About The Mental Toughness Trainer

Craig Sigl is fiercely committed to guid-ing young athletes to achieve Mental Toughness and Peak Performance so that they have a repeatable success formula for sports and all areas of life. A former Fortune 500 manager, he has coached and trained adults and youth for over 30 years.

Craig is the parent of two athlet-ic boys, lives everything he teach-es, and regularly plays his favorite sports developing new methods. He has been featured on NBC’s Eve-ning Show on TV, written about in major newspapers, and interviewed on numerous radio programs. He has over 2,000 clients all around the world using his programs and services, but he is most proud when his young ath- lete clients write an email to him about how the work has positively changed their life.

Visit: MentalToughnessTrainer.com to read some of those emails and get more information to give your child Mental Toughness.

How To Trigger The Hot Shooting Hand After Missing ShotsMichael, a 16 year old basketball player has finally made the varsity team at his high school. (This story could be about a teen girl just the same). He lives, eats, and breathes basketball following his favorite stars in the NBA and College. His dream is to play for UNC like his hero Michael Jordan whom his parents were in-spired to name him after.

Michael has everything going for him - height, speed, quickness and a great shot that he has practiced for uncountable hours since he start-ed specializing in baketball 2 years ago. In pickup games, Michael is amazing and nobody can guard him as he makes just about every-thing when he has an open shot.

During games, however, it can go two ways for Michael:

1. He makes his first few shots, or most of them, and he continues to tear up his oppo-nents and he plays just like he does in pickup games. This is why he made the team.

or..

2. He misses 2 or 3 of his first shots and then it seems like he turns into a different player. He gets timid and passes off when he has the open shot. His coaches re-mark that they can see his body language is completely off. Even the fans notice how he slaps the side of his head when he comes to the bench.

Game over for Michael. When asked by his coach or his Dad what happens to him in scenario #2 above, he says he loses confidence in his shooting.

Confidence in shooting is everything to a basketball player!

What’s the solution for all the Michaels out there? How does a bas-ketball player get confidence in shooting after missing a few in a row? Great players say to just keep on shooting until it comes back. Easier said than done, right?

Here’s what to do: 1. Start a “confidence journal” and write out a list of all the reasons why you CAN be confident. The list will have such things as -

● Because I have skills - write down a letter to youself about your skills● Because I have been confident before.

List the games when you were confident. ● Because these people have told me I’m

good or that I have a good shot or any other such praise from outside sources. l like coach-es and team mates. List what they have said to or about you.

● Any stats that prove you’re good ● A tracking of your performances from your

practice games where you play like you know you can.

For example - “Today, I shot 12 for 14 with 28 points.”

✓ Once a day, take 5 minutes before you go to bed and read your confidence journal. Bring up those confident feelings all over again in your body. Re-live those past times when you really were confident and making everything.

✓ Get in bed, close your eyes and imag-ine yourself having just missed 2 or 3 in a row (it’s going to happen) and focus on those feelings you just generated. As you fall asleep, repeat to yourself this phrase that you will bring with you tothe actual game:

“I’m A Confident Shooter. I Feel It.”

(you can come up with a different phrase about confidence if you want)

Imagine yourself playing with that confi-dence WITH the knowledge that you just missed 2 or 3 in a row...and coming back to make everything after that.

This is what I call - Pre-living success. One of my main mental toughness principles is:

Winners Win in AdvanceWhat does this mean for triggering the con-fident shooting hand?

Think about this:The last time you received some physical skills instruction, whether it was for defense,

footwork, shooting mechanics, or whatever, did you expect to be able to use this new instruction automatically at game time with-out ever practicing what you just learned?

No! Of course not.

You took that lesson and you practiced it. You drilled it. You thought about it, right? And then, at some point, it became auto-

matic and you didn’t have to think about it anymore and you went on to work on some other part of your game.

And you did the same thing with that next skill!

Learn > practice > drill > adjust > mastery

So, you have to do the SAME thing with mental skills like the one I just taught you. Mental skills are no different than physical skills and what holds players back more than anything is thinking that a mental

skill is a one-time simple lesson.

