By Jay – High School Sophomore
I need to be honest with you from the start—when my dad first gave me the Legacy Basketball Journal, I looked at him like he didn’t understand me at all. A journal? For basketball? That’s not what basketball players do. That’s what people who struggle mentally do. That’s therapy bull-shit, and I didn’t need therapy.
I’m a basketball player. I work on my game every single day. I’m in the gym six days a week—working on my pull-up jumper, my ball-handling, my explosiveness. I watch film. I study the game. Why would I need to sit down and write about my feelings in a notebook?
But here’s the truth I didn’t want to admit: I was drowning. I was sacred. I felt alone.
The Weight I Was Carrying
Everyone sees the highlight reel version of my life. They see the 20 points I scored in last week’s game. They see the crossover that made it onto social media. They see me walking through school with confidence.
What they don’t see is me lying awake at 2 AM the night before games, my stomach twisted in knots, my mind racing through every possible way I could mess up. They don’t see me in the bathroom before tip-off, hands shaking, trying to slow my breathing down. They don’t see the voice in my head that won’t shut up: What if you miss? What if you turn it over? What if everyone realizes you’re not as good as they think you are?
They don’t see after practice, staring at my phone, waiting for a text from a college coach that never comes. They don’t see me scrolling through Instagram, watching other players my age getting offers, wondering what they have that I don’t. They don’t see the panic that sets in when I think about my future—because basketball isn’t just something I do. It’s everything. It’s my identity. It’s my only plan. It has to work. And that pressure—knowing that everything depends on this—it’s suffocating.
The Questions That Kept Me Up at Night
Do I really belong here?
That’s the question that haunted me the most. I’d look around at my teammates, at the guys I’m competing against, at the players getting the glaze and I’d wonder if I was fooling everyone.
Can I actually make it?
I’d watch guys on social media who already had D1 offers, who were playing at elite camps. And I’d think: maybe I’m just not good enough. Maybe I’ve reached my ceiling. Maybe all this work, all this sacrifice, all this pressure—maybe it’s for nothing.
Am I good enough?
Some days I’d have a great practice and feel like I could play anywhere. Other days I’d miss a few shots in a row and feel like a fraud. Like I didn’t deserve to be on the court. Like everyone was watching me fail and judging me for it.
The worst part? I started playing scared.
I was so afraid of making mistakes that I stopped playing my game. I’d pass up open shots because I was scared of missing. I didn’t want to let down my coach, my team or my family. I’d hesitate on drives because I was scared of turning it over. I’d play passive defense because I was scared of getting scored on. Every mistake felt like evidence that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was letting everyone down.
And when you play scared, you play small. You become invisible. You stop being the player you know you can be.
When Everything Started Falling Apart
Then my coach started cutting my minutes.
I went from starting to coming off the bench. From playing 28 minutes a game to playing 15. And every second I sat on that bench, watching someone else play my position, I felt like I was disappearing. Like I was losing my chance. Like everything I’d worked for was slipping away.
My coach would say things like, “You need to be more aggressive,” or “You’re playing tentative out there.” And I wanted to scream: I KNOW. I know I’m playing scared. I know I’m in my head. But I don’t know how to stop.
Because here’s what nobody tells you: when you’re drowning in anxiety and self-doubt, people telling you to “just be confident” doesn’t help. It’s like telling someone who can’t swim to “just swim.” If I knew how to turn it off, I would.
The anxiety was bleeding into everything. I’d snap at my teammates for no reason. I’d skip team dinners because I couldn’t handle being around people. I’d sit in the back of the bus with my hoodie up and my headphones in, isolating myself because I felt like everyone could see through me. Like they all knew I was a fraud.
My grades started slipping because I couldn’t focus in class. All I could think about was basketball—but not in a productive way. Not in a way that made me better. I was just spiraling. Obsessing. Worrying. Playing out worst-case scenarios in my head over and over.
What if I don’t get recruited? What if I waste my senior year on the bench? What if basketball doesn’t work out and I have nothing? What am I supposed to do with my life?
I was exhausted all the time—not from practicing, but from the mental weight I was carrying every single day. From pretending to be confident when I felt like I was falling apart. From acting like everything was fine when I was drowning.
The Shame of Struggling
And the worst part? I couldn’t tell anyone.
I couldn’t tell my teammates because I didn’t want them to think I was weak. I couldn’t tell my coach because I was already losing minutes—what if he thought I couldn’t handle the mental part of the game? I couldn’t tell my parents because they were already stressed about money and my future, and I didn’t want to add to that burden.
I couldn’t even admit it to myself for the longest time. Because in basketball culture, mental struggle is seen as weakness. You’re supposed to be tough. You’re supposed to just push through. You’re supposed to be built different.
But I wasn’t built different. I was just a kid carrying weight I didn’t know how to handle.
I felt like an imposter. Like everyone thought I was this confident, talented player, but inside I was falling apart. Like I was one bad game away from everyone realizing I didn’t belong.
