Basketball: Visualization and Confidence

Michael Jordan said put it best: "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take". In basketball, and in all sports, visualization and confidence is the key to preforming to the best of your ability. To be the best at something, you have to visualize yourself doing it perfectly, and have confidence that you can do it. The same applies in basketball, if you want to play good defense, you have to expect that you will, and if you want to make every shot, you have to know that it will go in. In this post, I will explain how I used visualization and confidence to make myself better.

I like to visualize success when I play sports. The main sport that I play is soccer, and I try to visualize myself playing very well before a game because it gives me confidence. I have never tried visualizing success while playing basketball. Using what I learn from Basketball Shooting, I will try this technique. In the book Hopla says that you should visualize yourself making a shot in extreme detail using sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste (13). I have never tried visualizing something with this much intensity, but I completely understand how it could help you succeed and knock down shots while playing. In addition, Hopla states "Now see the hoop and more specifically the center of the hoop. This is your target. This is where you want the ball to go. Now see the ball falling through the hoop and swishing through the bottom of the net" (13). I decided to try this form of visualization before I took a shot.

This is where I looked as I visualized my shots going through the net



When attempting shots after seeing them and feeling them go in perfectly in my head, I felt much more confident. After visualizing this, when I shot the ball, I always expected it to be the perfect shot. Using this technique has definitely helped me make more shots and feel more confident when taking them.

Have you ever tried visualization?

Hopla, Dave. Basketball Shooting. Human Kinetics, 2012.