WHAT IS FAILURE - Failure refers to the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.
I have little doubt that you’ve heard the advice, "practice makes perfect". Or, "perfect practice makes perfect". I do appreciate the sentiment that those phrases are usually delivered with, however, perfect play is unattainable. I realize this seems harsh, but baseball is a game filled with failure. Therefore, instead of working on baseball drills, and receiving baseball instruction with the mindset that one day you’ll achieve perfection, I have a different mindset. It is absolutely vital that athletes understand the role of failure and be taught how to put in place a strategy to use failure as a positive and not as a negative. It takes some mental rewiring in the mind of a competitive athlete, but it is well worth the time spent to learn this mental skill. If you have been listening at practice lately, you will realize that I am reiterating to the kids that the PHYSICAL mistakes are OK, but it’s the mental ones we need to avoid. This is the first step in becoming mentally tuff and without mental toughness baseball is an almost impossible game.
I would like to explore briefly how failure can be utilized during baseball drills, practice, and competition in order to create more fundamentally sound baseball players.
For many youth athletes today, failure is uncomfortable at the least, and terrifying at the most. This fear of failure isn’t isolated to baseball. Many youth are afraid of messing up in class, afraid of receiving an "F" on a piece of homework or test, and afraid of being rejected in general. Failure is everywhere and; it is an integral part of our daily lives. I have a problem with focusing on failures. The problem I have is that it tends to paralyze many from attempting to achieve. Let me clearly state that I am not trying to do away with things or scenarios that cause failure, or to shelter youth from experiencing it, I'm simply pointing out that we need to focus on how failure can HELP US.
Batting Practice is a great example!
I would like to explore briefly how failure can be utilized during baseball drills, practice, and competition in order to create more fundamentally sound baseball players.
For many youth athletes today, failure is uncomfortable at the least, and terrifying at the most. This fear of failure isn’t isolated to baseball. Many youth are afraid of messing up in class, afraid of receiving an "F" on a piece of homework or test, and afraid of being rejected in general. Failure is everywhere and; it is an integral part of our daily lives. I have a problem with focusing on failures. The problem I have is that it tends to paralyze many from attempting to achieve. Let me clearly state that I am not trying to do away with things or scenarios that cause failure, or to shelter youth from experiencing it, I'm simply pointing out that we need to focus on how failure can HELP US.
Batting Practice is a great example!
As a coach I most often see failure when players step to the plate. Let’s face it, all eyes are on you, and hitting is one of the most complex kinetic movements the human body is asked to perform; in my opinion.
When training hitters, I will watch closely how they approach their batting practice sessions. Obviously during batting practice all hitters desire to do well. It's their time to shine, to impress their coach, their teammates, and their own ego. However, it usually only takes a few missed pitches, a few ground outs or fly outs before the hitter becomes frustrated and loses focus. This frustration just compounds the problem and makes it significantly worse.
The problem is never the missed pitches or the poor results the hitter experienced while hitting a baseball. Instead, the problem is the perception of what the poor hits mean to the hitter. The hitter sees the missed opportunities as a sign of inferiority, weakness, and lack of ability. This feeling will eventually create a belief that the athlete himself is a failure. Once this sets it, it’s near impossible for a hitter to maintain confidence in his game.
Well-trained hitters view mistakes in batting practice far differently. A few missed pitches, repeated ground outs or fly outs simply mean that there is something not quite right with his swing. He will begin to problem solve with his understanding of his own baseball swing until he finds the part that is out of synch. Instead of focusing on the feeling of personal failure, a non-emotional response is used and the mistake is never personalized. As a coach, I can typically tell you if a kid can hit just by the way he looks in the batter’s box. There is a certain confidence that great hitters exude when they pick up a bat. These are the type of players that have used failure while hitting thousands of balls BAD, and have overcome the initial feeling of failure to adjust their swings and mindsets.
