Happy March! 

Ready to dominate the diamond in the upcoming softball season? – it’s time to take control of your game!

Is your athlete expressing nerves for high school tryouts or anxiousness about whether she will make the Varsity softball team? I swear I have these conversations with my softball athletes all the time as we approach the high school softball season and most of the time there is a resounding fear and worry. I GET IT! I was once in her shoes before! BUT I am here to tell you these young athletes don’t have to have these thoughts. There are ways she can get herself unstuck. So this month, that is what we are going to focus on. How to unstick your thoughts and start focusing on what you want to find!

Learn to recognize the power of your mindset and how it determines your beliefs, actions, and outcomes.

You see, your mindset is the lens you see life through. Our mindset shapes how we see the world and how we make decisions. And I want you to understand, changing your mindset is just as simple as putting on a new pair of sunglasses, with different lenses (let’s aim for those rose colored lenses). 

Another thing I want you to understand is the thoughts that populate our mind everyday, are 90% likely to show up again tomorrow due to how our Reticular Activating System works (RAS). You see, our RAS is a small hair net of firing neurons around our brain accepting things in or keeping things out that we have suggested to our brains as not important. So when you might be looking at a new softball bat that you really want and you have posed to your brain that it will help you hit all the homeruns, your brain is going to start populating that thought more and more in your mind. Resulting in: you starting to see that bat everywhere you look! I mean, everywhere. Hence, the phrase, what you focus on you will find. 

Understanding the information above as knowledge, we have to now apply this to our upcoming high school softball season. What are we possibly going to do to start retraining our brain to ultimately see through a different lens. 

Let’s dive deeper into the steps of having a strong mindset and focusing on what you can control. 

First, we have to prove to ourselves that we can retrain the brain! My instructions to you for the next few days are to be on the lookout for a naturally occurring heart (the shape) inside your everyday. Tell your RAS to let the hearts IN.

You will be absolutely shocked as you start to see more and more of them! You could find them in the clouds, on a leaf or even a shadow of something that you pass on the sidewalk.

By doing this simple step, you are telling your brain that you are the boss and are proving to yourself that you can look through a different lens.

Second, after finding the hearts, I want you to pause for a moment or two and appreciate your brain for finding it and delivering it to your attention. It is a gift to yourself!

Let’s explore the process of optimizing our concentration.

Lastly, we are going to adjust our focus to your softball game by changing the lens we are looking through. Visualize popping out the dark lens of your sunglasses and replacing them with rose-tinted ones when we feel inclined to feed into the negativity that fast approaches our minds; grabbing the rose-tinted glasses allows the positive and helpful thoughts to flow freely! Consider this a diet for our minds.

Let’s think through some examples of what those negative thoughts could look like:

• What if I don’t make varsity softball?
• What if I disappoint my mom and dad?
• What if I embarrass myself and my value in other peoples’ eyes is less than?

Now I want to encourage you to put on your rose-tinted glasses and challenge yourself with the positive and helpful:

• What if I make varsity softball?
• What if I make my parents proud? 
• What if I impress my softball teammates
• What if we make it to the state championship?

Embrace the power of your thoughts! It’s up to you to recognize and embrace the beauty in this world. Friends can be there for support, but until you consciously make an effort to perceive life differently, it will remain as is.

This month I urge you get out there and bask in all that love-filled energy out there – share pics, tag me along – let’s celebrate together! Let March be a reminder of how beautiful life truly is when we choose to focus on what our hearts desire most.

For female softball players, I want to remind each of you how awesome and powerful you are! You can do anything that you set your mind to. The sky is the limit for high school girls’ softball – your outfits should be as vibrant as your dreams. Wear what makes you feel comfortable and confident while playing, and never give up on your goals.

Take risks, be brave and successful female softball players. March is the month for female empowerment! Let’s use our energy to create the life we want – in sports and outside of it.

Your mentor, friend and foodie, always,