Common Swing Flaws: Lack of Confidence
My goodness! What a super regional weekend it was. I’m still recovering from Alabama coming back to beat Northwestern, but there were so many great games this weekend. I hope you all were watching and learning from some of the best players and coaches in the game today. I cannot wait to get to Oklahoma City – I will be there June 1 and June 2 so if you are heading to OKC, come find me and say hello!
If you are new here, welcome to What’s Happening with Halo. We have been in a series of newsletters called “Common Swing Flaws” where I give advice on how to address some common issues that I see in the hitters I get to work with. This is week 6 and the final installment. If you have missed the previous 5 weeks, I highly recommend you go back and check those out!
As we wrap up, I want to touch on what I believe is the missing ingredient for a lot of really talented young athletes: CONFIDENCE. You see, I can give you the best mechanical swing the world has ever seen. I can teach you how to load, how to find the right pitch, how to have elite hand-eye coordination, how to sequence, etc. All of it can be learned if practiced effectively. However, even if you have the picture perfect swing, if you don’t have the confidence to get results in competition, it will never amount to anything.
I often tell my athletes that “everything happens before it happens.” What I mean by this is when you are watching a game, based on a athlete’s body language (which is a direct reflection of their confidence), you can almost feel what is about to happen. A prime example was this past weekend in the Oklahoma Clemson Super Regional. You know what I’m talking about. The Kinzie Hansen game-tying homerun, down to their last strike in 7th inning. If you were watching that game, you can’t really explain it, but you just had the feeling. Why? Her confidence was contagious.
But how do you get there mentally? How do you find that belief? That conviction in your craft? I believe confidence comes down to 3 things. Mantras, Mindsets, and Mudita.
1. Mantras: So often, when we experience any type of negativity, we start listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves. Our inner dialogue matters. The greatest athletes I know choose to speak life into themselves through mantras. These are short little phrases that you repeat over and over to yourself during the course of a game or an at bat. Some examples of my mantras are “I know what I’m capable of,” “I am prepared for this moment,” “I’ve done this before,” and my personal favorite (which may be more directed towards pitchers, but I love it) is “Try Me.” Spend 10-15 minutes journaling this week coming up with 3-5 mantras for yourself. Experiment in your practices and games and see which ones work best for you.
2. Mindsets: What are you thinking when you experience adversity? Do you want to give up or get up? We must have a growth mindset. This means seeing each failure as an opportunity for us to learn and to grow, rather than one at bat being the end all be all for the day. There are always more at bats to be had. We want to keep getting better as the game goes along, rather than having something not go our way and shutting down. So grow. Develop. Keep getting back up after you get knocked down.
3. Mudita: My personal favorite way to gain confidence myself is to uplift other people. Mudita means selfless joy in the success of other people. It was a hallmark of our program at Alabama and has been a hallmark for me in my professional career as well. Can you be just as happy for your teammates when they succeed as if you did it yourself? What this ability to genuinely cheer for other people does is take the pressure off of you. Being a great teammate allows you to play free, knowing and trusting that your teammates will have your back if you don’t get it done.
This is the blueprint for gaining more confidence: Mantras, Mindsets, and Mudita. But, the foundation of confidence is the work and preparation that you put in every day, every week. You can never expect results from work that you don’t do. Continue to get your reps in and trust your process. If you do that, then add the three Ms to the mix, you might just become unstoppable.
See y’all in Oklahoma!
Follow along on my social media channels @hayliemac8 to stay up to date with where I am in OKC!