The key differences between an emotional, untrained hitter, and a mentally strong hitter is how each hitter deals with failure. In the first example the hitter allowed the mistakes he made to be an end result and evaluation of his performance. The mentally successful hitter viewed the mistakes in batting practice as a compartmentalized problem that simply needed attention. This approach let him maintain composure and concentrate on a solution rather than the problem. ß This is the key to not only becoming a great athlete, but a successful person in life.
When training hitters, I will watch closely how they approach their batting practice sessions. Obviously during batting practice all hitters desire to do well. It's their time to shine, to impress their coach, their teammates, and their own ego. However, it usually only takes a few missed pitches, a few ground outs or fly outs before the hitter becomes frustrated and loses focus. This frustration just compounds the problem and makes it significantly worse.
The problem is never the missed pitches or the poor results the hitter experienced while hitting a baseball. Instead, the problem is the perception of what the poor hits mean to the hitter. The hitter sees the missed opportunities as a sign of inferiority, weakness, and lack of ability. This feeling will eventually create a belief that the athlete himself is a failure. Once this sets it, it’s near impossible for a hitter to maintain confidence in his game.
Well-trained hitters view mistakes in batting practice far differently. A few missed pitches, repeated ground outs or fly outs simply mean that there is something not quite right with his swing. He will begin to problem solve with his understanding of his own baseball swing until he finds the part that is out of synch. Instead of focusing on the feeling of personal failure, a non-emotional response is used and the mistake is never personalized. As a coach, I can typically tell you if a kid can hit just by the way he looks in the batter’s box. There is a certain confidence that great hitters exude when they pick up a bat. These are the type of players that have used failure while hitting thousands of balls BAD, and have overcome the initial feeling of failure to adjust their swings and mindsets.
The key differences between an emotional, untrained hitter, and a mentally strong hitter is how each hitter deals with failure. In the first example the hitter allowed the mistakes he made to be an end result and evaluation of his performance. The mentally successful hitter viewed the mistakes in batting practice as a compartmentalized problem that simply needed attention. This approach let him maintain composure and concentrate on a solution rather than the problem. ß This is the key to not only becoming a great athlete, but a successful person in life.
Failure in general, if not embraced will crumble an individual’s confidence. My job as a coach is to build the confidence of these young players through hard work, dedication and consistency. As these players are learning new skills, I too am striving to be a better coach. This will be an evolutionary process, but we are going to be focusing on embracing failure, learning from it, doing our best not to repeat the same mistakes, and moving on!
Here are some famous baseball quotes:
Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.
--Yogi Berra
It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.
--Hank Aaron
There is a fine line between success and failure. In baseball, the difference between a.350 hitter and a.250 hitter is only a 1/4 inch up or down the bat.
--Mortimer Feinberg
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.
-- Mickey Mantle --
Below is the road map, we as the Florida Blackhawks, are going to use to teach the boys how to deal with failure! These concepts will be passed out at Practice on Sunday and each player will have to sign the contract, stating they are going to “DO THEIR BEST” to work this system and get better at keeping failure in perspective. My last email described what failure was, this one is more of a strategy on how I intend to teach the kids to embrace it and learn from it.
1 Understand that EVERYONE Makes Mistakes: This is a key component to keeping the boys confident. Mario Garza a former pro player, long time good friend, and someone I very much respect & admire, said it perfectly to me one time. He said, “the guys in the pro’s are just regular guys who play baseball exceptionally well”. I remember talking to him in depth about the topic and then discussing the conversation with my own son. It’s amazing what we as parents take for granted in terms of what kids think about people they look up to. After that conversation, the goal of playing professional baseball seemed obtainable to my son in his own eyes and he wanted to know everything he could do to obtain his goal. Regardless, if any of these kids play baseball, or any sport at the professional level, striving to get there, and knowing all those who are there now have dealt with much adversity and failure, is a life lesson we need to cultivate and embrace.
