How to Build Your Confidence:
A key to being a great basketball player

Great players are confident in their abilities. When they take the floor, they believe they are the best player on the court, and they go out and make it happen.

How do you develop confidence in your abilities?

Practice and believe in your skills. Then go out and practice some more and never get down on yourself.

Here are some ways to develop more confidence as a player so you can take the floor with absolute belief in your abilities.

Start thinking big.

When you walk out onto the floor, be confident and sure of yourself. Believe in your preparation and abilities, and believe that you're the player to beat.

One of the things that separates average players from good players, and good players from great players is confidence. Great players have an enormous of confidence in their game. Guys like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan walked onto the court with an enormous belief in their game, huge confidence in their abilities.

And it translated into their performance. They were great players, and their confidence helped keep their performance at a high level.

Having enormous and unwavering confidence will benefit you in two ways: it'll keep your game at a high level (helping you get through the ups and downs of a game or a whole season), and it will throw your opponent off of his game (you'll play better and be more consistent, and this may cause him to doubt his own ability to compete against you).

By being confident in your game, you'll eliminate some of the fear or anxiety that comes from competition. No doubt you'll probably be nervous before a big game, but really believing in yourself will eliminate some of that fear of failure that can hinder your performance. If you miss a shot or two, or get beat once or twice, it won't have as much of an affect on you because you know you'll bounce back and be successful in the end.

Basketball (a game or a season) is a series of ups and down. Keeping a high level of confidence will create higher and longer lasting "ups" (you're level of play will be elevated by your belief in yourself), and will lessen the severity and duration of some of the "downs" (stretches of bad shooting or poor play).

Let's put it this way, who do you think is more confident in his abilities: a player that walks onto the floor hesitantly, dribbles sheepishly, goes up for a shot he doesn't think he'll make, figures he won't get the rebound, runs back on defense and knows he's going to get beat so he plays like a defeated player. Or a guy that walks onto the court and stares you straight in the eye to size you up, walks with a swagger, sprints from place to place on the floor, is always in an athletic stance, goes up strong for a shot, if he misses, he's aggressively going for the rebound, and sprints back on defense where he's a quick, aggressive on-ball defender that blocks out strongly when the shot goes up.

I'd say the second player is more confident.

He shows his confidence through his demeanor and actions. The amazing thing is that both players may be equally talented (in terms of strength, jumping ability, dribbling and shooting skills, etc.), but the second player looks and acts with more confidence and thus is a better player. The second player IS better because he ACTS better. Sometimes in life, you are the way you act. If you act confident, strong, and quick, then really you ARE confident, strong and quick.

So create the reality that you are a good player. Act confident and you will be confident. Be confident and your game will improve. You've got nothing to lose by believing in yourself and everything to gain.

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