Parents: Are You Helping or Hurting?

Probably the most difficult part of what I do is to try and take an athlete and get them to break through the mental barriers that are preventing them from experience the success that they desire to have. In most cases what makes this task exponentially more difficult is when I have to battle the parents in order to get through to the athlete. I have to say that it’s a battle that I have never won. But yet I see this take place on almost a daily basis. A parent brings their athlete to me, desperate to get help for the athlete. They are usually at a loss and don’t understand why the athlete isn’t succeeding. Many times I will get comments like, “I have been trying to get him to understand but he just doesn’t” or “I don’t understand why he can’t just go out there and relax and have fun!” Parents look to the athlete never seeing the connection that the problem, the thing that is limiting their athlete is the parent them-self. As a third party I have the ability to stand back and observe what is going on. I can see the dynamic between the athlete and their parent and almost instantly I am able to recognize where it is that the athlete’s limiting behaviors originated. Unfortunately, rarely (if ever) is a parent willing to look inside themselves and recognize that they might be the problem. For the athlete’s entire life the parents have been instructing and molding their child to become the person they want them to become. Parents understand that they have flaws but instead of facing them themselves it is much easier to just tell your child how to be without ever changing aspects of their own life.

As such I get parents who are frustrated that their athlete won’t pick up on things that they are telling them. They just won’t learn and as a result both the athlete and the parent are unhappy and upset. A wise man once told me that, “What we dislike in others are the qualities we dislike in ourselves.” At first I didn’t understand what he was saying but if we are truly honest with ourselves we will begin to realize that this statement is entirely true. Again I see this everyday with the parents and the athletes I work with. The very qualities that the parents bring their athletes to me to fix are the same qualities that the parents themselves exhibit. It’s a battle that I can’t win, if I have the athlete for 30 minutes a week and the parents are with them the rest of the time how can I possibly win? How can that athlete ever change?

I can hear all you parents getting upset now. It’s not fun to look ourselves in the mirror but if you truly want what’s best for your athlete then it’s something you are just going to have to do. Consider for a moment that “Do as I say, Not as I do” just doesn’t work. Imagine that your athlete has been watching you everyday since the day they were born and everyday they were learning from you. Your fears, anxieties, worries, frustrations, and actions all were learned by watching you. Now that they are in their later years, now that they are getting older don’t fool yourself by thinking that they aren’t still watching. They watch your every move and you can talk to them until you’re are blue in the face but that won’t change the years of conditioning they have developed by watching. I mean think about it! How can they remove fear of failing if you are afraid they will fail? How can they put an at-bat behind them and focus on the next one if you are stuck on the previous at-bat or at-bats? How can they relax and play if every time they look up in the stands you are a nervous wreck?

Now I know that parents do what they do out of love. They love their athletes and want the best for them. They want them to experience the joys of playing at a high level and want them to be the best. All of this is fine and good but there is a line that parents must be careful not to cross. Parents cross it all the time without realizing it and it happens to be the most detrimental thing that could happen in an athlete’s career. Parents must be careful that what they want for their athletes isn’t what they want for themselves. Too many times parents allow the accomplishments of their athletes to impact their ego. They can walk around and say, “My kid plays at this college” or “My kid was drafted in this round” all the while never realizing that the kid is the one who has suffered. In the grand scheme of things what does it all mean? So what if your athlete plays at Cal State Fullerton. So what if he plays a Nowhere School University. As long as the athlete is happy and enjoys his experience playing isn’t that all that matters? Oh sure parents might not get to puff their chest out and say, “My kid is the best!” But so what! Whatever the athlete’s accomplishments, however far along the ladder they may climb in the baseball world, none of it, absolutely none of it is worth the parent’s relationship with their athlete. Unfortunately many times that is exactly what the parent trades.

