Everyone loses focus.
Learning mindfulness, give yourself grace when your mind wanders. Return to the breath. Listening works the same. During a podcast, film session, or classroom lecture, someone else's thoughts disappear among ours.
Basketball players wander, too. They return to the missed shot, the bad call, who's watching, playing time, or a possession three trips ago. The important skill isn't perfect concentration. It's coming back.
Productive people reset better.
Rubber Bands
Complaints aren't solutions. Action directs solutions.
Put a colored rubber band around one wrist. Each time you complain, move it to the other wrist. This creates awareness. Awareness interrupts the habit.
The basketball applications are obvious. Bad call? Move the band. Coach took you out? Move the band. “I'm tired.” “We can't guard them.” Move the band.
Wooden's standard applies: "Don't whine. Don't complain. Don't make excuses." The band says, "return to what you control: the next possession."
Paper Clips
Salespeople face the dreaded cold call. Contacts are like fishing. You can't catch anything without a line in the water.
One salesman kept two jars on his desk. One held 100 paper clips; the other was empty. Every time he made a sales call, he moved one clip. His job wasn't to make a sale. His job was to empty the jar. He became the sales leader by "brute forcing" sales.
Basketball players can do the same.
Put 50 clips in one cup. Move one after every correctly executed weak-hand finish. Or every five made free throws. Or every possession of film reviewed with a notebook entry.
Don't say, “I need to become a better shooter.” Move the clips.
Winners Are Trackers
Darren Hardy writes, “Winners are trackers” in The Compound Effect.
As a kid, I tracked free throws on old-school graph paper. My goal was eventually to make at least 90 of 100 every day. It took years to get there.
I made 100 of 100 only twice. Graphing measured shooting, concentration and will. Making free throw number 93 after missing number 92 is different from free shooting.
Track what matters. Free throws. Turnovers. Offensive rebounds. Deflections. Strength work. Sleep. Film study. What we measure, we value.
Pomodoro
Learning is fundamental to sport.
The free Coursera course Learning How to Learn teaches the Pomodoro technique: concentrate for about 25 minutes, then take a short break. That works for athletes, too.
Twenty-five minutes of focused film study is better than an hour of “watching film” while checking your phone.
Attention is finite. Be intent. Recover. Repeat. Keep the main thing the main thing.
Schedule the Work
James Clear ("Atomic Habits") writes about the power of systems and consistency. Large outputs come from small amounts of work repeated relentlessly.
Three pages a day eventually becomes a book in a hundred days.
1,000 summer shots a day became Kobe Bryant.
Coach, writer, and speaker Kevin Eastman described reading for two hours a day. Every day. Over time, the accumulation becomes massive.
Sarah Blakely says, "Obsess the product." Serious people schedule what matters.
Players often tell us they want more playing time, starting, all-League recognition, championships. "Show your work."
Nobody stays perfectly focused. Great players feel frustration, distraction, or disappointment. They reset their better.
Lagniappe. Excel in your role, while working to expand it.
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