WRONG!You have to do this exercise a few times, at least, just like a new physical skill you are learning! Don’t expect that you are going to solve a lack of confidence in the game by just reading this arti-cle and expecting to be magical-ly confident the next time things don’t go well on the court. Nobody does this the way I teach it here. Coaches all tell you to visualize your shots going in and see yourself winning the champi-

onship and other such basic techniques, none of which will help you when your confidence has left you because your shots aren’t falling.

It happens to EVERY basketball player on planet earth. It will hap-pen to you.

**You have to get specific about the game time scenarios and train your body and mind to do what you want AT THE TIME you want it to do it during the game all in advance of the game!

and you want to mentally train yourself with repetition - JUST LIKE YOU DO FOR PHYSICAL SKILLS. Very few basketball players, espe-cially younger ones will actually follow through and do this. Those that do, will have a huge edge.

The rest will continue to fall apart after a few misses and they will think that all they have to do is practice shooting more and their coach will give them such sim-ple advice as “You have to be-lieve in yourself” ...and nothing will change.”

Why won’t it change? Because it’s an inner mind issue and they don’t go away easily. Don’t be one of those. You should be working on this as much as you do your free throws.

By the way, what if you could be just as calm and cool shooting free throws in a game situation as you do out there on the practice hoop with nothing on the line?

YOU CAN! It’s totally do-able and what I’ve been teaching for years now with great success.

“But Craig” you might ask, “This is a physical issue, not a mental issue my body literally tenses up when I’m under pressure in the game no matter what I think.”

Yep, I get that. And that is why your typical advice given by

coaches doesn’t work for you. It doesn’t go to the control center of your nervous system. You can “Think positive” all you want and your body will keep tensing up during pressured times or when you go against a better opponent.

You’ve got to go deeper.

You’ve got to go to the control mechanism of your nervous system. That’s where I go. That’s how my work is unique.

I don’t really have to tell you that having confidence in your shot is

what allows your body to follow through with the skills you have, do I?

You know that’s true because you have confidence in practice and pickup games don’t you? And you play lights out there, don’t you?

Well, what if you could bring that practice/pickup game confidence over to the real game CONSISTENTLY?

Now, I just gave you a mental hack to shortcut the process of changing your nervous system for a specific situation. (I’ve got plenty more of these quick fixes).

But, If you want to create confidence CONSISTENTLY for your entire game, even your entire life, I have developed a system-

atic process from working with 2,000 athletes worldwide in person and tens of thousands more online for that.

Check it out here.

It all starts with this foundational concept: Performance = Potential - Interference

This means, that you will perform to your potential when you elimi-nate the interference.

If you aren’t playing your absolute best, AT ANY TIME, it’s because of some kind of interference. There’s 2 kinds of interference:

1. Physical. This is like an injury or something wrong with your body. For example, if your ankle is twisted, will you likely be able to perform to your potential? Of course not. But I don’t deal with physical interference, that’s for your doctors and athletic trainers to help you with.

2. Everything else. If you are not playing your game the way YOU KNOW YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO, and your body is not injured or sick, then Mental Toughness is where you need to go to fix that problem.

Look, you can work harder, condition yourself better, spend more time practicing all you want but it’s not going to change the fact that you aren’t bringing your trained and practiced skills to a competitive game. All you will be doing is im-proving your potential, which is good, but worthless if it doesn’t show up in the game.

Special note to parents and coaches of players: Does your youth player’s confidence fall apart in the game after missing a couple shots?

✓ too hard on themselves after games? Perfection-ist to a fault?✓ been told by coach that they need to get some of that swagger or be more aggressive out there?

EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, do you want your kid to learn powerful life skills through this fantastic sport

of basketball?

✓ How to focus ✓ How to self motivate ✓ How to build confidence ✓ How to use courage and conquer nerves ✓ How to eliminate the fear of failure and rejec-tion ✓ How to have a resilient, never-give-up attitude for life

Basketball Mental Toughness training program

Your kid may or may not get a college scholarship or become pro, but they WILL LEARN something and create lifelong beliefs from their basketball/sports experiences. Good or bad.

Don’t take a chance on how their belief systems are being formed right now and make sure they learn mental toughness skills because they will need them for the rest of their life.

Mental Toughness = Focused, Confident, Determined, Resilient especially under pressure.

How much better would you play if you had that?

How would your life off the court improve?

Let’s do this,

Craig