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Quite often the only skill development worked on in practice scenarios has to do with improving the
physical part of the game. Don’t misunderstand me here, the physical part of the game is crucial to
your success, but without a sound mental
game of baseball, your physical skills won’t be maximized. How much time really during your
baseball instruction is spent on the mental side of the game? I’m not talking how many times it
comes up in a practice, but I’m asking how much time is devoted in your practice time to learning
each of the following mental
baseball skills:
1. Building confidence in your game
2. Creating belief and a positive self-esteem on the field
3. Visualization and imagery
4. Dealing with failure
5. Creating a winning attitude
6. Eliminating fear
7. Strategic goal setting
There is little disputing the fact that the above skills are valuable to any athlete's game. But,
if they are so valuable, wouldn’t you think that they would be taught more or than in passing
conversation? Not so surprisingly in this day and age of competitive baseball, the mental game of baseball IS being taught more, just not
at the lower levels of baseball (HS and below). While it’s great news that the baseball world is
developing clear training programs for performance psychology, you still may be on your own for
finding some mental baseball instruction up
until the collegiate level. The articles I write here on this website and my blog are a good place
to begin.
If professional baseball organizations and collegiate programs are investing time and money into
having sports psychologists work with athletes on mental skill development, why isn't everyone? The
answer is, it's tough. For athletes, there is sometimes little immediate feedback. Mental baseball training is not black and
white like hitting a baseball is. With physical hitting instruction, you either hit it hard or you
don't. The observation by the athlete of success or failure is immediate in this case. Mental
training is different, it’s long term; results are not always seen immediately. In addition, few
coaches or instructional facilities have the time or the capacity to teach it.
How important is learning how to embrace and master the mental side of baseball? Combined with your
devotion to physical improvement, it will be the deciding factor for what gets you to the next
level. Don’t simply take my word for it, do your own homework and dig into this subject a little
bit on your own. Ask any college coach, professional player, or scout how important understanding
the mental side is for starters. Just make certain that your learning on this topic doesn’t stop
only with this article.
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