Even if you are a great parent, even if you do everything perfect as a parent the one thing you don’t understand is how to develop an athlete. You may even be extremely knowledgeable in the sport of baseball but being knowledgeable and developing an athlete are two very different things. Besides your athlete doesn’t want to be developed by you. He doesn’t want to go home and hear about what he didn’t do or what he could do better. All they want is for their parents to be proud of them. 4 for 4 or 0 for 4 that’s all they want. They don’t want to breakdown their at-bats with you. They don’t want to be reminded that what they just did wasn’t good enough. They just want your love and support. They want you to be their biggest fan. Believe it or not they do look up into the stands, they see your response to at-bats, they know how you are feeling, and it matters to them. It’s hard enough to get a hit off a pitcher with the game on the line let alone without the pressure of trying to get your parents approval. Don’t add to the difficulty of getting hits by adding any type of pressure on your athlete.

So what can you do? How can you help your athlete reach the levels of performance both you and he want to reach? Look in the mirror! Work on yourself first before you ever attempt to work on your athlete. Become aware of the words you are saying, the body language you are giving, your actions at and during games, your energy on the way home. Don’t allow yourself to get lost in the heat of the moment. Understand that everything you do is going to impact your athlete and their performance either positively or negatively. Before you say something, before you act a certain way, ask yourself, “Does this help him or hurt him?” You may want to say something or act a certain way because you’re pissed off but be the adult, get control of yourself knowing that even though you may not say something verbally you may be saying it non-verbally. Trust me, your athlete will pick up on this, it will effect their performance. If you want to help, if you really want to help then start with yourself. Talk to your athlete. Ask him how you can help him get to where HE wants to go. Listen to what your athlete says, really listen. In this case they just might know more than you.

A Recent Hitting Session

Yesterday I had an experience that further discredited the “natural talent” theory. I was working with an athlete who has recently committed himself to his development. This particular athlete has made huge gains in performance but has a tendency to compare himself to a teammate that is much further along in his development. Since I work with both athletes I have the ability to see just how much further along one is over the other but like I tell them one guy has been working with me for 3 years while the other one for just under a year.

Anyway, this particular athlete has had some difficulty taking the next step in his development. He has reached a point where many would have considered him to have reached his “genetic potential” or as some would say “he has gotten the most out of what he was given.” And it is true that if you were to watch both athletes you might make the mistake of saying that the one who is further along in his development is more “naturally gifted” but to make this mistake (like most people in baseball do) would be detrimental to the development of the athlete. As most of you know I don’t buy into this theory and refuse to believe that we are limited in anyway. As such I have continued to search for ways to get this particular athlete to perform to the level that he wants to perform at. As the lessons have progressed he has made gradual improvements but not the type of improvement that I had been hoping for. That is until yesterday.

Yesterday I had the privilege of witnessing this athlete take his game to levels higher then he had every been. What changed? One statement. That’s right one statement by me, one comment that I had never really said before allowed him to see and feel what I have been trying to get across to him for months now. All of a sudden he was able to perform a skill that many would have given up on long ago and just chalked it up to the fact that “he just can’t do it.” In fact he was able to perform as well as the athlete he has been looking up to for the past year. Proving once again that “natural talent” doesn’t exist. I was shown again that the athletes ability or inability to perform a particular skill doesn’t reside in his genetics but rather in how he is able to process that skill mentally. So what does that mean? Very simply, that if you are coaching an athlete that “just can’t do it” or if you are an athlete you feels like you are having a hard time perfecting a particular skill it’s not because you can’t it’s just because you haven’t found the way yet.

Athletes, keep plugging away. Don’t give up just because someone has told you that you aren’t talented enough sooner or later someone will say something, you will see something, or something will happen that will allow you to process what you need to do mentally. Once that happens the execution of that skill will be easy. Coaches, don’t give up on your athletes. Don’t assume that because they can’t perform a particular skill that they are limited or that they are not talented. Maybe the problem is you just haven’t found the way to properly communicate it to them. Keep moving forward, you never know when you will say something that will click in the mind of your athlete.