And the scariest part? I was starting to believe it myself. Starting to believe that maybe I wasn’t good enough. That maybe all the doubt and fear I was feeling was actually the truth—that I was just fooling myself thinking I could make it.
When My Dad Gave Me the Journal
So when my dad handed me the Legacy Basketball Journal, something inside me felt… exposed. Like he could see that I was struggling. Like he thought I was weak. Like he was trying to fix me because I was broken. He didn’t believe in me.
I didn’t want to be the kid who needed mental help. I didn’t want to be the player who couldn’t handle pressure. In basketball, we’re taught that mental weakness is the worst kind of weakness. You’re supposed to be tough. You’re supposed to just figure it out.
Needing help with the mental side of the game felt like admitting I wasn’t built for this level. It felt like admitting I was soft. It felt like admitting that maybe I really didn’t belong.
So I took the journal, but I hid it. I didn’t tell my teammates. I didn’t tell my friends. I would wait until everyone in my house was asleep, then I’d pull it out and write in it with my door closed, feeling embarrassed the entire time. Like I was doing something shameful just by trying to work on my mental game, clear my head.
I was terrified someone would find it. Terrified they’d read it and see all the fear and anxiety and doubt and panic that I was dealing with. Terrified they’d think less of me. Terrified I’d lose the respect I’d worked so hard to earn.
But the thing is—I was already losing myself. The anxiety was eating me alive. The pressure was suffocating me. The self-doubt was destroying my confidence. I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize: angry, withdrawn, scared, not enjoying the game I used to love.
I couldn’t keep going like that. Something had to change.
So I started writing. And for the first time in months, I let myself be honest about what I was really feeling.
The First 30 Days: How Everything Changed
The first entry I wrote was brutal. I didn’t hold anything back. I wrote about how scared I was. How I felt like a fraud. How I was terrified of failing. How I didn’t know if I was good enough. How I was drowning and didn’t know how to ask for help.
And you know what? Just writing it down—just getting it out of my head and onto paper—it helped. Not in some magical way where all my problems disappeared. But it helped me see what I was dealing with clearly for the first time.
The journal has these prompts that force you to be specific. It’s not just “how do you feel?” It’s things like:
- What specific thoughts are creating anxiety before games?
- When do you feel most confident on the court?
- What are you afraid will happen if you make a mistake?
- What evidence do you have that contradicts your negative thoughts?
That last one hit me hard. Because when I actually wrote down the evidence, I realized something: I wasn’t a fraud. I had skills. I had put in the work. I had had success. The voice in my head telling me I didn’t belong wasn’t based on reality—it was based on fear.
There’s a section where you rate your confidence before and after games on a scale of 1-10. Just tracking that made me realize I was going into games at like a 4 or 5—already halfway defeated before tip-off. How was I supposed to dominate when I was already scared to fail?
The journal taught me visualization exercises. Real ones, not just “picture yourself winning.” It walked me through how to visualize specific situations: hitting a shot after missing three in a row. Making the right play under pressure. Recovering after a mistake. Staying confident even when things aren’t going well.
And here’s what’s crazy—it worked. When those situations happened in real games, my body knew what to do because my mind had already been there. I’d already seen myself succeed in that moment.
But the biggest change came from tracking my mental patterns. I started noticing:
- I played worse when I hadn’t slept well or when I skipped breakfast because I was too anxious to eat
- I played scared when I was worried about what college coaches thought, but played free when I just focused on helping my team win
- I was more confident when I had a pre-game routine I stuck to
- My best games came when I wrote down three specific things I wanted to focus on, instead of trying to be perfect at everything
After about two weeks, something shifted. I went into a game against one of the top teams in our conference, and for the first time in months, I felt… ready. Not perfect. Not anxiety-free. But ready.
I scored 19 points. I made the right plays. I played aggressive defense. And when I made a mistake, I didn’t spiral—I just moved on to the next play.
After the game, my coach pulled me aside. “Whatever you’re doing differently, keep doing it. You look like yourself again out there.”
I didn’t tell him about the journal. But he was right—I felt like myself again.
By day 30, my minutes were back up. My confidence was coming back. I wasn’t playing scared anymore. I still felt pressure, still felt anxiety sometimes—but I wasn’t drowning in it. I had tools to manage it. I had a process.
And most importantly, I remembered why I fell in love with this game in the first place.
The Real Impact: Beyond the Court
Here’s what nobody tells you about working on your mental game—it helps everything, not just basketball.
I was carrying stress from basketball into school. I’d be so anxious about my next game that I couldn’t focus in class. My grades were slipping because mentally, I was always somewhere else. Then I’d stress about my grades, which made me stress more about basketball, and it was just this vicious cycle.
The journal helped me separate things. It gave me a space to process basketball stuff so it wasn’t bleeding into everything else. When I’m at school now, I can actually focus on school. When I’m at home, I can be present with my family instead of being on my phone, obsessing over highlights and recruiting updates.
