Have you ever noticed that the best ballplayers often appear to be the cockiest?  At the same time, many of them can be the sweetest, most humble people outside the lines.  
    First of all, the best have usually earned the right to be cocky.  It’s not by chance that folks get good. They’ve put the time in.  They’ve put A LOT of time in.  Sometimes they’ve sacrificed different aspects of their lives in order to get good.  There’s identity wrapped up in being good for a lot of ballplayers.  That’s who they’ve decided to be, and the work speaks for itself. The results provide good reason to be cocky.
    Affirming your own ability is an important part of any activity.  This is true for school, music, talking to someone we’re interested in, competitive sports or any other endeavor.  If we affirm that we can do ‘the thing’, amazing things happen in our brains that eliminates doubt, anxiety and stress. 
    When we affirm our own confidence, something happens in our brains.  We come to associate our confidence with the task.  This is called the Hebbian Principle.  This is something that I’ve talked about before when I explained how I’ve ‘brainwashed’ my kids to associate baseball/softball with getting ice cream.  When they were little, and they were less enthusiastic about practice or games, we’d stop to get ‘bad’ ice cream after practice.  They came to associate practice with something they already enjoyed (Dad! – and ice cream).  What fires together, wires together.  This brings us back to affirming our own ability.
    What does this have to do with sports performance?  A lot. Being self-critical or having low confidence affects performance negatively.  Self-affirming or having high confidence also affects performance!  
    We need to find ways to change our current mindset into something that will be positive.  Here are several tactics we teach, and anyone can implement today.

1. Create a growth mindset or internal locus of control.  This starts with understanding that we are the ones who will control our actions and reactions.  Taking accountability for our successes and failures is critical.  We also have to be honest with our own input, and what we can expect of our output.  If we’re naturally less athletic than athletes we’re competing with, and putting in less time than they are, can we reasonably expect to have more success than them over the long-term?  But how would we know how much effort others are putting in?  We don’t!  Control your input, focus on what you are working to achieve, take satisfaction in your growth.  Keep building.   That’s a growth mindset.
   
2. Establish routines.  We are trying to eliminate distractions, both external and internal.  Routines are the “turn it off and turn it on again” for people.  When we do that with a computer, it works because ‘places’ the computer at the start line, a place it knows. Then the computer can perform the task pretty easily in most cases.  A routine puts us mentally, physically and emotionally in the same, known place.  So no matter what else, what other programs we’ve mentally got running, we can start where we recognize what to do if we use our routines well.  We breathe, we swagger, we visualize.  It’s all part of the routine. 
   
3. Visualize.  This is the act of putting ourselves into practice or situations through our imagination.  Our brains don’t really know the difference between visualized events and reality.  This works because the same neurons are used for both activities.  Since we use these same neurons whether we’re actually doing a task or visualizing, we can tap into a super power to entirely change our state of mind. Try for a second to visualize hitting pitches in several different locations far off into the distance.  You're happy, confident, and ready to crush.  Just by taking a few moments and using your imagination, you’ve entirely changed your state of mind! 
   
4. Affirmation.  Verbalize your intent.  It works better when you involve others.  Right before completing a task, tell someone what you’re going to do.  Make it aspirational, positive and awesome.  Watch how your frame of mind changes. This can be handled a whole bunch of ways – at the start of an inning, tell a teammate that you’ll hit them in when they get on; declare that you’re going to get 3 hits today; generalize by saying this pitcher doesn’t have anything to get you out.  For the meekest of us, saying it out-loud to ourselves works.  Finding a trusted teammate to tell it to is better.  To have a whole team who freely affirms each other no matter what is definitely the most powerful.  Bonus technique: Have a ritual where teammates give physical affirmations – handshakes, hand slaps, pats, boops, swats on the back of the helmet, etc.  
   

    
    Using these techniques, and several others, we can actually rewire the brain.  We can put it into a state that is ready to focus on the task at hand, and put ourselves into an emotional place to have success.  To the outsider it might look cocky, but we’ll know what it is – you’re hitting the reset button to give yourself the best opportunity to compete.

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We wrapped up our first Off-Season Training program last night.  It was a 6 month-long adventure in baseball and softball.  We set out to help 22 softball players and 15 baseball players improve their confidence and competence in the sports that they love.  The other coaches and I were blown away by the tremendous gains these kids made, and we're excited to release them fully to their community teams.

At the start, we asked the kids and parents to trust that what would be taught would be developmentally appropriate and full of failure. . .and that would be OK.  We asked the parents for the freedom to coach.  We asked the young athletes for their best efforts.  Thank you to both groups for giving both.

