
5 June 2024
Competition should extend beyond game days as it can significantly enhance your skills and boost your performance to new levels.
Competitiveness isn't just about winning; it's about pushing yourself beyond limits and embracing challenges head-on, fuelling your determination to excel and succeed in the face of competition (even if it’s your training partner or teammate).
Competitiveness defined
Competitiveness originates from the word “compete,” which means striving for the same goal, position, or reward as someone else.
Having a competitive spirit
It involves being assertive, eager to face challenges, having a strong desire to win, and persisting until victory is achieved, which in turn boosts self-esteem, self-belief, and confidence.
Why it’s important
Being competitive is about striving for new skills and being motivated to do better than yesterday, or last week.
It’s about having a better game than the last game or making that shot that you couldn’t make last season.
It’s about competing against athletes who are on a similar skill level or even slightly better and pushing to rise to their level and surpass them.
It drives people to push their limits, work harder and remain open to constructive feedback.
It’s okay to be competitive
It’s okay to be in competition with someone else but your focus is not on others. Your focus is solely on yourself and becoming the best version of yourself. It’s about understanding that improvement comes from being competitive.
Let’s discover how engaging in competitive training sessions can help you unleash your full basketball potential.
Boosts training intensity
The best way to elevate intensity at training is through competition. We add competitive elements into your drills and scrimmages, to help recreate the pressure and excitement of real game situations.
This heightened intensity not only pushes you to give your best effort, but also improves your ability to perform under pressure.
Embracing competition also prepares you mentally and physically for the challenges you will face on game day. So rather than high fiving your training partner when they beat you, use the defeat as motivation to win the next round.
Fosters a growth mindset
A growth mindset is the belief that skills and abilities can continually improve with effort and practise.
Embracing this mindset allows you to learn from peers, observe their techniques, and integrate their strategies into your game.
Builds resilience
Training with competition develops mental toughness and resilience, helping you bounce back from failures and setbacks.
The difference between responding and reacting is anywhere from a few hours to a day.
Taking the time to respond, rather than react allows you to think through the lessons learned. It also gives your athlete time to process what has happened.
Competitiveness should always be paired with good sportsmanship
There should always be:
Respect for opponents, coaches and officials.
Fair play, integrity, and humility in both victory and defeat.
A competitive spirit can be a powerful tool for success in various aspects of life, not just on the court.