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Life Lessons Learned From Playing Basketball

When I was growing up, basketball was a way of life for me. It was basically all I ever did and all that I ever thought about…

Now that I am a bit wiser, I’ve come to realize that I ingrained some very important lessons from the game of basketball. Lessons that I will have with me for the rest of my life.

Now, you don’t need to start playing basketball to learn these lessons. There are multiple ways that you can do so. The important thing is that you eventually do learn them.

Join me as I reflect on the great things that basketball has taught me. You will be amazed to see what a simple ball and a hoop can teach you about the game of life…

A Little Bit Goes A Long Way

The most important thing I learned from basketball is consistency. Doing a little bit every day to get better.

One of my favorite quotes during my playing days was, “What have you done today to make yourself a better player.” I took that quote to heart on a daily basis. Although I never knew exactly, I’m almost positive there was a one-year stretch where I shot a basketball every single day. 365 days in a row of shooting a basketball.

Now, did I play a full game every day? Of course not! Some days it was just me, the ball, and the hoop at my house for 15-20 minutes.

I wouldn’t say that I practiced really hard when I was on my own. But I sure was consistent! I wore out the scan-card at my local YMCA.

The same thing was true with weightlifting. My workout was only 30-50 minutes long. But every other day you would find me in the weight room. I wasn’t the strongest guy in school, but I wasn’t the weakest either! At the peak of my strength, I could bench press 55 pounds over my body weight (I was 170 pounds and I bench pressed 225).

I never had any dramatic increases in my strength. It was always just a few pounds of added strength every 2-3 weeks. But over time it really added up!

I take this quality with me in any big goal I want to accomplish. I know I probably can’t accomplish it today or even tomorrow. But if I spend a little bit every day inching closer and closer, eventually I will reach my goal. Speaking of which…

It Takes Goals And A Burning Desire To Achieve Them

When I was middle school and high school, I was constantly setting goals that I wanted to achieve.

I had goals for how many points I wanted to average. I had goals for how many games that I wanted our team to win. I even had certain goals to achieve when I was practicing by myself. For example, I couldn’t leave the gym until I made 9 out of 10 free throws. Unfortunately, this sometimes took a long time and I was late for dinner!

I didn’t realize until later how unique I was for setting them. I assumed that everybody had clear goals of things that they wanted to accomplish. As it turns out, this is far from the truth!

A majority of people in this world do not have any goals. Which is really sad in my opinion. I have to admit, the first few years after my playing days were through, I didn’t really have any goals either. I forgot to carry this lesson on with me towards the things in my life besides basketball.

Today, I have all kinds of goals in all different areas of my life. I strongly suggest that you start building a life list of goals for yourself if you haven’t yet. It could be one of the most important things you ever do!

Desire And Passion Make Things Fun

When I practiced on my own, basketball never felt like work. Sure, I would be out of breath and sweating as I was running from one side of the court to the other. But it never stopped me from wanting to practice. This is because I enjoyed what I was doing.

This is where I think so many people get into trouble in life. They force themselves into doing a job. Usually because of what they are getting paid.

Life is so much better when you are doing something that you love. I never thought of basketball as a job or something that I was forcing myself to do. I loved playing. So I just went out and did it!

Today, I don’t have to force myself to continue blogging or building websites. It’s simply what I enjoy doing. A day where I have plenty of time for writing is a pretty good day in my book.

In basketball, my biggest reward was when we won and I played well. In blogging, my biggest reward is when I get emails from people saying that I have touched their lives. It’s not hard to feel passionate about what you are doing when you have rewards like these.

Only Think About The Things You Can Control

This is one lesson that I am truly thankful that I learned. I know from life experiences with people that not everyone has learned this lesson.

I think I learned this lesson most after reading John Wooden’s book. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Especially if you in any way like the game of basketball.

Not worrying about things that are out of your control has been very valuable to me. In basketball, you don’t have any control over what the competition is doing. All you need to focus on is what you are doing. How can you make yourself better today?

Something similar goes on with blogging. I have no control over the people coming to the site or subscribing to my newsfeed. The only thing I can do is work hard making the site the best that I possibly can. If I spend all of my time focusing on that, the traffic and the subscriptions take care of themselves.

Daily Exercise Makes A Difference

It never occurred to me how healthy it was for me to play the game of basketball every day. I only played it for the pleasure that I got out of it. The health benefits of exercise were an added reward that I didn’t even think or care about.

Making daily exercise a habit is something that I realized was much more difficult once I stopped playing basketball. Before, exercise was automatically scheduled in my day because I would either have a game or practice. But after basketball, I realized that I had to work much harder to find ways of scheduling exercise in my day.

When things don’t become a habit, it doesn’t take long before you quit doing them. For example…

After basketball, I would tell myself that I was going to start jogging every day. So every day, I would wake up and say to myself, “Sometime today I need to go for a jog.” Well, as it turns out, I never made it a week or two before I found myself not jogging anymore.

Instead, I learned that I needed to give my habit a specified time frame. If I wanted to jog every day, I needed to say, “I’m going to jog every day the moment I wake up.” So, by giving myself a specified time, I ingrained the habit very quickly and made jogging a very consistent part of my day.

Exercising has all kinds of benefits that I never realized before. Increased energy, better mood, less fatigue, and a healthier lifestyle just to name a few. But I didn’t realize these things until after I stopped exercising!

Basketball was like an automated exercise machine for me. I didn’t mind exercising because it was fun for me.

Find a way that you can make exercise for you fun as well. Today, I wouldn’t consider myself the greatest fan of jogging. But if I’m listening to a great audio book during my jog, I get that much more pleasure out of it.

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