My athlete walked in one way and one comment later he is completely different. Imagine how many athletes could have “gotten it” if they would have just kept going. Imagine how different the game might be if we eliminate the idea of talent and focus our efforts on development. Imagine what could be accomplished if we just remain patient enough to allow the ideas and skills to click.

Introducing Intention

In a quote by Deepak Chopra he states, “It is human nature to make our dreams manifest into physical form, easily and effortlessly.” The same could be said for playing baseball. When done correctly (both physically and mentally) playing the game becomes easy and effortless. We hit balls farther then we ever have even though it feels as though we barely swung. As pitchers we hit spots and throw harder even though it feels as though we are throwing at 60% or 70%. Often playing at this level is referred to as “the zone”. A quick, fleeting moment in time when everything lines up and the game seems to slow down causing everything to be easy and effortless.

What we don’t realize is that when we are in the state of “the zone” we aren’t in some magical, mystical state that only comes around every so often but rather we are performing in what is our natural state. For those fleeting moments when you feel so locked in and the game becomes easy you are actually in the state of mind that is our natural state. The state in which we should be performing and living in at all times.

So if this is true and we should be performing at this level at all times then why is it “the zone” only comes around every now and then? The combination of our mental conditioning combined with our learning of poor and ineffective physical mechanics prevents us from living in “the zone”. We are limited because we are never in a state where we allow things to happen. We are constantly struggling and striving to “make something happen” that we create our own obstacles to reaching the level of performance we desire to reach.

I see it all the time in the performance of my athletes. They are going along, learning, improving, and seeing the results they were hoping to see. Then something goes wrong a bad swing, a bad at bat, whatever. They begin to analyze what it was they did wrong and the next swing they “try” to fix or make the adjustment they know they need to make. With this effort comes mental clutter and physical breakdown and then one bad swing turns into another, and then another, and then another, until the athlete is convinced that, “somethings wrong”. They show up distraught and upset, “There’s something wrong with my swing!” they usually say, with desperation in their voice as though their world is coming to an end. By the end of our session they are usually fixed and then go out and play very well for the next few weeks. But what did I really do? Usually, more times then not all I did is remind the athlete what adjustment they need to make and then help relax their mind so that their body can perform the movement. In essence I simply removed the obstruction that was preventing them from performing the skill.

This could have all been done by the athlete on his own. I want you to change the way you look at your mechanics and how you perform the skills in baseball. Begin to see them not as something you do but rather something you allow. Once you obtain the knowledge of proper mechanics you then have everything you need to perform the skills over and over again creating limitless success. Many times all of the problems in your mechanics will fix themselves if you were to simply quiet the mental clutter that is going on in your head. Slow down your thoughts, your body, and begin to relax.

One of the things I work on with my hitters is what I call “Introducing Intention”. After a poor swing I get the hitter to set an intention for the next swing, that is think of the adjustment they intend for the next swing. Then instead of having them “try” to make this adjustment I get them to simply relax, slow their mind and body down, focus on slow deep breaths and then deliver the next pitch. The results are astonishing! The hitter usually executes a perfect mechanically sound swing. The ball us usually hit better then any of the balls before it and the hitter is able to maintain this swing until they get back into the mental habit of creating the obstacles to the execution of the swing. It really is amazing.

If you are going through some struggles or are having a hard time developing consistency performing your mechanics I urge you to try something different. Visualize the adjustment you wish to make and then step out, relax your body, slow down your thoughts, slow down your breathing, and allow yourself to perform your mechanics. Remember playing at a high level isn’t as hard as you think. We just make it that way.

Congratulations to the 2009 World Series Champions

Just a quick congratulations to the 2009 World Series Champion New York Yankees. I know, I know I am a big Yankee fan but really it was a great post season and a very fun one to watch. Almost every series was really well played and it ended in a classic 6 game world series where both teams were very much in every game. You can’t ask for much more than that.

The World Series just ended and I already can’t wait for spring training. I hope everyone enjoyed this season and was able to learn something from watching.