February 25, 2025   |   Tagged Motivation,

How to face your challenges on and off the basketball court

Basketball has challenges.

“It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life story will develop.” Chad Foster author of Blind Ambition

In this article, NBC Basketball will explore the importance of challenges and the interior courage to face forward rather than running away or pretending they aren’t happening. From procrastination to specific steps necessary for overcoming, use the recommendations in this article create small habits to become athletes and people who face their challenges.

What does Face your Challenge mean?
Let’s take each word with curiosity. Face means to look turn toward, to look directly at, to fix with determination the will to evaluate and overcome the challenge. Face has a very interesting paradox both of acceptance and opposition. All the powerful mysteries of life live in this type of crucible. The power of opposition on the one hand and the grace and humility of acceptance on the other. This makes facing something a stance of wisdom and insight. A stance of courage and humility.

Next let’s consider the word “Your” challenge. It’s fascinating psychological how many people prefer to face someone else’s challenge. We judge others actions and have oftentimes very powerful discernment into the problems of other people. We see what they do to contribute to the pain rather than move away. Yet, this energy that gives us judgment of others actually can blind us to our own struggles. The energy needed to face our struggles becomes diverted to the moral crusades of reforming or often times blaming others.

Now, let’s consider the word challenge. The Latin means to accuse falsely. It’s a word that means difficulty, struggle, adversity and implicitly implies something that must be overcome. By it’s very nature it is something that you are required to figure out. You can’t hope it goes away or pretend its not there. It will confront you again and again until the accusation is laid to rest.

What challenges do you face right now?
Depending on your time of life and level of stress, this is very important to consider. Decision making in difficulty requires tremendous energy and discernment. People don’t honor this enough. Some of the largest mistakes of our lives comes from making decisions in challenging situations without enough wisdom and energy. We make choices in a crisis that leads to greater suffering and pain. For the majority of people, they underestimate the pressure, struggle or difficulty they are in until they are underwater and overwhelmed. One of the most important skills of a student-athlete and transformative person is to correctly evaluate how much challenge you are facing. Thankfully, with the increase of positive psychology, there are numerous assessment tests that give you a clear picture of your interior stress.

Here is a questionnaire:

• Are there major life shifts happening right now? Moves, losses, major victories or defeats, etc…
• Do you have any decisions that will result in significant life changes?
• Are you under physical stress?
• What is your level of emotional stress?
  
  

Why should we face our challenges?
The benefits for facing our challenges are numerous from building greater interior courage, confidence, and resiliency to helping establish important personal boundaries and even overcome generational pitfalls.

Overcoming adversity is one of the greatest ways we shape our character. When we quit or give in to difficulty, we become more afraid. When we face our challenges, we become stronger.

FACING YOUR BASKETBALL CHALLENGES
Basketball season is one of the most enjoyable times of the year, but it can have a surprising level of pain as well.

Our hope is that you can build the internal strength you need to face your challenges each day. This is a discipline for unique to every one of us depending on a number of factors.

1. Consider your temperament.
   This is the natural way you handle adversity. Some get aggressive, some get more focused, some get more fearful, some blank out all together.
2. Know your instinctive tendencies.
   When you face a challenge do you tend to:
   Solve right away?
   Get others involved?
   Withdraw or quit?
   Try and not think about it unless you absolutely have to?
   Feel a sense of dread?
   Get inspired?
   Learn from the way you have handled challenges in the past.
3. Be a student of challenges.
   Write out a few challenges you have faced in your life. What did you naturally do well? What tendencies do you have that make the situation worse? What daily habit can you build in your life to prepare you for the next challenge?
4. Reframing challenges.
   Did you realize how you speak and think about your challenges determines how you will overcome them? For example, if you say, “I am a great shooter” but you have not put the time into being a shooter, you will be at odds with yourself. You will be trying to move forward a lie that can blind you to the real work you need to do. It can make you overly confident and want to shoot when you haven’t put in the time. Missed shots can consciously or unconsciously rob you of your confidence and make you less likely to do the real work of being a shooter.
   
   Another example would be when you make a mistake and feel embarrassed. This is a natural response for many people when they make a mistake, but embarrassment can keep us from courage. Training the body and the mind to say, “I am learning from this mistake.” Rather than feeling ashamed about the mistake choose instead to learn from your mistake and become stronger because of it.
5. Notice the accumulation of challenges creates increased challenge.
   Most athletes don’t understand the multiplication effect of challenges on their minds and hearts. They are unaware. Pressure overtime leads to burn-out. It’s simple mathematics. Energy is finite and when it is depleted again and again without being replenished, there will be an injury, a mistake, a crisis, a problem. Most student-athletes don’t consider how much energy they need to expend.
6. Create a challenge map.
   How much pressure do you feel at home, in your relationships with friends and family, on the court, off the court? How much emotional and mental energy do these require? How much escape do you need to try and get out from under this pressure? What does escape look like for you and how healthy is it? Creating a map allows you to foresee an energy crisis before it happens.
7. Small habits lead to success.
   List out your habits that lead to overcoming challenges. What can you write down? Basketball Season reveals the work we did in the off-season. Shooting percentages don’t get better from shooting the ball more in games. Shooting percentages get better from the hours of individual shooting practice done before the season. If you are disappointed in your season, find ways to celebrate the joy of being part of the team. Your written goals reveal your future. If we walked into your room, where are your goals posted and can you track each day your work to fulfill these goals?
8. Overcome the habit of procrastination.
   If you are getting overwhelmed or procrastinating on these goals, spend the time to find out why. Procrastination is often related to fear of failure or the avoidance of pain. What can you discover about why you are procrastinating? Perhaps the energy to finish your goals is costing you too much. Revisit the goal and make it smaller to manage. Perhaps the goals are reminding you that you are not where you want to be. If that is the case, elevate your gratitude. Pump up the hope, the joy and the momentum will come. Pay attention to momentum and get it moving in your favor.

About NBC Basketball
Since 1971, NBC Basketball has been helping student athletes create a pattern of success on and off the court with their mind, heart and spirt. For more information about NBC Basketball visit www.nbccamps.com.