The way you think about yourself, your perception of ability, in other words, your confidence, affects your ability to perform. True? I think so. Pep talks usually revolve around boosting player’s confidence. If you have confidence, you’ll be more relaxed and be able to be more in the flow. If you have confidence you’ll do more.
I play in a basketball league where the average age of women on the teams is probably around 40-45 years old. It’s a purely recreational league which means you aren’t supposed to get crazy in trying to win. Share the ball, encourage each other, and have a good time. There’s people of all different types of levels playing – some who’ve never played basketball, some who played rec ball, some who played high school, and even some who played college – I don’t think there are any pro or semi-pro people. I was aware of all of this when I joined and figured that this would be fun to play in because there is no pressure. I don’t like pressure. I think this is my third or fourth season playing in the league. When I first started playing, I didn’t do much. Mostly passed the ball around, shot it occasionally, whatever. (Side Note: We always have the same 2 refs at the games. They’ve been reffing the league for many many years and they know everyone. They’re very encouraging and give tips to the players. They’re super nice and funny too. There’s this one ref, W, who is more of the talker.) In the second season, I started to do more but probably only because W was like: “Shoot the ball! Shoot the ball! I know what you’re doing. You’re new and all just trying to feel out the league but I know you can play. That stuff was last season, step it up!” He was sort of right. I am pretty confident about my ability to play well in this league but I didn’t want to be a ball hog or make people not like me. One reason was also because they let me play even though I didn’t meet the age requirement because I was nice (haha). I think the next season after they finally lowered the age limit so I wasn’t “breaking the rules”, I was a bit more comfortable. Then in a lot of the games, especially the ones we were losing, W would be telling me to shoot the ball and step it up and tell me that my team needs me. But in my head, it’s like, well then that means I need to shoot more but then I start feeling like a ball hog and I don’t want to do that. I like passing the ball and giving people opportunities to shoot. And if someone is wide open, I’m not just going to take the shot when they can have a better shot. W likes to tell me, you need to score early and get your team up by 10-15 points, then you can take a break and pass it around. He gets mad when I take myself out of the game when I feel like I’m sucking. I’m like, I don’t want to be a ball hog. He’s like, they don’t think you’re a ball hog, they’re relying on you, they WANT you to shoot the ball. See, I don’t know. I’m conflicted with that. I’d still feel like a ball hog!
On a separate note, my confidence is very easily swayed. If I take a couple shots in a game and I don’t make it or they’re super off, I pretty much stop shooting. I stop shooting because I think that if I shoot it, it’s not going to go in. On the other hand, when I start making shots, I feel much more confidence and actually believe that the shots I take will actually go in – then I want the ball. A good athlete can overcome this. They will keep shooting and keep going at it.
Last Monday, W comes up to me and is like, hey I got this league I want you to play in. It’s a higher-level of basketball that I know you can play in. And immediately, I was hesitant. My mind flashed back to the Rock league I was playing in. See, depending on who I’m playing with and the skill level of the people, I immediately get scared and my confidence goes to zero. When I think about the Rock league and I think about K playing – that girl is crazy. There’s no way I can compete with that. She likes to play competitive and the league we were in had some pretty good people. It also had people that were really tall and/or really big. When I find myself in such situations, I immediately turn into someone who doesn’t really play basketball – I’m running around the court just to exercise. Heck I don’t even want the ball because I’m afraid that I’m going to turn it over. In fact, when there are fast breaks, I purposely do a roundabout way of turning before I run down the court so that I’m not the first one there because I don’t want the ball on a fast break because I’m afraid I’m going to miss it. I don’t want to shoot the ball because I’m probably not going to make it. So then, I started thinking about this a lot. I was thinking that if there was someway I could build up my confidence to believe that hey, I can actually hang with these people, that I can contribute, then I wouldn’t be afraid, and then I would be more relaxed, and then what I do would actually work (aka shoot and make a basket!).
