Stephen Curry is the greatest three-point-shooter in the history of the NBA. His efficiency and ability to shoot from all over the court is a wonder to watch. He has perfect shooting mechanics because years of hard work have given him the ability to hit nearly 44% of his three-point shot attempts. In just ten-years he’s become the most prolific three-point shooter in league history.

Curry’s consistency is based on thousands of hours of practice and the confidence and ability to rise to the occasion in tense situations. Those thousands of hours of practice have honed his muscle memory to always get to the perfect shooting position and release, no matter how much pressure the defense is putting on him. From a technical standpoint, muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition and in Curry’s case, thousands of hours of repetition.

Of course Curry’s incredible shooting skills are not just physical, the mind plays a massive role in his success. Great athletes have bad games, Curry included. The key is how quickly they can forget the bad game or situation where they didn’t perform in the clutch and move on to the next possession. There are many incredible athletes that never made it to the NBA not because of their lack of physical abilities, but because of their lack of ability to handle the mental side of the game.

Although the overwhelming majority of us will never know the feeling of stepping onto an NBA court and launching a three-point shot with Patrick Beverley in our face, we still can understand how a lack of proper mindset can derail the moment and derail our day. Although the brain is an organ and not actually a muscle, the brain is often described as a muscle due to how it can be trained to constantly improve performance and cognitive ability.

Even the NBA greats have bad moments. What sets them apart is their ability to not let those bad moments multiply and fester in their head, creating a bad series of moments.

We’ve all been there. We enter the day with the best intentions and then something doesn’t go our way.

Mindset is critical. We have to understand how to free ourselves from constricting mindsets. That’s why professional athletes invest so much in sports science. They realize that there will always be situations where they are not feeling their best or performing at their best. They invest in optimizing the mental game.

Here’s a personal example of how your mental state can derail your mood and performance. A month ago I had a clumsy fall and suffered an injury. The resulting pain, discomfort and multiple urgent care/ER visits sent me into a tailspin. While I was still able to work I wasn’t able to exercise and the constant discomfort interrupted my sleeping patterns, which interrupted my schedule and my productivity. I wasn’t a pleasant person to be around.

I let one bad moment ruin multiple weeks. Sure, it hurt like hell to the point I had trouble sleeping and driving, but I let the pain and discomfort impact my broader being. The man who studies and writes on a regular basis about Stoic philosophy was acting very un-Marcus Aurelius-like.

The unexpected happens. We’ve all had days where we had to deal with unforeseen adversity. The key is how we adapt to that stress. It starts with mindset.

Ellen Langer has written extensively on mindset, specifically in her book, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.

From the book:

“Mindful health is not about how we should eat right, exercise, or follow medical recommendations, nor is it about abandoning these things. It is not about New Age medicine nor traditional understanding of illness. It is about the need to free ourselves from constricting mindsets and the limits they place on our health and well-being, and to appreciate the importance of becoming the guardians of our own health. Learning how to change requires understanding how we go astray.”

Langer’s focus during her illustrious career is on the “psychology of possibility”, with an emphasis on how our mindset can limit who we become. Her most famous study is the well-known Counterclockwise Study, which is a fascinating look on how mindset can limit our capabilities.

Back in 1979 Langer outfitted an old monastery like it was 1959 and invited a group of men in their 70’s and 80’s on a retreat. The two groups were divided into an experimental group and a control group with the control group being asked to reminisce about their lives back in 1959 and the experimental group asked to act like it was 1959. In just one week the experimental group showed incredible improvement in joint flexibility, finger length (their arthritis literally diminished), and manual dexterity. Additionally, over sixty percent of the experimental group improved their scores on intelligence tests. The process of acting like they were twenty-years younger literally made them feel younger and more capable. It was in incredible example of the impact of mindset.

From Langer:

“When the experimental group participants were brought together for trip orientation, we introduced the present-tense nature of their experience; we stressed that the best way to approach the study might not be through reminiscence. Rather, they should return as completely as possible in their minds to the earlier time. I remember the excitement of saying, ‘Therefore, we’re going to a very beautiful retreat and we will live as if its 1959…We told them that all of their interactions and conversations would reflect the ‘fact’ that it was 1959.’”

The Counterclockwise Study reiterates how powerful the human mind can be, both positively and negatively. It’s amazing how quickly negative thoughts can seep into our minds and completely derail our day. We all know people who constantly react to everything in a negative fashion, whether it be the weather, the latest politician that they don’t agree with, or even the driver who “has no idea what they’re doing.” Constant negative thoughts can create negative muscle memory.

Don’t let a bad moment or a bad minute create a bad day. Don’t let a single bad day create a bad week. During my recent accident I was guilty of letting that happen. My sour mood and how I dealt with the injury impacted how I engaged the world around me. In the span of a day I went from a positive to a negative outlook that took me three weeks to snap out of.

Naturally, Marcus Aurelius said something wise about the subject over two-thousand years ago:

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in though, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.”

Reality is what we construct. Everyone deals with potential negative situations. It’s how you react to that situation that determines your reality.

There’s a reason people who have to sit at office chairs day after day have taken to using standing desks. If you sit for most of the day, day after day, you may eventually suffer adverse health effects related to posture, high blood pressure etc. The mind is no different. If you constantly react negatively to how you encounter life and you let that negative headspace continue, your mind will eventually develop a pre-disposition to look at life in a negative fashion.

So what is the answer? Just like the person that uses the standing desk and gets up to exercise during the day, you have to be mindful when negative thoughts start to creep in. Deal with the situation and move on, don’t let one bad thing derail your day.

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