Mindful Hooper #4 - Setting Goals For Basketball

#4 - January 2024

Setting Goals For Basketball

Welcome to The Mindful Hooper, a monthly newsletter that helps you enhance your basketball mental game and stay up-to-date with everything Basketball Mindset Training.

This month's theme: Goal-Setting

Setting goals is a very beneficial thing to do as a basketball player. Goals can be a source of motivation, confidence, and satisfaction. They can help you make sure you continue to make improvements and never get stagnant or hit any plateaus in your basketball development.

What's inside:

• 💬 Quote of the Month: Don't tell Candace Parker she can't do something.
• 🧠 Mindset Tips: Why goals are important, the types of goals you should set for basketball, + 3 goal-setting tips.
• 🧘‍♂️ Mental Exercise: Set an outcome goal, performance goal, and process goal.
• 🎦 Content Recap: The latest videos and posts from BMT in case you missed it.

Do you think a friend might enjoy this newsletter? Have them sign up here.

 QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"I am one of those people who loves to throw out crazy goals and then just watch the people's faces around me be like, 'Oh, there's no way.' And then as soon as somebody tells me, 'There's no way,' then I know that I'm going to do everything in my power to achieve it."

- Candace Parker

Candace Parker is big on setting goals. She said that before every season, she likes to sit down and write out some goals that she can aim for. She uses day-to-day goals and long-term goals or what she calls, "telescopic" goals.

Goals give her a plan and help her to stay motivated. Like she says in the quote above, she gets extra motivated when someone laughs at her goals or says there's no way she can achieve it.

Instead of feeling doubtful and letting other people affect her confidence, she gets even more confident. She takes it as a personal challenge.

You can hear Candace talk more about the importance of goals here:

Video clip: Candace Parker On The Importance of Goals (4:12-5:37) >>

More Quotes About Goal-Setting

• "You have to start taking baby steps, even though you know you'll fall down. If you don't begin the process -- and you fall down a lot -- you'll never walk." - George Mumford

• “What you seek seeks you." - Rumi

• "I enjoy the process of getting better. It's not just about the end result." - Luka Doncic

More Candace Parker Quotes: Candace Parker Quotes About Basketball, Success, Hard Work, & Life >>

MINDSET TIPS: GOAL-SETTING 101

Why Setting Goals Is Important

Goals Give You Direction

Goals are beneficial to your basketball development because they give you something to aim for. They give you direction and help you to stay focused and motivated. Goals are like a compass or a GPS for your improvement.

With goals, the path you take to improve as a player is deliberate. You identify areas you want to improve and you set objectives to address those areas. Whether it's improving your ball handling, your shooting, or your finishing abilities, having goals allows you to pin-point your focus on specific areas that will enhance your overall ability. 

You Draw Confidence From Achieving Goals

You know that feeling when you accomplish a goal you had in mind. It feels satisfying and it feels like you're making progress. This sense of progress boosts your confidence and it inspires you to keep pushing forward and try to reach new heights.

Goals Help You Stay Accountable And Disciplined

Goals create a sense of accountability and discipline. When you truly want to achieve your goals, you commit to putting in the necessary work and making the necessary sacrifices to achieve them. This helps you push through when you just don't feel like working out one day, or when you have a setback or some other challenge. Having a goal that you want to achieve can help you stay on track.

Types of Goals You Should Set For Basketball

No matter what, each goal you set should be specific and trackable.

• Instead of: "I want to improve my 3 point shooting."
• Make it: "I want to get better at shooting 3's off the dribble." or "I want to improve my 3pt % by 5 percent."

You can also break your goals down into short-term and long-term goals.

• Short-term: "A month from now, I'd like to be making 9/10 floaters in my floater drill."
• Long-term: "My goal this season is to average 10 assists per game."

Finally, it's good to set outcome goals, performance goals, and process goals.