Back to the league W was telling me about. He said it was something new starting up in San Diego and that they had asked him to coach a team. He said that he needed a good 2 guard and knew that I would be the perfect person. (Seriously?) He said some of the girls are super serious – they want to go pro or play overseas. (Uh…crazy, no thanks.) He said some girls when he asked if they had experienced they just looked around at each other and were like..what does that mean? Some said they played rec and others said they played high school. He said I would be great. He said it’s kinda like a league or tournament? I wasn’t sure and neither was he. He wanted me to come check it out. He said you play locally and then if you play well, you travel. (Um..is this like a travel basketball club for adults?) He asked me if I played in college. I said no. He said why not? I told him I couldn’t hang, wasn’t good enough. Actually, he’s not the first person who’s asked me if I played college ball. In fact, I would have liked to but how I am now in certain basketball leagues or games, all timid and afraid, that’s how I was in high school. I think I’m able, but I’m afraid. So, maybe if I had the confidence I do in this Monday league in high school, I would have been a better player and maybe actually get to play college ball. It’s not like I can’t shoot well. I can, when I’m not afraid. I make 3 pointers. I’ve made them playing in different leagues, playing with guys, in high school, shooting around. So now I’m trying to trick..err..convince myself that maybe I can play a higher level of basketball the way I do on Monday nights. That’s why I can’t sleep because I keep thinking about it. Am I actually capable and I’m afraid, thus default to, I can’t, and then actually play timidly because I think I’m not good enough or am I actually incapable even if I wasn’t afraid? Can I really hang? After W asked me about that league and told me to think about it, I couldn’t sleep for 2 nights and that’s all I could think about all day long. What is the situation here? Why do I have a lack of confidence in certain basketball situations? If I believe that I can compete, I WILL compete. But if I don’t believe I can, I will almost always just run around and play the “I’m useless” role.
So, the conclusion is that I’m still struggling because I don’t know if I am capable of competing. And because I don’t know, I am leaning on the “I can’t hang” excuse. The good thing is that I’m aware of this so I am considering the fact that maybe I am capable. I guess I just need to overcome, be confident, and see myself actually perform WELL at a higher level. Because I think that is the only way to pull me over. I told W that I wasn’t sure about it. I actually don’t have enough details about it – is this a weekend/weeknight activity? I obviously have a day job. How serious is this league? W thinks I can play and I value his opinion. If he can coach me and help me become better, I think I would feel more confident. If I put my pathetic lack of confidence thoughts behind me and convinced myself I was good enough to play, would I be able to? (Sorry, this is getting redundant – these thoughts just keep circling in my head and I’m trying to figure out how to conquer or trick myself into it but I kinda don’t want to trick myself – run-on sentence – woo!) He told me they had practice tonight – I’m out of town. He told me they have a game tomorrow. Yikes. He told me to give him a call tonight to find out the details. I guess I’ll do that much. But really – playing against people who are trying to go pro or semi-pro? I really don’t know about that…maybe K can and C can. Me? I don’t know. I’d like to contribute – I don’t need to be a star. I just need to make a basket here and there. I need to be..confident.
So, I guess we’ll find out after the call…dun dun DUN!
I conquered Miramar Lake – and by conquer, I mean that I ran it all the way around non-stop at a pretty good pace even if I say so myself. I was really debating whether I should try to make it around the lake or not. I think the longest run I’ve done prior to today is about 4 miles. I really wanted to make it around the lake – it would be much better than just stopping at one point and turning around. Miramar Lake is also not flat – there aren’t any major hills but it does have some short spurts of ups and downs pretty frequently. My goal was to run it under 52 minutes without stopping. The loop, while most people say is 5 miles is really 4.92 – so just a bit shy. Most of the time I’ve been running – I run at about a 10 minute pace and add on to that when there are hills involved. Recently I’ve been trying to speed up. I was doing pretty well throughout most of the run – always checking at each half mile and mile to make sure I was going under 10 minutes/mile. I must have been going pretty fast early on – I think these were the splits (is that what it’s called?) 1 mile / 9:16; 2 miles / 19:10; 3 miles 29:15; 4 miles 39:30; 4.92 miles; 48:48. I also remember getting kinda tired near the end but really trying to push through.
Post request by tareshannon: What are your thoughts about this year’s football tourney and Team United?