2 Attempt to make Less mistakes and limit our failures:
3 Work hard to correct our mistakes: Confucius said, "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing a MUCH LARGER mistake." Winners take mistakes as an opportunity to make good, to move on, and to learn from the situation. We need not sweep our mistakes under the rug, but use them as a tool to TEACH and try not to repeat. With the age group of players we have our biggest challenge is to ALWAYS STAY POSITIVE while correcting mistakes they make. This is challenging, but something we need to get better at!
4 Take responsibility for their Failure or Mistake: to grow and change, we must see all of reality and we must deal with that reality. The first step in gaining control over our errors is admitting that they exist. This is a hard thing to do for anyone, but if we start encouraging the boys to take responsibility for their actions now, and not pointing fingers, they will each blossom into leaders in their own regard. What a DREAM JOB for a coach; to have a TEAM FULL of LEADERS!
5 Work hard to not repeat our mistakes: "He that's cheated twice by the same man is an accomplice with the cheater." Thomas Fuller said this to encourage us to learn from a mistake, vow to never repeat it, and to move on without reservation or fear of making other mistakes. When dealing with the boys this will be geared towards MENTAL mistakes. They are 7 & 8 so they are going to make physical mistakes in the game of baseball, but they are going to be challenged to do things like, get to practice on time, wear proper practice Gear, maintain good BODY LANGUAGE after failing, looking people in the eye when speaking, etc…
6 Fail Fast And Move On: Business guru Tom Peters says "Only with failure can you verify wrong ways of doing things and discard those practices that hinder success." Winners cultivate an attitude of "lead, follow or get out of the way". They are voracious for success, and devour any mistake that can take them closer and faster to that success. GREAT PLAYERS and SUCCESSFUL people in general become so supremely confident that failure is the anomaly that when it does happen they move on fast! They have spent their whole lives dealing with failure and have learned from it that they get over it fast: SUPREME CONFIDENCE! BOTTOM OF THE 9th, Bases Loaded, Two outs, We are up 1 and YOU JUST committed an error on the last play to load the bases on a routine ground ball that should have ended the game! There are two people in this type of situation. One wants a strike out so he can leave the field ASAP and the other WANTS ANOTHER CHANCE TO END THE GAME. His mind is racing saying PLEASE hit the ball to me… WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BE?
7 View Failure As A Detour or Delay; BE PERSISTENT: "I think and think for months, for years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is wrong. The hundredth time I am right." Albert Einstein knew that persistence was key in being "creative". The answer did not just drop out of the sky. He worked at it. He stayed with it. Being consistent and persistent are something I have been preaching to these boys for a long time! Getting in good habits both mentally and physically all start with those two ideas; consistent and persistent when detours slow us down!
8 Prepare: My high school & College basketball coach, Ron Johnson, was and still is the most influential person in my entire life! He taught me what the meaning of work ethic was and cultivated my dream of playing Division 1 College basketball, and ultimately made it a reality for me. He was and still is an incredible motivator, with a presence when he walks into a room unlike anyone else I have ever meet. It is no wonder that in the past 10 years he has won 4 State Championships, 2 in Florida and 2 in North Carolina. He has moved from school to school BUILDING PROGRAMS, taking them to their promise land (State Championships) then moving on to do it again. For him the Journey is the prize not the ultimate goal and being able to take different groups of kids on that journey is what I believe drives and motivates him! People have asked me before what is the 1 thing you learned from him, and my answer is always the same! “PREPARATION BREEDS CONFIDENCE”, this holds true for any challenge we will face or our kids will face in life. If we prepare them in the classroom, the playing field, etc they will be confident in any situation. The most gratifying experience for me as a coach is when a player I have worked with starts to gain self confidence. Confidence is a powerful thing and something that can be brought out in EVERY CHILD regardless of how unconfident they were. In closing, I believe if we follow these rules as a program and consistently prepare using the guidelines above we will not only have 10-12 very special young athletes on our hands, but some very mature and wise beyond their years young men!
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