•  Outcome goals: these are just what they sound like, your goal is to achieve a certain outcome.
  • ex. to win a game, to make your varsity team, to get a college scholarship, to play professionally. Your goal is to achieve a certain outcome.
• Performance goals: a specific goal that you want to achieve while playing in a game or practice.
  • ex. to score 20 points in a game, to average 10 assists a game, take a charge or get 2 steals in an upcoming game. 
  • performance goals can be stepping stones towards reaching an outcome goal. Let’s say your goal is to win MVP of your league. Your performance goal could be, "I want to average 30 points 10 rebounds and 3 blocks a game. That should get me in the conversation."
  • performance goals don’t have to be tied to an outcome goal, but they can be. And when you do have an outcome goal, it's really helpful to break it down into a performance goal.
• Process goals: process goals break performance goals down even further. Process goals help you achieve your performance goals. 
  • outcome goals can be out of your control to an extent, but process goals are always in your control because they are usually effort-based 
  • ex. if your outcome goal is to win MVP, and your performance goal is to average 30 pts, 10 reb and 3 blocks, then your process goals to help you achieve those numbers could be: take good shots, be aggressive, run the floor and get easy buckets in transition, box out every time, fight for every offensive rebound, challenge every shot attempt that comes your way.
    • You can control all of these things! And they will help you achieve your performance goals, which will help you achieve your outcome goals

Breaking down outcome goals into performance goals and into process goals is really helpful because sometimes outcome goals can be so ambitious and seem so far out there and unreachable. Sometimes, when a goal seems unattainable we often don’t even try, or try as hard, because it seems so farfetched that we'll achieve them.

But when you breakdown big goals into performance goals and process goals, you don't feel like you have to reach your big goal all in one giant step. You're going to reach that goal by taking baby steps, one step at a time, until you get there. Performance goals and process goals are those steps.

Breaking down goals in this way can help you get started on your path to achieving a massive outcome goal, and it can show you that you are making progress towards your goal, even if it's just small progress.

3 Goal-Setting Tips

1. Write Them Down And Print Them Out

Writing down your goals on paper and printing them out makes your goals more tangible. They go from a thought to a physical thing on paper. You see them now. You can hold them. They're more real. If you print them out, you can leave them on your night stand and see them when you wake up and when you go to bed. This will help you to stay focused and motivated (and also not forget about them).

2. Read Them

Read your goals out loud each day. Read them every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep. The more you read your goals, the more they are on your mind, and the more they are on your mind, the more focused you’ll be on achieving them.

3. Tell Other People About Them

By telling people what your goals are, you make them even more real. Your goals are no longer just a thought in your mind or something you read to yourself everyday. Now they’re out there. They’re out there in the universe and other people know about them. This can help you stay accountable to your goals.

When you tell people your goals, tell them with confidence. Don’t be afraid of their reaction. "Yeah, you might laugh but I’m going to do this. I’m going to achieve this." Don't worry about what they think. Don't lose confidence. Use it as motivation if you need to and remember what Candace Parker said ⬆️ 

Exercise: Set 3 Goals

Set an outcome goal, performance goal, and process goal. If you'd like, you can make them all related. Set an outcome goal and break that down into a performance goal which will help you achieve it. And then break that performance goal down even further into a process goal.

Mantra

"With effort, consistency, and discipline each day, I get one step closer to achieving my goals."

CONTENT RECAP

In case you missed it, here's the latest content from Basketball Mindset Training:

YouTube Videos:

Guided Meditation For When You're In A Shooting Slump (I hope you never need this)

Blog Posts:

How To Shoot Better - 13 Tips To Improve Your Shooting

69 Motivational Shaq Quotes On Success, Greatness, and Being Dominant

71 Giannis Antetokounmpo Quotes On Basketball, Failure, and Greatness

You've made it through, but your mental training doesn't have to stop here! Here's how to take it a step further:

• Mental Greatness Blueprint is the complete basketball mental skills training program where you’ll master all 7 elements of your basketball mindset so you can achieve mental greatness and unleash your full potential. Master your mental game today!

• New to the Mindful Hooper? Check out the archives for more free basketball mindset tips.

• Also, if you found this newsletter helpful consider donating to help support BMT. Anything is appreciated!

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you get better in some way.

If you have any questions or comments you can email me at [email protected]

Happy hooping!

- D

To receive this newsletter by email each month, click here to sign up for free