| Hidden Importance of Failure |
Hidden Importance of FailureYour son steps up to the plate late in the game, tie score, the go ahead running standing anxiously over at third base. You're sitting on the edge of your folding chair nervously wringing your hands hoping your slugger will come through for himself and the team. As the third strike whizzes into the catcher's glove, you sink back into the chair taking a deep breath.
I know, what a crummy way to start an article. But, the reality of it is that this scenario, if it hasn't happened to your son, will occur many times during his baseball playing career. No amount of physical baseball instruction or practice baseball drills can free him from the toughest part of the game of baseball, individual failure. The key is to not run from these types of challenges in baseball, but to learn how they fit into the overall success of successful athletes. Consider that all of Major League Baseball's Hall of Famers failed to reach just first base with a hit around 70% of the time throughout their careers. And these guys were the best in the world! The key to building a positive understanding of the concept of failure is how the player views failure itself.
Are You A Mentally Tough Pitcher? Find Out!Results vs. ProcessMost youth athletes view a failure, similar to the one in the opening paragraph, as a result or an isolated event in the course of a game. After the event ends, many athletes file the failure away in their box score stats thinking that there is nothing left to do with it. Many accomplished baseball players see failure in a different way. Great players revisit each failure for a brief period of time, dissect the performance, learn from it, and reduce the frequency that the same failure occurs again. This way, the failure is viewed as a process that can be learned from and not an end result that nothing positive can be done with. While this understanding does not happen automatically for more players, it is a perception of failure that must be worked on continuously.One good process to engage your athlete in is to begin to take a failure and break it down into mini segments. A strikeout takes a minimum of three segments (one for each strike), a missed fly ball or ground ball takes many more segments to play out. An error on defense contains segments such as defense positioning, reaction to the hit, path to the baseball, and the catch. Instead of interpreting a missed fly ball or ground ball as total failure, it is vital for your athlete to break down the play to find where the problem began in the first place. Realizing this important part of the game will help reduce the frequency of failures during each game. While taking a closer look at a less than stellar performance may not be the top priority after a game for your player, it is important to discuss these principles and processes. When your son begins to perform this function himself, you'll see performance excel!
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