September 29, 2025 | Tagged Motivation,
Why is basketball and life so hard sometimes?
Life and basketball can be incredibly difficult. Do we really understand what difficulty means and can we learn to use it for our trajectory rather than down fall? Find out how difficulty can help you become a stronger player and leader.
What is Difficulty?
Difficulty shares two root words — “dis” meaning not and “facilis” meaning easy, something that requires something extra to accomplish or overcome. That something extra could be a mentor, resilience, grit, courage, or patience. It is something extra needed to help get past the problem, challenge, or roadblock.
That Something Extra
It is typical to avoid difficult situations, people, and experiences, yet research continues to show that difficulty is a requirement for growth. Living for and seeking only what is comfortable and easy is a straight road to greater hardship and misery.
"Something extra" is a needed aspect for overcoming difficulty and can be a powerful tool in our lives. Whether we must dig deeper, ask for more help, look outside ourselves for resources, or tap into great courage and resilience, these all challenge us to grow.
Why We Sometimes Hate Difficulty
Often society promotes facing difficulty in school or sports as an indication there is a lack of confidence or talent. This is especially exposed in poor teaching environments where comparison is a tool of methodology. Since we are such an efficiency-fixated world, we can become impatient, frustrated, or even embarrassed if something takes us more time, or is more challenging for us to figure out.
Difficulty requires us to slow down, wait, work harder and longer. We need greater patience for success.
In a comparison-based society, all things that are efficient, speed-fixated, or rushed can view difficulty as problematic. If you don’t understand math or reading right away, you can often be labeled or see yourself as having a low aptitude for these skills. Efficiency requires teachers to rank students and place some in higher or lower groups which can (if students and parents are undiscerning) unconsciously trigger feelings that lead to lower ability and less talent development.
What Difficulty Can Do for Us
With the right mindset, difficulty can help us achieve and succeed. Those who face difficult challenges with a growth mindset and even a spirit of gratitude develop grit and resilience, a sense of patience, greater ability to solve problems, stronger memory and information recall, and more talent and capability. As we see challenges positively, we grow stronger.
Scripture even tells us to consider trials as pure joy! That is an audacious recommendation. It tells us exactly what modern scientists tell us today. When we are thankful and grateful for our trials, they produce in us perseverance, proven character, and hope— hope that does not disappoint— not hope as wishful thinking but as a quiet knowing— that which has not yet happened, will happen.
Basketball Difficulty
Basketball is not classified as an easy sport. It’s a tough sport to play well. Part of the discipline of basketball is to identify what is difficult and what is not.
Too many athletes and parents choose the easy basketball path based on comfort. This path will not lead to excellence.
What is the easy path?
It is the lazy wish of being great at this sport without the work ethic and dedication to be so. It is prioritizing travel and games rather than workouts and practice. Working out is incredibly difficult when it is done with the highest levels of intensity and tenacity.
A student-athlete would rather bypass the workout and cork up shots making 2 for 10 or worse, and then blaming teammates for not getting the ball more.
At NBC Basketball we have Intensity Night at some overnight locations where students and coaches go through a workout together. We are drawing campers to the understanding that it is the love of difficulty and discipline of hard work that leads to greatness. We celebrate and honor the work needed to become a strong player.
What is the difficulty of basketball that bothers you the most?
Most often the difficulty lies in some aspect concerning “success” in this sport—playing time, winning, scholarships, advancement, perceived dominance, or talent. We want people to admire us.
This difficulty is a profoundly spiritual one because at the root is meaning and purpose— your why for playing the game and your frustration at the difficulty in not achieving your why at the pace or ease you wished.
Ask yourself if the difficult work you have done is enough to place you at the level of excellence you desire for your sport. Are you truly as skilled as you believe you are, and would most professional coaches or mentors agree?
If you are at that level, have patience, focus on the work, your opportunities are coming.
If you wish to be at the top, but you are not close to the goal, this is a beautiful place. Enjoy the game, play with passion and joy. Gratitude and hope are the best tools for building the internal fire needed to go through difficulty. Love is the highest motivation. Increase the love and you increase the will to overcome any obstacle.
Love never stares at the difficulty or the obstacles. Love looks beyond and finds the way.
Hey NBC Basketball Athletes,
You light up the world like you light up the net. You know how to be on fire with love for your community, family, friends, and God. You know what kinds of difficulties are important to welcome and what to resist, what to push through and when to walk away. We see this in you because you find mentors and wise counselors/coaches who can help you discern and be wise along your life journey. Keep up the work!