Hey and welcome back — Here’s my first piece for Write of Passage Cohort 11!
During my sophomore year of high school basketball, I sat out for a part of the fourth quarter in the state championship. My coach wanted to “speed up” our lineup. Sitting on the bench destroyed me. We lost by 13.
Image: Don’t let my smile fool you, I was not happy.
Previous to that painful experience, I avoided weightlifting at all costs. But, at that moment, I knew I never wanted to have that feeling again.
Up until that point, every advantage I had in my game was mental. Meditation, visualization, journaling, and regulating my confidence. And although I've had more fun conversations with myself, I realized if I wanted to become an impact player, I’d need to start lifting weights.
After a summer of consistently hitting the weight room, I went from being the smallest kid on the court to the biggest. This helped me create physical advantages for my team.
I became more physical, less of a “wuss” if you will. I improved my ability to attack the rim, rebound, and play post defense… just to name a few!
The mistake many athletes make is they only focus on creating physical advantages. Inevitably, they’ll lose to the athletes who create mental advantages, too. I was lucky enough to be an athlete who created mental advantages early in my career, so once I combined my mental advantages with physical, it helped me turn into an “impact player.”
An impact player is a player who impacts the game in every way. An impact player is who coaches dream of. An impact player is someone a coach, “can’t afford to sub out.”
The best mental advantage I ever created was becoming an impact player. It gave me the freedom to make decisions without having to worry about getting subbed out.
An impact player doesn’t look back to see their coach’s reaction after a mistake or missed shot. They hustle without worrying about getting taken out.
I gained this freedom by growing my impact to a certain level. Once I did, my coaches left me in the game, even if I made mistakes.
Many athletes have to worry about getting pulled out of the game and this worry breeds overthinking. At the end of my playing career, I didn’t. All because I became an impact player.
Now, by no means was this always the case. I had to earn my position and grow my impact to a level of, “He’s staying in the game.”
To achieve this, two things must happen:
Your impact reaches a certain level.
You build a solid foundation of mutual trust.
Now, my coaches definitely helped. Rather than dictating the types of shots I took or how I played the game, my coaches let me make decisions. The impact I had on the game and my coach's philosophy created this feeling of psychological safety.
Although meditation helped me overthink less, it really was diversifying the ways I impacted the game that eliminated it.
I improved my mental game. I meditated to stay calm and present. I watched my highlights to stay confident. I prioritized my sleep to have great energy. I improved my physical game. I lifted weights. I became stronger, faster, and more physical! I increased my vertical jump from not very high to still not very high, but less worse!
“The vertical is non-existent with this one” – Darth Vader, probably.
My impact no longer relied on my ability to shoot. I could impact the game no matter what.
I wish I knew when it started, because when it did, the stress and pressure I had while playing vanished. It was gone. I no longer worried about making a mistake and getting subbed out.
This is the level of impact you want to have, it gives you psychological safety to play without the worry of making a mistake. You’ll enter the zone every time you play.
Once I became an impact player, I had the freedom to just play the game. Being an impact player helped me euro-step overthinking and compete at the highest level.
As for my senior year, we won the state title by four points. I played every second. :)
Thanks for reading,
Dylan
My gratitude to Jeremey Schraffenberger, Patrick O'Loughlin,
(Reverse Outline Method FTW), , , Nathan Kash, , , , and , all from Write of Passage, Cohort 11 for your feedback on this piece.
...dude the dunk on vader was epic...