No team wants an abundance of passengers. And most players want to be valuable and valued. In Good to Great, Jim Collins advises us to "get the right people in the right seats on the bus."
Whatever your domain, live your core values every day...teamwork, improvement, accountability. That should reflect toughness, smart basketball, effort, unselfishness.
EXAMPLE. I was taught and teach the "open to the ball approach" although recognizing the 'head snap' method is equally viable. But ALERTNESS is required either way. The worst of all worlds is poor denial and unalertness of which we were guilty yesterday. Perhaps that's the price of more practice games than practices to this point. I own that.
Time management precedes success. That requires organization and carving out periods for reading, writing, and other study. That could include formal study of mental models, bias, mindfulness, and gratitude.
Mental Models
Cognitive Biases
Mindfulness (free UCLA mindfulness sessions)
Gratitude
Calm down. Learning about how we think, how we respond to stress, and changing our approach helps us to calm down. We literally change our brain, reducing the stress center (amygdala) and stress hormone production and boosting the learning and memory centers (frontal cortex and hippocampus.
Ask better questions. Billionaire Sara Blakely asks herself, "Did I spend the majority of my day at what I'm best at?" She uses this as a productivity check.
There's no one answer. Courage, like confidence, is about balance. Confidence balances doubt and arrogance. Courage balances fear and recklessness.
It's not about winning or losing; play quality basketball and let the results take care of themselves. Find reasons to believe. Make some high effort plays. Start to believe. Then make some occasional skill plays or toughness plays. Believe more. Add leadership fuel to the fire and increase your belief.
Lagniappe: I never made anybody a player...
One of our (eighth grader) players scored 35 points in 25 minutes yesterday...and went home and reviewed the how and why we lost. Coaching is a blessing.