Before we even started, we asked each athlete to fill out a series of questions to help us understand each one as ball players.  We wanted to know about their goals, their strengths, weaknesses, past injuries, and their preferred positions--pretty typical stuff.  One of the last questions though was a little different.  We asked the kids, "What could your parents work on to become better sports parents?"  (I added 'Remember they signed you up for this, paid money, and will be bringing you every time!' -- just in case they might forget to be appreciative during their response.)

Folks, the responses were heartfelt, honest, and worth hearing.  Here's a sampling: 

Be patient with my learning
Stop the in-game feedback
Calm down with umpires, coaches and players
Don't talk to me during games
Not screaming at me 
Quieter from the bleachers
Not looking at me 
Don't be competitive about games
Help me with my confidence ---lots of variations on this one

Certainly times have both changed and really haven't.  As parents we all want something simple: the best for our kids.  And we're going to do the best we know how to get the best for our kids that we can.  Everything that appears in the list above comes from a place of love, and best intentions.  The message is not being received with love and best intentions.  It's being received with judgement attached to the idea that the kids aren't good enough for them to be treated well.  The kids love their parents, and these things certainly taint the relationship, but more often, these bad feelings end up being attached to something that isn't unconditional--the sport.  If the sport is eliminated, so is the source of judgement and hurt.  It becomes better if they quit the sport that they enjoy.

As a sports parent, you love watching your kids play, right?  Of course you do.  Let's keep them playing then.  I have some suggestions about how to help.

Step one is to tell them that you love to watch them play.  That's it. You don't have to go farther than that.  As a parent, that's all the kids want to hear from you.  

When they're with their teams, go away, unless you've been invited to help the team.  If you're not actively engaged with something that a coach has asked you to do, you're lurking -- scram.  It's important for the kids to have relationships without you involved.  This builds independence and unless you want them living with you at 32, this is a safe and important place for young athletes to practice independence.  

During games, here's the good news. . .you still get to talk.  Here's the bad news, you have to watch your language, and where your butt is located.  First, get away from the dugout.  If you feel yourself creeping closer to the dugout, maybe have a designated buddy who can gently pull you away.  Remember that part about building independence and relationships?  Every time you go toward the dugout to tell your ballplayer something, it undermines both their independence and relationships within their teams.  If they need something, they'll call you over, promise.

Is anyone saying you can't cheer?  No way!  Cheering's the best.  Remember though, you are not competing.  Even youth coaches need to keep this in mind.  (if you need a competitive outlet, find one for yourself.  Don't compete through your kids.)  Exciting things happen during sports, and one of the most awesome benefits is sharing the experience.  When you are the cause of the celebration, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world.  Cheer and encourage your heart out.  Keep your words general though  (Crush it Becki!, Come on Tyler!, YAAAAASSSS!) , and never, ever use a child's name at the start of a sentence while 'cheering'.  It can't help but sound like a command for their attention.  

Quick note about yelling at coaches, kids and umpires.  Don't.  Just don't.  It's never a good look.  Ever.  They're all trying their best.  If there's a problem with an opposing player not being safe, let the umpires and coaches sort it out.  If they want your help, they'll ask, but they won't, cuz they don't.  Your yelling at strangers from the stands only scares everyone involved, and if that's your goal, maybe you should be reevaluating what you're doing at a youth sporting event.

After the game, first take a breath.  Check your face to make sure it's not anywhere near the mad, sad, or disappointed end of the spectrum.  That will be interpreted by the kids that you're feeling that way about them.  Even if you are, that's about you, not them.  Don't taint their experience.  Tell them you loved watching them play.  That's it.  Walk out, and maybe make plans to follow the Skittle Rule.

I get the Skittle Rule from my sister, who never sportsed.  But she is a musician and artist.  Her piano teacher and my parents kept a bowl of skittles on the piano.  This simple thing caused her to associate her love of candy with music and practice.  In my family, the Skittle Rule has become the Ice Cream Rule. . .if we have time after games, we always go get some ice cream (usually JDs).  Celebrating a fun game only gets better with ice cream and no loss is ever as bad as it seems if you get some ice cream afterward.  

Finally, can you imagine how difficult it is for professional athletes who either lost or didn't have a good game to be interviewed after a game?  Think about that for a second.  I'll wait. 

Did you actually think about it?  I hope so, because now consider that's what you're doing to a less emotionally mature person when you try to talk with them about the game they just played.  Not good. 

Do this instead. . .tell them you loved watching them play, and follow the Skittle Rule.

In our house, we've established the groundrule that we only talk about games if my kids bring them up.  We rarely talk about games.

Being a part of these kids lives continues to be a privilege, and I hope to continue to have the opportunity to help their confidence and competence grow.  If we keep them playing, I'll always have things to teach.  This game is hard enough.  It's already a game of failure and disappointment. Let's try to keep that disappointment and failure on the field, where it belongs.  

Wanna try something different this summer?  Try a video game making class!  Taught in Appleton by professional teachers.  Check us out!  Class Descriptions here.