3 Mottos for "Slumps"
3 Mottos for "Slumps"
I hope you all have been watching the first series of AUX in San Diego on the ESPN family of networks! There have been some amazing games so far. I'm excited to take the field tonight again, but wanted to talk about something that has been on mind in this first competitive series. This is the first time most of the pro players have played in a game in 9 months. That is a long off season and many of us are treating AUX like our spring training. We are all just looking to get comfortable and give ourselves some grace if everything isn't quite up to where we would like it to be yet.
With not playing in a real game in so long, sometimes we don't start out as great as we want to. For me just yesterday, we played a doubleheader and I didn't have a single hit, but I climbed the leaderboard by earning some walks in scrappy at bats. It may not be pretty, but I was able to pass the bat for my team. Yesterday I kind of felt like I was in a "mini slump" if you will. Where things just weren't going my way. I wanted to share 3 mottos I kept saying to myself over and over to keep my head in the right space.
1. "I'm on a Quest for Quality" - Quality At Bats are everything. Getting a hit is not the end all-be all in terms of having a great at bat. Examples of Quality At Bats (aka "QABs" pronounced quabs): a hard hit ball, an at bat where you only swung at strikes, a walk, forcing a full count after going down 0-2, seeing 8+ pitches, a sacrifice fly or a sacrifice bunt. Coaches, I encourage you to keep a QAB Chart of all the quality at bats your team has in a game. It's a great way to reframe a hitter's mindset and allow athletes to not be so results oriented.
2. "I Get Better as the Game Goes Along" - So often if we have a bad first at bat, we tend to get down ourselves and think that "today is just going to be one of those days" but what if we treated our first couple of at bats like experiments? We are gathering information in the first few innings to be at our best in innings 5, 6, and 7 (or as the game clock is expiring if you are playing a time limit). After a bad first at bat, this motto gave me hope that I was going to find success later on if I just kept sticking with it.
3. "Success is in Service" - we have to rethink what our definition of success is. Instead of thinking success is only getting a hit or going 4 for 4, we need to ask ourselves "Did I help the team win?" You don't have to be in the starting lineup to help your team, you don't need to hit a homerun or have a single RBI. When you are at your lowest you can encourage someone else, pick a pitch that the pitcher is tipping, come into pinch run and steal a base, and bring a positive attitude. To me, that optimism and MUDITA is what defines a successful game.
I hope this encourages you or a player when the inevitability of a bad day comes. That's how our sport goes. Keep showing up and remember the game might knock you down, but it can't knock you out. Be a good teammate, keep smiling, and eventually success will find you.
If you want to see how the pros handle everything that comes their way, please watch AUX on the ESPN family of networks over the next two weeks. There is so much that you can learn just by watching the game. Here is the full AUX schedule for the rest of June. Tune In!
Have the best week ever.
--Halo
