WIN OR LEARN
If failure is an opportunity to learn, then we’ve got to get busy failing!
The faster we fail, the faster we can learn from it, the faster we improve. But this takes guts! This takes a willingness to fail… to potentially look silly… and we have to help our athletes get past this! Life is way too short to care what other people think.
So, as parents and coaches, we’ve got to remove the fear of failure. Last week, we talked about Aggression… what a GREAT start. How else can we create an environment of growth?
1. Put on your lab coat! Find a lab coat and wear it to practice! Anything else that screams scientist, wear it (goggles, pocket microscope, mobile centrifuge!?!). And here’s why: Explain to your team, THIS is our lab. This is where we do experiments. And scientists never “fail” from an experiment. They learn!! So that’s how we’re going to play. No fear!
2. Learn to get hit. Bring some tennis balls and start pegging your players 🙂 Eliminate any fear of getting hit and pair that with the aggressive swings from last week! It’s beautiful to watch hitters move past their fears and start hammering baseballs.
Fear?!? Ha! It’s not going away, we’re just going to start using it… instead of it paralyzing us. Munch on it like an energy bar!!!
Play hard, have fun!
PARTNER OF THE WEEK – QUALITY AT BATS
Steve Springer’s purpose and passion is to get your athlete to play free, to play at his best. The best way to reset the success and failure game in baseball is to redefine what success is. Springer says “The batting average is the devil.” That’s a crazy thought Spring! Well, not if you understand his philosophy of the Quality At-Bat. Steve’s work is revolutionary in getting the right YOU to show up at the yard!
Visit the DC FORUMS to share best practices and Q&A.
- Where are you currently struggling at school?
- What skill is particularly challenging as a player right now?
- Name one way you’ve learned from “failing” in the past?
Do the thing that scares you the most! Fly balls? Start with wiffles and tackle 10 per day. Ground balls? Start with slow-rollers and get to work.
Channel your inner scientist and run the drill of the week: Scared of Getting Hit
