Basketball athletes…Professional and amateur…I’m going to give you the cheat code to get whatever you want out of the game of basketball and life.
First things first…
The Spirit Feels
The Heart Love
The Mind Thinks and…
The body performs.
Think about what you want out of the game of basketball or out of life.
Think hard and don’t limit your imagination.
Everyone talks about how powerful the mind is in the process of creating our ideal reality. They are right, but only partially. The mind initiates the process by creating the idea, but the spirit is solely responsible for creating and initiating the transformation.
The spirit is the most powerful element on the face of the earth and in the universe. What gets done in this life is predicated on what we feel like doing. If we don’t feel like doing it, it will not get done….the key word is “feel”. Your spirit, emotions, and feelings are all the same thing. Everything that we have ever done or not done was based on the strength of the emotional connection to our idea.
Some endeavors excite us and provide the motivation to initiate and complete the process with great zeal and execution. Those moments are easy to get up for. But what about the endeavors we feel will be incredibly challenging?… Can you replace your negative emotion with a productive emotion that will inspire fearlessness and enthusiasm toward the rigorous endeavor? The spiritually tough can replace negative emotions with productive emotions on the command which allows them to feel like doing things they don’t feel like doing or…allows them to develop strong emotional connections to endeavors that are tough but critically important.
When our emotional connections are strong toward our ideas and endeavors, they unlock our ability to love. Love is endurance. Love has nothing to do with who or what we are attracted to, but everything to do with what we can endure.
Worthwhile endeavors often require resiliency. If the heart isn’t fully invested, quitting will be inevitable. Falling in love with something or someone means we are willing to endure all the difficult things the endeavor has to offer. No love No endurance.
When the spirit and heart are engaged, it unlocks the mind’s ability to think through challenging times. A tough spirit and a strong heart are what create mental toughness. Mental Toughness is a personality trait that determines your ability to perform consistently under stress and pressure and is closely related to qualities such as character, resilience, grit, and perseverance. Mental toughness not only unlocks persistence and focus, but it also unlocks our ability to think creatively through complex situations.
You can not be mentally tough unless you are spiritually tough. No one finishes a marathon feeling like a loser. Think about it…We can’t think toughness and feel weakness at the same time. Our spirit, heart, and mind have to operate in sync and on the same frequency to convert our ideas into reality.
Those that execute and finish what they started to do because of what they feel, are willing to endure and are willing to think through…no matter how tough the tough times get. Many people tell us to ignore our emotions or get out of our emotions…Terrible advice. We have to acknowledge and accept our emotions with the intent of engaging our heart, mind, and physical body.
No one has ever achieved greatness without having a strong emotional connection to the grind. The grind requires positive emotion, love and mindfulness, and extended physical effort.
Let’s wrap this up.
To get what you want in this life…on the court or off the court…you have to be fully invested…spiritually – lovingly & mentally. If fully invested, the body will follow and perform with incredible endurance. People would like you to believe if all you do is think and imagine really hard about what you want you will attract it…false. It takes a full person effort, fully engaged and in sync to attract and achieve what the mind dreams up. This process of transformation is complex and heavily nuanced…but hopefully this brief holistic description makes enough sense to get you started until we connect again.