire career
• 🎦 Content Recap: The latest videos and posts from BMT in case you missed it.

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QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."
- Nelson Mandela

Wins, championships, scoring titles, MVP's -- basketball players are often judged by their successes. Not that there's anything wrong with these things and we shouldn't do everything we can to chase them, but it's important to remember that effort matters too. How you bounce back from failure matters too.

So don't lose confidence or think less of yourself if you aren't experiencing the success that you hope for. Remember how hard you're working, remember how many times you get up when you fall down, and draw confidence from that.

As Nelson Mandela reminds us, true success also means being resilient, determined, and willing to keep going despite any adversity we face along the way.

More Quotes About Resilience

• “If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it.” - Michael Jordan

• “People will hate you, rate you, shake you, and break you. But how strong you stand is what makes you." - LeBron James

• "I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but you have to know you're going to make mistakes. It's how you respond to those mistakes that counts." - Sue Bird

MINDSET TIPS: RESILIENCE

What Does it Mean to Be Resilient?

An intangible that sets the best basketball players apart from everyone else is their resilience, or mental toughness.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity, challenges, or setbacks. It's having the inner strength and determination to persevere and overcome obstacles, even when faced with difficult circumstances. In the face of adversity, resilient basketball players stay positive and stay confident that they can overcome whatever challenge they're facing.

Instead of seeing adversity as a setback or as something negative, they see it as an opportunity for growth. An opportunity to grow and evolve in some way.

Times Where You Need Resilience In Basketball

There are so many challenges, obstacles, or forms of adversity that basketball players may face in their career that require mental toughness. Here are a few examples:

• an injury
• getting benched/minutes reduced
• difficult schedule
• in a personal slump
• getting cut or traded
• losing by a lot in a game

How To Be More Resilient

To become more resilient in basketball, it's important to maintain a positive mindset, stay focused, and stay confident.

Keep a positive mindset: everything happens for a reason. Whatever difficulty you're going through is an opportunity to learn something, grow, and become even better because of it.

Stay focused: break your obstacle or adversity down into small, achievable steps. Set realistic goals that you can strive for. Injured? What's the next step in your recovery that you can attack head-on. Get cut or have your minutes reduced? What's a part of your game that you can focus on improving.

Stay confident: trust that you can overcome any challenge thrown your way. Remember that whatever challenge you're facing does not define you. Instead, how you respond to the challenge, how you bounce back from the challenge is what defines you.

Player Spotlight: Candace Parker

Candace Parker has dealt with a lot of adversity and challenges throughout her life and basketball career.

From the all the injuries to playing pregnant, to the challenges of playing a 15+ year career, Candace Parker has stayed resilient through it all.

For a glimpse into Candace's mindset and how she stayed mentally tough throughout her career, you can check out this video I made here.

Mantra

"I am resilient, strong, and mentally tough. I embrace challenges as opportunities for growth and I am confident that I can rise above anything thrown my way."

CONTENT RECAP

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

Guided Meditation For Before Practice

Top 50 Michael Jordan Quotes About Basketball and Life

36 Steph Curry Quotes on Shooting Confidence and Basketball

 Limiting Beliefs vs. Positive Beliefs from Mental Greatness Blueprint

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!

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you get better in some way.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected]

Happy hooping!

- D

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