Overwhelming The Baseball Batting Slump

A slump is one of the worst things any baseball hitter will experience. Between the lack of hits, and the self-doubt about your ability to perform, it is one of the most mentally taxing experiences players are faced with in the game today. We all have been there when it starts with a swing and miss on pitch you expected to hit 400 feet. This is typically followed by, ?Why did I miss that, what am I doing wrong?? Next thing you know, you 1 for your last 25 and you are still searching for the answer. The good news is, that ends today!

Every player has heard the phrase, ?I can?t teach you to be confident, that is something that you are going to have to do on your own!? Up until a few years ago, I would have 100% agreed with them. However, after my recent studies in psychology, I was wrong! The act of being confident, much like training your physical mechanics and your muscles, has to be learned. Fortunately, we have the tools and understanding to accomplish that now! Among all of the batting techniques that are out there, there are to very powerful mental training exercises your player can use to overcome any of his baseball batting woes.

Before I hop into these two mental training exercises, I want to review some of the most prominent batting woes so you know that you are not alone in the matter. Do you remember Alex Rodiguez?s abysmal performances in the playoffs up until late? How bout when Tejada threw his bats over the top of the dugout after a prolonged slump? On a more personal note, one of the minor leaguers that I just started working with contacted me saying he was starting to loose confidence after almost 9 years of outstanding performance at the professional level. So where oh where do these batting slumps come from and why do they last for so long?

On the whole, it has to deal with what a player?s primary focus is. From a young age players are taught that the sign of a good season or a good player, is the statistics that are attached to their name. As a result, every at-bat carries the stigma of success or failure. Now if you had an infinite amount of at bats, one failure or one success may not seem like much. However, players will usually only get 3 to 4 at-bats in a game, which means each at bat will affect the outcome drastically. Why do think players play so much more relaxed when they get a hit in their first at bat? The pressure is off for the day and everything after that is a bonus.

If a player doesn?t get a hit in his first at-bat, the pressure begins to mount. Each successive at-bat piles on top of each other and before player?s have a chance to take a breath, each at-bat becomes the make or break moment of their career. Whether they begin swinging at every pitch they see, or take pitches right down the middle because they are afraid to get out, they enter a emotional state and loose their ability to make good decisions.

Which leads me to our first baseball batting slump breaker; create positive proactive action steps for every thought that enters your mind. The mind can only be in one of two states at any given time, emotional or logical. In short, the emotional state leads to result based focused and is more reactive than proactive. The logical state is the more intelligent state where you will be able to see all angles to the issues, and choose the path that will lead to the best results. If you want to get a hit, how will do it? If you don?t want to get out, what can you do to take a better swing?

Unfortunately for most players, they spend the majority of the time trying to force results that they can?t control! Sorry to say, pure determination doesn?t cut it and simply believing you are going to get a hit is an old wives tale! What will help, is telling yourself in a positive proactive manner how you are going to get that hit! Besides the obvious benefit of continuously solving your batting mistakes, it keeps your emotions down because you are always focused on a positive solution instead of a negative reaction. What action steps could you take on the very next swing to help you achieve the goals that you are looking for?

Another way to think about it is to be in the process of solving a problem not running away from the result! Saying that, this will not come easy! Just like training your mechanics, you have to train your mind. When you feel a negative, you have to spin it into a positive action step. Too many players focus on what their average is going end up like at the end of the season instead of focusing on what they can do now to help their chances of success! This leads perfectly into Mental Training Exercise #2, make your goals actions you want to accomplish on your very next swing!

When you get right down to it, it is really just increasing the number of positive proactive action steps you tell yourself to do! Are you getting the idea! Every swing you take allows you the opportunity to learn what you did right, and what you need to do right next time. If you did something right tell your self to repeat that action. If you need to do an action right next time, tell yourself to do. By telling yourself what to do, you are actively programming your mind to perform at a higher level. This is why I suggest you have at least three ?goals? you ?set? for yourself before every swing. Before long, you will be a positive performance machine that isn?t concerned about the past or the future. You will be focused on the ?now?, which is a very powerful place to be!

If this seems incredibly simple then you would be correct! However, simple does not mean easy. Humans are mentally programmed to be negative, which means you are fighting an uphill battle! The good news is your mind is just like a muscle and can be trained the same way. The more positive phrasing you tell yourself, the more positive you will naturally become. The real key is seeing each previous at-bat as a learning experience and not a success or failure. If you are able to remain in the now, and continuously-proactively set your ?goals? for you very next swing you will remain a dominant consistent hitter that will be able to perform under any situation!

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