My relationship with my parents is completely different now. I used to shut them out completely because I felt like they didn’t understand the pressure. But when I started journaling about it, I realized they were just trying to help—they just didn’t know how. Now I can actually talk to them about what I’m going through instead of bottling it all up until I explode.
My little sister even said to me the other day, “You’re not scary anymore.” That hit me hard. I didn’t even realize how much my stress and anger was affecting her. How much negative energy I was bringing into our home.
And with my teammates? I’m a better leader now. Not because I’m scoring more or playing more minutes, but because I’m not isolating myself anymore. I’m not snapping at people. I can actually be there for them when they’re struggling because I know what that feels like.
The Truth About Mental Training
Here’s what I learned: working on your mental game is just as important as getting up shots. Period.
You can have the sweetest jumper in the gym. You can have the quickest first step. You can have the highest vertical. But if your mind isn’t right, none of that matters.
If you’re playing scared, if you’re in your head, if you’re letting pressure and anxiety and self-doubt crush you—you’re not reaching your potential. You’re not even close.
And the crazy part is, everybody already knows this. We all know that the mental side of basketball is huge. We watch NBA players talk about sports psychologists and meditation and mental training. We see documentaries about Kobe’s mental approach, about MJ’s mindset. We know that what separates the great ones from everyone else is what’s between their ears.
But for some reason, when it comes to us actually doing that same work? We think it’s soft. We think it’s embarrassing. We think we’re supposed to just tough it out on our own.
That’s the dumbest thing ever.
You know what’s actually soft? Not working on your weaknesses. Pretending you don’t struggle with pressure, anxiety, and self-doubt when you do. Letting your mental game hold you back from being great because you’re too proud or too embarrassed to admit you need help.
The pressure is real. The stress is real. The anxiety is real. The self-doubt is real. The fear of not being good enough is real.
And you don’t have to go through it alone.
Why Legacy Helps
The Legacy Basketball Journal isn’t some magic cure that’s going to turn you into an All-American overnight. It’s not going to fix a broken jumper or make you taller or faster.
What it does is give you a framework to work on the mental side of your game the same way you work on everything else—with structure, consistency, and intention.
It has daily prompts that force you to be honest about your struggles. It has goal-setting exercises that help you focus on what actually matters instead of spiraling about everything. It has confidence-tracking tools that help you understand your mental patterns—what builds you up, what tears you down. It has visualization guides that train your mind to see success before it happens.
Most importantly, it gives you a private, safe space to be completely honest with yourself about your fears, your doubts, your struggles—and then actually work through them. Not ignore them. Not pretend they don’t exist. Not just “be mentally tough.” Actually process them and develop real strategies to handle them.
Because here’s the thing: every great player deals with pressure. Every great player feels anxiety. Every great player has moments where they doubt themselves, where they wonder if they’re good enough, where they’re afraid to fail.
The difference is, they’ve learned how to manage those feelings instead of letting those feelings manage them.
That’s what Legacy helped me learn. And that’s what it can help you learn too.
To Any Player Reading This Who’s Struggling
If you’re dealing with the same stuff I was/am—if you’re drowning in anxiety before games, if you’re paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, if you’re wondering if you really belong, if you’re playing scared, if you feel like an imposter, if you’re lying awake at night terrified about your future, if you feel like you’re falling apart and can’t tell anyone—
You are not alone. And you are not weak for feeling that way.
Every single player who’s ever been serious about their game has felt it. The pressure. The doubt. The fear. The anxiety. The weight of knowing that everything is riding on this.
The difference between the ones who make it and the ones who don’t isn’t talent. It’s not even work ethic. It’s learning how to manage your mind. It’s building mental toughness—and real mental toughness isn’t about ignoring your emotions or pretending you don’t struggle. It’s about understanding your emotions, managing them, and using them to fuel your growth instead of letting them destroy you.
I’m not embarrassed about using Legacy anymore. Actually, I’m proud of it. It shows I’m serious about every aspect of my game. It shows I’m willing to do the hard work that other players won’t do—the internal work that nobody sees but that makes all the difference.
And honestly? The players who would clown you for working on your mental game are usually the same ones who choke in big moments, who let pressure destroy them, who never reach their potential because they’re too proud to admit they need help.
Don’t be that player.
The game is mental just as much as it’s physical. Actually, at the highest levels, it’s MORE mental than physical. The sooner you accept that and start training both sides of your game with the same intensity, the sooner you’ll unlock the player you’re actually capable of being.
Legacy helped me do that. It gave me my confidence back. It gave me tools to manage the pressure. It helped me stop drowning and start swimming.
It can do the same for you.
And yeah, I still keep it private. But not because I’m embarrassed anymore. Because it’s mine. It’s my space. It’s where I do the internal work that makes the external results possible. It’s where I’m honest about my struggles so I can overcome them.
If you’re serious about your game, you owe it to yourself to be serious about every part of it—including your mind.
That’s what separates the ones who make it from the ones who don’t.
The Legacy Basketball Journal is available at hoopwrld.com/legacy. Real hoopers train their mind like they train their body.
