Howdy Wildcat fans!
One thing that I have learned the hard way at the college level when playing the game of softball is having to deal with failure. I know everyone has heard that softball is a game of failure, and truly it is. Let me put this into perspective.
One of my teammate’s mothers was helping me overcome my failure back in the day and she gave me this perspective. In softball and baseball, we consider batting around .300 to be successful right? That means in every 10 at bats, we are getting around three hits. That’s pretty good! Now do you think that if you averaged 30% on each test you took in a class you would expect to pass the class? Absolutely not!
We play a game of failure! As a player of this kind of sport, it is so important to mentally be prepared to overcome failure. This sport will eat you alive if you dwell in your failure. When I face moments of failure, I dwell on it for a moment or two thinking of the ways I can adjust to find success. After that time goes by, I do not allow myself to think about it anymore because overall, I will get another chance, another pitch, another at bat, and another opportunity to find success. This goes for all my hitters and all my pitchers out there!
It is so hard to have success when we dwell on our failure. I had another mentor of mine, Psych Mike, our sports psychologist at the time, give me the perspective of this idea as well. He stated, “If I have a red shirt on and I tell you to not think of my red shirt and carry on with the next task that needs your complete attention and focus, are you still thinking about my red shirt in the moment? Yes, cause you are trying not to think about the red shirt!” This learning scenario gave me a lot of perspective and the way I used to handle failure and how I deal with it now. When we dwell and we think about NOT FAILING, we are so worried about not failing that we are missing out on being completely focused and in the present in moments that need our full attention in order to find success.
So take it from me, someone who cares so much about my own performance and wanting to be successful in every moment for my team that at times, failure is going to happen, but you are only as good as how you are able to recover from that failure to still find success at the end of the day! Let me say this… YOU ARE GOING TO FAIL… it is a part of the game! But overall, dwelling in your failure is a lot different from learning from your failure. When we start learning from our failures, that is when we are able to make adjustments and find success!
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