January 12, 2024   |   Tagged Leadership

Do you have high basketball EQ? Take the test.

BASKETBALL EQ
Basketball that is played well has high positive emotions and low negative emotions.

Positive emotion = encouragement, gratitude, connection, love, passion, intensity, self-responsibility, community, pride, unity, joy peace, and power.

Negative emotion = blame, criticism, apathy, bitterness, envy, jealousy, rage, frustration, disunity, hatred, disgust, shame, self-other destruction, impotence.

Consider your season. Where are you right now? Start with your energy. It is one of the best barometers of health. How much energy do you have? Is it hard to get out of bed? Is practice a chore? Is there an energy crisis?

Next, consider your habits. What habits do you have that can soothe yourself when life is painful? Are these habits used to comfort yourself, building you to be the person you aspire to be?

Next, observe your words. What level of health do you see? How much blame, frustration, or irritation can you identify in your words? How much gratitude, hope, patience, generosity, or joy is in your words toward yourself and your teammates, friends, and family?

Next, consider your situation. How much stress, pain, or difficulty are you under?

Now consider your emotions. Researchers tell us the average person has a 15-percent accuracy rate in telling what he/she is feeling. Most of us underestimate how much emotion we are feeling.

For example, a player starts to recognize they are not going to be a starter this season. They believe they deserve to start. There is pain--the pain of loss of dreams, the pain of embarrassment, the pain of disappointment, the pain of parents and friends. The more pain, the more difficulty. Now the student has a decision, the pain must go somewhere. Where is that pain going?

Most people try to deal with their pain by “sucking it up” but as noted earlier this goes into the body and causes residual harm.

Negative ways we deal with the pain:

• We suck it up - we pretend we are fine.
• We cover it up - we use negative endorphin boosters to mask our pain.
• We blow up - we blame others, and we use anger to help us through the energy crisis.
• We give up - we quit, we shut down.

Positive ways we deal with the pain:

• Learn from pain - we use pain to make us wiser and stronger.
• Redefine the pain - we understand pain is necessary for growth and stop fearing pain.
• Process the pain - we take the pain and use it to produce something positive.
• Overcome the pain - the pain becomes part of our transformation story.
  
  

In basketball, this means talking with key mentors when your emotions are overwhelming. Set goals to work through your pain rather than giving up or shutting down.

Can you pick tools to process the pain?
Great tools: running, working out, journaling, meditation, learning something new, talking with a mentor, serving others.

EQ Basketball Test:

• What is my level of pain right now with basketball?
• When I am in pain, do I avoid talking to my key mentors?
• When I am feeling envious, do I find myself talking badly about others?
• When I am feeling jealous, do I obsess about what the coach is thinking?
• When I am feeling sad, do I tend to make negative choices with my time?
• When I am feeling angry, do I shut down or get more aggressive?
• Does my aggression get me into trouble on the court?
• Do my emotions outside of basketball carry with me onto the court?
• Do my emotions about basketball carry with me into the home?
• Do my circumstances dictate my emotions?
• Do I know ways to find joy even in difficulty?
• Do I know how to work through my anger without it harming me or others?
• Do I know how to regulate my emotional pain without cutting emotion out completely or without hurting myself or others?
• Do I have someone I can trust to help me through emotions that are too big to navigate by myself?

Hey NBC Basketball Campers, what we love about you is the resiliency to learn and bounce back. You don’t expect to be perfect, but you don’t quit. We appreciate your bravery to live fully. This means feeling angry but making a good decision in that anger. This means recognizing you may be hurt but not reacting to that hurt. This means bringing emotion to your team that is powerfully transformative and so contagious it changes the situation for the better.

About NBC Basketball
Since 1971, NBC Basketball has been on the front line of sports development, leadership, and psychology, helping to equip coaches, parents, and athletes to become stronger on and off the court. Camps are high-intensity and for those who love the game enough to work hard. Find programs in the USA, Canada and overseas. For more information visit www.nbccamps.com.