Does Adversity Motivate You?
Most ball players mentally shut down when faced with adversity. These players become so caught up in “negative” events that they allow the challenging circumstances to ruin their season.
Why do some players seem unaffected when they hit hard times, while others are unnerved?
The difference in responses is attitudinal. Your attitude shapes how you view your circumstances.
For example, if you were dealing with a nagging injury that put you on the sidelines, how you respond mentally makes a big difference.
You can wallow in self-pity or complain that your situation is unfair. Or you could use your time productively to rehab your injury, identify aspects of your game needing improvement, or strengthen your mental game.
Adversity can be informative if you see adversity through a productive lens. In fact, our most informative lessons learned come from our bad days, adversity, and injury. Learning from adversity requires an objective perspective.
In our Softball and Baseball Mental Toughness Survey, a high school senior pitcher sent us the following:
“I’ve been a starter ever since I made the varsity team as a freshman. Every year, I have been one of the more reliable starters on the team. I started my senior year 0-3, and then my coach told me he wanted to change my role to a relief pitcher. My senior year is so important, and now I’ve been demoted. Is there anything I can do mentally to help my situation?”
When your role on the team changes, you can see it as a demotion or reinterpret it as an opportunity. When you view your role change as a negative statement about your ability or that your coach lost faith in you, you prevent yourself from improving your game.
With this pessimistic attitude, you will feel your senior year is ruined and that you lost any chance of playing in college. This perspective affects your confidence and does little to change your circumstances. It only serves to compound the problem.
The alternative to handling adversity is to deal with the initial shock, then brainstorm how to take advantage of your current situation.
For example, you can work to improve your accuracy, develop new pitches, or learn how to manage pressure late in games. You might even try thinking that your role change could be a better fit for you, increasing your chances of pitching in college.
Reinterpreting your circumstances is empowering and builds mental toughness.
The Cincinnati Reds selected pitcher Hunter Greene with the first overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft. Hunter showed great promise and progress while playing in the minor leagues. In 2022, Greene impressed his coaches during spring training and made the Reds’ Opening Day roster.
During the midseason of his rookie year, Greene experienced arm fatigue and was placed on the injured list with a right shoulder strain. In 2023, Greene posted a 3.93 ERA across 14 starts, then experienced another injury and was placed on the sixty-day injured list.
Greene saw his situation as an opportunity to become a better baseball player.
GREENE: “There has been a lot of time to work on myself, Trying to assess what I can do to get better in every [part] of my game on and off the field. There’s been a lot of time to think about that.”
Perspective is a choice that can either make you a better player or stunt your growth as an athlete.
Tip for Turning Adversity into Opportunity
As a ball player, you want to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
Each time you experience a challenging situation, instead of asking “Why?”, ask “What can I do now?”
This directs your focus to the future by giving yourself a plan of action to follow.
Related Sports Psychology Articles
- How to Cope Better with Adversity on the Ball Field
- Overcoming Setbacks and Adversity
- The NY Mets: Overcoming Adversity
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Confidence, more than any other mental game attribute, is vital for your team’s success. If your players have it and know how to keep it, they maximize their success. Your team cannot reach their full potential unless each player can harness the power of stable and enduring self-confidence–so your team can perform as a confident team.
Your players might possess a ton of physical talent, have great coaching, and train harder or practice more than anyone else in your league, but if they do not have the self-confidence to match, your team can’t utilize this talent.
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