Taking Responsibility for Your Game: The Mental Separator Between Average and Great

Taking Responsibility for Your Game: The Mental Separator Between Average and Great

"It starts with always being positive... If you get down on yourself after every at-bat, then it's just going to keep snowballing over and over and the 0 for 10 will turn into 0 for 30. You have to be able to turn the page. I had to learn to find positive things to focus on- mostly by visualizing good things from my past or things I wanted to happen in the future." - Mike Trout

Mike Trout is revered by many baseball fans for his physical tools and baseball IQ. Trout is regarded by fans and peers as the best baseball player in the world today. Despite all of the physical tools and baseball IQ, Trout is playing in the best baseball league in the world. In addition to this, Trout is also playing with a few players that have the same physical tools and baseball IQ as he does, but there is one non-baseball tool that makes the difference between Trout and his peers. That would be Trout's mental game. 

Mike Trout takes responsibility in regards to his preparation with winning the next pitch. After reading that sentence, you would think that this is a simple task, but it is not so much. Baseball is known as a game of failure, but Trout sees it as a game of opportunity. Opportunity to learn from the last pitch, and turn the page on negatives. In regards to the mental game, responsibility means to focus on whatever gives you the best opportunity for success regardless of what has happened or how you feel. 

The game between the ears, is a game within the game of baseball. What separates average athletes from the good or great athletes is their mental game and their outlook. If you allow yourself to let the game drive you, then you will not reach your potential. Instead of letting negatives and the game drive his performance, Trout drives the game by focusing on positives and his process. Trout proactively focuses on his process and doesn't allow for the negatives or his feelings to get in the way of his performance. You may be reading this and saying, well that is easier said than done. That is correct! With anything, it takes focused practice to get on this kind of mental game performance. 

The key of any mental game focus is to realize what you should focus on. To be successful in the mental game, you must focus on things you can control. The controllable actions that an athlete can do is simply what he can humanly do. He can't control what his teammates do, what the weather is, what the opponent did, what a spectator said. All he can control is himself, and within that, the player can control how he responds to an event. Cooler heads prevail in baseball, if you beat yourself up after every shortcoming, you are in for a miserable experience. 

When it comes to taking responsibility for your actions in the game of baseball, there are three choices that the player can make to be successful. 

The first choice is to focus on what you can control. As I stated above, focusing on your own performance takes a lot of pressure off of your shoulders, but that isn't all of the positives that this choice does for the athlete. If you focus on what you can control, this will lead to self control. According to the book "Heads Up Baseball 2.0" Ken Ravizza and Tom Hanson wrote, "Self-control leads to Body Control leads to Ball or Bat Control." Simply put, if you can control your actions and yourself, the game of baseball will be easier to play. The second choice that a player can take responsibility for is to focus on being a good teammate. If a player focuses on helping his teammates or cheering on his teammates, his performance will get better because he's focusing on helping his team win. In regards to his performance Anthony Rizzo said, "I'm more concerned about winning and how my teammates perform.. Believe me, I'm upset and care about how I perform, but the victory and my teammates are more important. The third choice that in regards to responsibility a player has is to focus on his attitude. How you look at the world will be a huge factor on your performance. If you are positive and see things positively, you feel good. Physically you may feel tired but if you look at things in a positive light, that positive feeling will override that tiredness. 

In summation taking responsibility for your performance and actions is a choice. Taking responsibility is a critical baseball skill, but also a life skill. Taking responsibility will determine how you feel. Many times as players, coaches, and human beings we allow our environment to dictate how we feel. What the best of the best do is allow their attitude, not their environment dictate their performance. This is a very intentional action, but a necessary one. With practice, the performance of any athlete will improve.