Confidence is Key: Why sports players should always keep a positive mindset

With the opposing team’s student section barking like dogs, trying to shake my confidence, sweat builds on my forehead. My team is down one point with just seconds left on the clock. Everything comes down to this free throw. Will we run sprints tomorrow or will it be a chill off day? Will we quietly pack up in the locker room with disappointment or will we go out to Chick-fil-a in celebration? It all depends on what I do next. 

I set my feet, dribble three times and take a deep breath.

What if I miss?

Doesn’t matter, I got this.

I let the shot fly from my fingertips. Swoosh. We won.

Confidence and morale are vital in the sports world and are skills everyone, not just athletes need to be successful. 

It’s the difference between making a shot and missing one. It’s the difference between celebrating and banging hands against the lockers after losses. And in the end, it’s the difference between winning and losing. 

Low confidence and bad morale lead to scoring droughts, mental mistakes and eventually losing games that extend into ongoing losing streaks. 

Bad morale means walking into the gym when practice starts instead of 15 minutes before. It’s not doing the little things — not diving on the floor for loose balls, running over to pick up a teammate on the floor or studying the team you’re playing the next day.

It shows a lack of love for the game. Athletes who truly love winning don’t let a single loss lead to another. They won’t let a harsh team meeting prevent them from coming in early the next morning to get extra shots up before practice.

The first step to improving this mindset is not dwelling on every loss, but learning from them. Sure, a loss is disappointing, but it shouldn’t affect our mindset going into the next game. It doesn’t affect a season that much unless you let it. 

This is exactly what happened to our boys varsity basketball team at East. We lost two tough games to two very determined opponents while we were short-handed with eight players out from injuries and COVID. We let these two tough losses lead to another terrible loss against a team that should have been a blowout. 

It all comes down to having a “what can I do better?” mindset rather than a “this is why we lost” mindset. The team discusses each loss in the locker room. Instead of “we didn’t do this well,” I like to say things like, “we need to move the ball better” or “we need to rebound better.”

It may be a small difference, but it creates a winning atmosphere. By focusing on the next game and what to improve, it’s easier to put the loss behind you without shaking your confidence.

Winners don’t let bad games affect their overall season performance. Instead of getting discouraged, they’ll use it to work even harder so that they don’t have to feel that hurt of hearing the other team celebrate. 

Losses should be extra motivation because that terrible feeling in your chest and bad taste in your mouth won’t go away until you beat another team.

Every night after losing, I watch each game’s film back multiple times to catch every mistake I made. I figure out what skills I need to work on and then the very next morning, I get into the gym early to work on every single move that I messed up. 

After losing against Blue Valley Northwest, I watched the film and realized that I was 0 for 6 when shooting from the three-point line. The next morning, I spent an hour just shooting three pointers. You can’t ever be content with losing a game. 

Raising confidence and morale is easier said than done. Losing sucks. Everyone who has experienced any loss knows that it’s far from a fun experience.

Maintaining a high level of confidence is a necessity for winning. For basketball, it’s vital to be in the mindset that every shot you take will go in. And if you miss, you should do something to take your mind off of it. Some people count the number of laces on their shoes or the number of corners on the backboard. Superstitions can be silly, but they’re another way to build confidence. 

During practices, we do a drill where, whenever we miss a free throw, we have to run two sprints and it keeps going until we can string together four makes in a row as a team. After each miss,  people are frustrated, but whoever is next always gets their mind off the simulated crowd noise of Head Coach Shawn Hair trying to get in their head. 

Everyone has their same routine that helps them focus on the shot ahead of them. When they stray from that routine, they’re prone to more and more misses.

Practice and repetition matter because when it comes down to that one shot you have to take in the actual game, with bleachers full of a yelling crowd, your instincts take over and the repetitive motions you’ve spent thousands of hours on will finally pay off.