April 17, 2020   |   Tagged Motivation,

Three Steps for Creating a Great Strategy for Basketball and Life

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” —Henry David Thoreau

Becoming a great basketball player, student or person requires strategy.

The average person spends 90,000 hours of their life at work. Students spend over 14,000 hours in school. Malcolm Gladwell has established that expectational talent requires 10,000 hours of intentional practice. Time is a gift and it is important to have a strategy for your time management.

Strategy with time helps you make the best use of your time. Strategy matters but not very many people invest in becoming a better strategic thinker and planner.

What is strategy? It is a plan of action designed to achieve a major or overall aim. Probably the most important aspect of the strategy is that a good strategy prepares you for success under conditions of uncertainty. Strategy provides a roadmap to help you through difficulty.

Strategy is one of the biggest missing pieces for most athletes and programs. Strategy is tough because it is abstract and can be tough to practice, to implement and it takes time. This month we want to help elevate your education about strategy and encourage you to take time to build a strategic plan for your basketball and life.

The biggest question to ask is “why”. One successful multimillion-dollar company has the 5 why rule.

Shooting is a crucial skill for you to develop. Why? Because the object of the game is to score more points than the other team and you need to be successful at scoring points to win the game. Why? Because every player who is a successful scorer increases your team’s probability of success. Why? Because shooting is a very difficult skill to master and exceptional shooters will make your team highly successful. Why? Because shooting requires intentional practice that most people won’t commit to doing. Why? Because shooting requires time, energy, wisdom, accuracy, consistency, and daily intentional practice to do well. This 5 why rule works to get to the fundamental root of an issue and can clarify why you do a task, drill or activity and also identifies a number of interesting aspects about it. The why provides wisdom.

The first place to start when building your strategic plan is your purpose: What do you want to do with your one wild and precious life?

This is the first decision spot and your strategy will emerge from it.

Start with your mission. Ask the 5 whys. Get down to the real reasons. Some people discover they don’t really love the game of basketball, they love the attention that basketball gives them. They love feeling connected to something cool and important. So they love the shoes, the gear, the NBA game over the work of practice, the sacrifice of hours to commit to being a serious player. Really they are recreational players who want the glory, money, fame, and power of basketball but they don’t really love the sport.

Mission is crucial because whatever you devote your life to is going to cost you and you have to love it.

The second crucial strategic question is, “Am I doing what matters?” Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax, “ tells us that planning and strategy need to be a key part of your day.

• Do your daily habits reveal you are on the plan for success in life and your basketball dreams?
• Does the time and energy that you are investing yield the biggest return for your future?
• Does that TV program help you achieve what you want for your dreams?
• Is that shooting workout giving you tangible shooting results?
• Do your study habits build the brain you want for your future?
• Are these friends helping shape you into the best person?

Strategy isn’t just about what you do, but it also and maybe, more importantly, is what you don’t do.

The third step, take time to look at your life and work backward. Five years from now, how old will you be? What qualities would you like to define your life? What qualities do you currently have that you would like to improve or remove? What areas do you struggle and how do you see this changing five years from now?

Once you have imagined this plan, then you can create daily goals, define priorities and invest those daily hours into real work that moves your plan.

About NBC Basketball
NBC Basketball Camps started in 1971 with the intent to help athletes become stronger players and better people. Camps focus on goal setting, mental toughness, skill development, leadership, and personal faith. For more information about NBC Camps visit www.nbccamps.com/basketball