Try To Make it Home

Stay Close to the Misery…Your brain doesn’t move you towards pain, and yet the pain is one of your biggest and best motivators.

-H. Cloud

As parents, we watch our athletes play with magnified pride and joy, regardless of whether they’re having a great game or not. Even when a ball game doesn’t go as planned, we, as adults, know that it’s not the end of their story. We continue to believe in them. However, there’s that moment when they quietly remove their helmets and sit in the dugout after their third strikeout. You see the disappointment on their face, and you wonder what’s going through their mind. You want nothing more than to take away that feeling of misery from them.

As a teenager, although, it wasn’t baseball, I faced numerous challenges in my passions, and I can imagine that our parents felt like we do with our players when things aren’t going their way. However, I can honestly say that during those hard painful moments, I realized that one of my best friends was pain, and that was going to be my ally for change. I wanted to succeed so badly but realized it was a dream that was not going to happen unless I created a structure for it. If I wanted to reach my goals, I was definitely going to need to change my mentality and my whereabouts.

A young baseball player is struggling with understanding the pain of feeling inadequate after underperforming at a tournament, despite the intense training he invested the week before. And that is what we need to teach our players that this discomfort, is not an enemy but a guiding signal to the right path. It highlights areas that need attention. But how is it that pain could be your players best friend?

Well let’s consider how frequently our players encounter motivational posts from athletes and coaches on social media, offering valuable advice. How often do parents share these posts with their children, hoping to inspire a change in mindset or boost their performance? (Guilty! 🙋‍♀️)

Our part is going to play a very critical role for them now to learn what we probably learned to late. And that is to accept and embrace the pain because it just means he’s not there yet. And as much as it hurts to tell my player I’m okay with you failing because it humbles you and makes you realize that you are not “him” yet, my advice is giving him structure which consists of time, plans, critical crossroads, milestones, deadlines, consequences and other elements. This structure list must be engrained in their brains that it’s the only way to success.

We all are aware of our athletes’ actions and the effort they put in. What do I tell my player when he comes home and says he had a great development practice and he bombed every pitch? Honestly, I have told him that if you don’t experience failures during practice, it means you’re not practicing hard enough. You’re not setting the high standards that await you in a real game. Development practices should have our players mad and sweaty not comfortable.

To hear good advice is easy, but the painful part is implementing it.  It’s the part when most of us stop being interested in the good advice. It’s the part where we decide to get away from the misery that we feel, especially the young athletes in an underperforming game because he doesn’t t know what to do with that miserable feeling. They need to understand that for a long term success, pain is what sheds light on the path to improvement. It compels us to reflect, adapt, and evolve—transforming their setbacks into stepping stones for their future.

Let’s help them change their minds and tell them that its okay for their batting postition, average, or stance to change while trying to figure out their misery. But the one and only thing that should NEVER change is their character. Teach them that even if they are 0-11 keep encouraging your teammates, keep fist bumping the ump and catcher and give a smile to the guy on first base and try to make it home.

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