I fear layups… (Part I)

I fear layups. Yes, a professional basketball player, is scared to shoot the simplest shot in basketball… a layup! People applaud me for holding the 3-point record at Tennessee. I always joke and say, when you’re scared of the paint, you’re going to hold the 3-point record.

My fear is due to the fact that a layup has the highest shooting percentage expectation, increasing my fear of missing. Why do I shoot mainly 3’s? Because I am good at it, and loved that it has the lowest shooting percentage expectation. (We keeping it real folks!) The low expectations of scoring tough jump shots and 3’s kept me working only on my shot, because it freed me to be creative with my shot. The high expectation and fear of layups stunted my growth development of my game.

Expectations blind creative possibilities. I chose to write on this, because I see it in other professionals. I can feel the fear in my body just by watching them go for a layup. I can relate. It’s a paradox I know, but if expectations aren’t forced on us, and creativity is encouraged, maybe we are going to play free, with confidence, and perform better than you could have ever imagined.

Often times my decisions on the court was ruled by a fear of not living up to the standards of others. Fear of failure is crippling. In fact, fear of failure is proven to be the number one crippler of improvement.

The most common definition of fear of failure is when we allow fear to stop us from doing the things that can move us forward to improve and achieve our goals. It leaves us right in our comfort zone. In order to improve, you have to experience mistakes. You want improvement? You have to invite failure in. It’s a normal part of learning and growing. How does a pro athlete invite failure with such high expectations? Figure out what the root of your personal fear is and when it started.

Three most common roots of fear of failure:

1. FEAR OF REJECTION
2. FEAR OF UNCERTAINTY
3. UNREASONABLE PERFECTIONISM

Do you remember the first time you felt scared to fail? Think back for a minute. When and why did you stop taking steps towards reaching your goals? When did you stop improving as a player? And stopped trying to develop different parts of your game? What was the root or cause of this? Close your eyes and think back. Maybe it was just a lack of motivation for some other reasons. Burnout maybe?

When I was acknowledged as an elite basketball player on the national level in high school, and reached my goal of playing for Pat Summitt, all of a sudden I was scared to fail. Don’t get me wrong, I had moments within community and within a team, moments where encouragement and affirmation reminded me of my talent. However, you would think all that work to reach a high level would increase my confidence as a player. But the exact opposite happened. A label was given, a new identity, I went from endless creativity to making sure I lived up to a new standard. Bottom line, any identity you get through the applause of people has to be sustained through the applause of people. When people create your worth, you will always rely and depend on people to sustain your worth… taking you deeper into the fear of failure.

I have played and talked with players that on purpose make sure they don’t do better than what’s expected. Why? Because they fear a better performance will be the new standard they have to live up to. With this mindset, the main goal is not to improve, but to fulfill minimal expectations to stay within a comfort zone.

One day I was coaching my kids academy, an amazing group of youth players, working on finishing at the hoop. Before the training session, I literally had to research some different ways to attack the hoop efficiently. WOW. The amount of creativity you can have with finishing at the basket, my heart was stirred with excitement and also with grief at the fact that I missed the opportunity to expand and experience such a fun part of the game. Why didn’t I? FEAR. And fear in a high expectation environment. Because I was stagnant in my comfort zone. My focus was to avoid something instead of working to gain something. We have to always start talking about what is possible before talking about talent and potential. We have to stay creative.

I hope to help athletes create the internal environment to help eliminate fear of failure, and I hope to help coaches and teams create the right external environment that invites the right type of response to failure to encourage improvement. Because it is possible! Par two on fear is coming soon! So many ways to help athletes through fear, and I will share one specific way soon that recently helped me tremendously.

Let me know if you’d like to work together or if you need support or mentorship!