There is an age-old battle between confidence and fear that goes on within each player. It doesn?t matter how old you are. It only takes a few swings or at-bats before the thought that you might be overmatched, or you have lost your touch begins to set-in and take control of your mind. Every player has gone through it, and every player never wants it to happen again. Worst of all, when you ask most players what is the cause of their baseball batting slump, and most will respond, ?I don?t know!?
Every player has heard the phrase, ?I can?t teach you to be confident, that is something that you are going to have to do on your own!? Up until a few years ago, I would have 100% agreed with them. However, after my recent studies in psychology, I was wrong! The act of being confident, much like training your physical mechanics and your muscles, has to be learned. Fortunately, we have the tools and understanding to accomplish that now! Among all of the batting techniques that are out there, there are to very powerful mental training exercises your player can use to overcome any of his baseball batting woes.
For starters, I want to let you know that it doesn?t matter what level of play your player may be at. Several prominent professional like Alex Rodriguez who has had abysmal performances in the playoffs up until late, or Tejada who threw his bats over the dugout a few years back suffer from these same issues . On the personal side of things, a minor leaguer who is loosing confidence after 9 very successful seasons in the pros recently contacted me. With that in mind, it?s safe to assume, that those who aren?t at the professional level, little leaguers, high school players, and college players are struggling with the same batting battle.
In short, slumps are a result of focus. Not a lack of focus, but the wrong type of focus. Unfortunately from a young age, baseball players are taught that a good performance is measured by their statistics. As a result, players will look at a 0 for 4 day with four hard line outs as a bad day because a .000 will show up on their stats sheet. Even though the name of the game is hit it where their not, I consider that an excellent day at the plate with nothing more you could of done. However, most players become disappointed after a day like that because they feel they have nothing to show for it. This is why so many players like to get a hit in their first at bat, it takes the pressure off and they can play more relaxed baseball!
If a player doesn?t get a hit in his first at-bat, the pressure begins to mount. Each successive at-bat piles on top of each other and before player?s have a chance to take a breath, each at-bat becomes the make or break moment of their career. Whether they begin swinging at every pitch they see, or take pitches right down the middle because they are afraid to get out, they enter a emotional state and loose their ability to make good decisions.
So how does one overcome this cycle of madness? Mental Training Exercise #1 of course; focus on the now and create positive proactive action steps to correct your mistakes. For example, instead of saying ?Don?t drop your back shoulder,? tell yourself to ?Drive the backside harder,? or ?Drive the hands down through the zone.? This is a very subtle difference in terminology that goes a long way and will keep you in the right state of mind. You see, the mind can only be in one of two states at a time, emotional or logical. An emotional state means poor decisions and a pure focus on the end result. Contrary, logical state leads to a clear perception of the all the angles to solve the problem, which means a better chance at finding a solution.
Simply telling yourself you are going to get a hit, or believing you are going to get a hit isn?t enough. You must be down to the T specific about how exactly you are going to get that hit. For example, do you need to ?Drive your backside down harder,? or ?Finish high towards the field of play you want to hit the baseball?? Pick out the positive specific actions that will give you best chance to succeed on your very next swing and say them to yourself.
This small, but powerful mindset shift will keep you constantly learning the past, but focused on how you are going to improve for the future. This leads me to our next topic, which is the power of proper goal setting. Most players make the mistake of creating goals that will take an entire season to either meet or not meet. This is crazy! Goals such as hitting over .300 with 10 home runs and 45 runs batted in are great, but they don?t give player?s any gauge of what they need to accomplish now to make that happen.
This brings me to baseball batting slump breaker number 2, live in the now with your goals! Every action should carry three very specific goals you want to accomplish. For instance, three goals I had for myself when I played were: drive you backside hard, drive you hands to the inside part of the baseball, and finish towards the field of play you want to hit the baseball. Some might even say these are three positive action steps I needed to accomplish every swing! I knew that if I accomplished these three goals every swing, then at the end of the year I would end up with the statistics I was aiming for in the first place. The bottom line is you will not be able reach any of your long term goals if you don?t accomplish the ones you have today!
If this sounds a little to easy, you would be right! For starters, if you are the best, you will only succeed three out of ten times at the plate. This means no matter how hard you try, you are going to face a negative response seven out of ten times. Just like any other baseball batting training, you need to be dedicated to your positive proactive approach! The key is to recognize when you begin to focus on the results that way you can take a step back and reprioritize moving forward. Performing in the ?now? and creating positive proactive action steps on every swing will break you of your batting slump woes and keep you consistent at the plate for the rest of your playing career!
