Any sport or, really, anything you do in life has two sides to it. There is the physical half of the sport – for softball and for myself that implies running, hitting, fielding, and pitching. But then, there is the mental side of the game, and when compared to the physicality of a sport the mental game can be more complex yet equally as important.
I didn’t start to realize the importance of the mental game in softball until my sophomore year. That was the same year I met Tami for the first time and was the second year in a row my high school softball team lost in the Upperstate Championship series. She first introduced the mental game to me in a team setting as she was working with the Boiling Springs High School softball team. She was talking to our team about simple things like confidence and believing in ourselves, but they were concepts that I found I was lacking in my own personal game. After that season, I began working with Tami individually, and following our first session I felt like a mental basket case. I lacked the confidence necessary to be a good player, let negative people define how I thought about myself, and had a glass half empty outlook on life in general. I told Tami that I was tired of being looked at as the second rate pitcher on our team when I knew I was good enough to be the starter, and I told her that above all else I wanted to hit on our high school team, an opportunity I had never earned or been given. Luckily, Tami didn’t see me as beyond repair and the steps and advances we took in my mental game helped make me into the player I have become today.
The first exercise which really elevated my game was visualization. Prior to every game, I began seeing myself throwing my pitches to batters from the opposing team and I found my pitches during the game becoming more consistent. I would sit down either in the dugout or in my car and put on my headphones. For some reason, the headphones are a key for me because they allow me to really focus in on what I am seeing and make the outside world and any possible distractions melt away. First, I see myself standing on the mound at our home field or, in the case of an away game, at our opponent’s field and I imagine myself pitching with perfect form. My body feels relaxed and loose, and I’m throwing fast hitting my best speeds on every pitch. Then, I see myself throwing all my pitches, for strikes or misses, whatever the particular situation I am imagining calls for. Finally, I imagine the specific players I am about to pitch to standing in the box. I throw my best pitches at them and visualize them swinging and missing the best breaking riseball in the world or watching a changeup fall in the zone for a strike three. This detailed visualization helps me become mentally prepared for the game and allows me to perform at my best.
The second tool I used to address my problem of allowing other people, players, and coaches to affect my game was a book called The Energy Bus. Written by author Jon Gordon, the book is all about expelling negative energy from your life and associating with positive people who will support you in whatever it is you do in your life. The book helped me to understand how to throw unsupportive people “off my bus,” so that my team and I might be successful. Once I quit playing mental head games with destructive people I was able to focus on my own game, take charge on the mound, and motivate my teammates. Simply put, I was free to be successful, and my newfound freedom was evident in my pitching. I had a new confidence in myself, both on and off the field. For the first time in my life, I began to truly and fully believe in myself – that I was capable of achieving my goals. Still today, confidence remains a constant work in progress. I remind myself stand tall. Stand proud. You’ve proven you are one of the top pitchers in this state. There is no reason to doubt your abilities. Take the field to prove you are the best yet again. I constantly go over conversations like this in my mind in order to reaffirm the confidence that The Energy Bus first instilled within me.
The final tool that helped me elevate my mental game was as simple as a rubber band. Tami first issued this challenge to help me change the way I think and view the world around me. I tended to have a more negative outlook on life whereas the idealized optimism allows for a better mindset in order to play well and work towards becoming a more successful athlete. I needed to become positive and by wearing the rubber band around my wrist and popping myself whenever a negative thought occurred, I was able to break the chain of negativity in my mind.
I even continued to wear a rubber band on my wrist throughout my championship season in high school after my regular sessions with Tami had ended.
It is evident, to me, that when I reflect back on my softball career up until this point in my life, there exists a definitive turning point at which I went from being a good pitcher to a great pitcher. I went from being what most people considered our high school’s second-string pitcher to dominating on the mound, hitting in our high school line-up, and leading my team to a State Championship. The key to that change was my mental game. Some spectators might speculate that the difference was physical ability, but I know it was mental strength and toughness. There comes a defining moment in an athlete’s career when he or she must learn to use his or her mind to their advantage. If they don’t, that athlete will never reach full potential. Tami and her help with my mental game allowed me to reach my potential, and though the mental game may be invisible and sometimes seem irrelevant, I am sure that even the greatest athletes will tell you that the greatest battles of your career occur in between your ears.
Taylor Cabe