By Ethan Guevin
We’ve all been there. You or your teammates are struggling and underachieving and everyone knows it. The harder your try, the worse it gets and things start to snowball. At the first sign of trouble, all of your recent failures come to the surface and you think, “here we go again.” So, you start playing defensive, afraid to make a mistake, and as a result, you do make mistakes. You wish there was a reset button and you just can’t wait for a little break to catch your breath and reset. It may be a weekend with no games, a school break, or maybe you think things will turn around at the start of the next stretch of home games. You are looking to the future for help, but why wait?
When the struggles pile up, we suggest a “take the best, leave the rest” mentality. We are not suggesting you don’t learn from past mistakes, but we are suggesting you wipe the slate clean NOW. The past has little bearing on the future, unless you let it. What we are suggesting here is that you literally think of starting over– think of today as the first day of the new season. Your batting average, fielding percentage, team record, etc. are all starting new from TODAY forward. If you do this on your own terms, chances are the most important games are still in front of you and there is time to save your and/or your team’s season.
You will be surprised by how much relief you/your team can get from a simple change in thought process and letting go of the past. Don’t wait for the midway point or the next break to reset and start with a blank slate, do it now. You can’t change the past, so focus on what matters– the future. The first day of the rest of your season starts now– good luck on your new opening day!