Every player has heard the phrase, ?I can?t teach you to be confident, that is something that you are going to have to do on your own!? Up until a few years ago, I would have 100% agreed with them. However, after my recent studies in psychology, I was wrong! The act of being confident, much like training your physical mechanics and your muscles, has to be learned. Fortunately, we have the tools and understanding to accomplish that now! Among all of the batting techniques that are out there, there are to very powerful mental training exercises your player can use to overcome any of his baseball batting woes.
For starters, I want to let you know that it doesn?t matter what level of play your player may be at. Several prominent professional like Alex Rodriguez who has had abysmal performances in the playoffs up until late, or Tejada who threw his bats over the dugout a few years back suffer from these same issues . On the personal side of things, a minor leaguer who is loosing confidence after 9 very successful seasons in the pros recently contacted me. With that in mind, it?s safe to assume, that those who aren?t at the professional level, little leaguers, high school players, and college players are struggling with the same batting battle.
In short, slumps are a result of focus. Not a lack of focus, but the wrong type of focus. Unfortunately from a young age, baseball players are taught that a good performance is measured by their statistics. As a result, players will look at a 0 for 4 day with four hard line outs as a bad day because a .000 will show up on their stats sheet. Even though the name of the game is hit it where their not, I consider that an excellent day at the plate with nothing more you could of done. However, most players become disappointed after a day like that because they feel they have nothing to show for it. This is why so many players like to get a hit in their first at bat, it takes the pressure off and they can play more relaxed baseball!
If a player doesn?t get a hit in his first at-bat, the pressure begins to mount. Each successive at-bat piles on top of each other and before player?s have a chance to take a breath, each at-bat becomes the make or break moment of their career. Whether they begin swinging at every pitch they see, or take pitches right down the middle because they are afraid to get out, they enter a emotional state and loose their ability to make good decisions.
So how does one overcome this cycle of madness? Mental Training Exercise #1 of course; focus on the now and create positive proactive action steps to correct your mistakes. For example, instead of saying ?Don?t drop your back shoulder,? tell yourself to ?Drive the backside harder,? or ?Drive the hands down through the zone.? This is a very subtle difference in terminology that goes a long way and will keep you in the right state of mind. You see, the mind can only be in one of two states at a time, emotional or logical. An emotional state means poor decisions and a pure focus on the end result. Contrary, logical state leads to a clear perception of the all the angles to solve the problem, which means a better chance at finding a solution.
Simply telling yourself you are going to get a hit, or believing you are going to get a hit isn?t enough. You must be down to the T specific about how exactly you are going to get that hit. For example, do you need to ?Drive your backside down harder,? or ?Finish high towards the field of play you want to hit the baseball?? Pick out the positive specific actions that will give you best chance to succeed on your very next swing and say them to yourself.
This small, but powerful mindset shift will keep you constantly learning the past, but focused on how you are going to improve for the future. This leads me to our next topic, which is the power of proper goal setting. Most players make the mistake of creating goals that will take an entire season to either meet or not meet. This is crazy! Goals such as hitting over .300 with 10 home runs and 45 runs batted in are great, but they don?t give player?s any gauge of what they need to accomplish now to make that happen.
This brings me to baseball batting slump breaker number 2, live in the now with your goals! Every action should carry three very specific goals you want to accomplish. For instance, three goals I had for myself when I played were: drive you backside hard, drive you hands to the inside part of the baseball, and finish towards the field of play you want to hit the baseball. Some might even say these are three positive action steps I needed to accomplish every swing! I knew that if I accomplished these three goals every swing, then at the end of the year I would end up with the statistics I was aiming for in the first place. The bottom line is you will not be able reach any of your long term goals if you don?t accomplish the ones you have today!
If this sounds a little to easy, you would be right! For starters, if you are the best, you will only succeed three out of ten times at the plate. This means no matter how hard you try, you are going to face a negative response seven out of ten times. Just like any other baseball batting training, you need to be dedicated to your positive proactive approach! The key is to recognize when you begin to focus on the results that way you can take a step back and reprioritize moving forward. Performing in the ?now? and creating positive proactive action steps on every swing will break you of your batting slump woes and keep you consistent at the plate for the rest of your playing career!
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