Surprising Fix for Overstriding…
The memorial service was Tuesday.
Thank you to all of you who wrote back to me after my email about my fried John passing last week. And to those who thought of him and me whether you wrote or not.
And to those of you who read the email and then thought of yourself and what you want to do with your life before its over. (missed the email I’m talking about? www.BaseballConfidence.com/blog)
THAT’s the Big Leagues of mental training, that issue right there.
Who do you want to be? As a player, coach, parent? When it’s all over, who do you want to have been?
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Desire.
That’s the fuel. Gotta have it if you want to accomplish your dreams.
But what happens when you want it so bad you get in your own way?
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WHAT A LONG STRIDE CAN HIDE
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Wednesday I had a player here for his second lesson with me. He came in the first time as a guy with huge desire…
and huge expectations that he should be perfect.
“I should succeed every time,” said his uncovered unconscious belief, “or I shouldn’t be here at all.”
Tough to play great with that going on, with that program running in the background of your head.
Each time to the plate is a referendum on your personal value.
A recipe for tension and poor focus, a player’s most vicious foes.
He said he hits great in practice but in games his stride is too big and his swing is too long.
In the past I would have talked with him about relaxing and having fun. Actually, I’d have let him tell me about what he’s like when he does play great.
And we’d learn from that and then work on his routine.
Very good stuff.
But not good enough. Not any more. Not when there are better tools. Not when he (and I) are aware of how limited our time is to play here on earth.
So we tapped. And tapped.
We went into his past and cleared things out. We went into the programs that run his performance and re-wrote them.
He tapped on his own afterwards.
“Amazing,” he said as he sat in front of me for the second time weeks later. “At least 100% improvement. I can make an out now and it’s no big deal. It happens to everyone.”
This from a guy who previously would throw a rage fit upon making an out. Several years of behavior changed in one hour.
He moved from 7th to 5th to 2nd in the order.
It doesn’t always go like this, this fast. But it goes.
Consider this: if you walk into your bathroom right now and find the water running in the sink and the sink over flowing, do you first go for a mop or shut off the water?
The stuff in Heads-Up Baseball I see as the mop. Important, but not directly addressing the issue.
Sometimes a mop is all you need.
But tapping gets at the water tap. The source.
We tapped a little on this guy’s over striding in our first session, but not much.
His stride in games is now what he wants it to be. Because the source of the over striding was his internal programming putting pressure on him to succeed.
The source trumps the symptom.
Tapping is a bit weird. But given that you’ve only got so much time on this earth, and much less time to play baseball, I find my clients are more than willing to do something a bit unusual to get the best possible results.
I’ll be teaching a tapping course on the phone starting in December.
The best quality mental training at the best price is all right now at www.FreeBaseballConfidence.com
Get the free program. Then get the ($120)dvds for $30, then sign up for the tapping course (and get my whole Hank Aaron interview for no extra charge as a bonus!).
If you already have the dvds (really great mops) and just want the tapping course, stay tuned, I’ll give you info soon.
Stay focused,
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
p.s. Please feel free to forward this email to 3 people.
www.FreeBaseballConfidence.com
The Gift of Death
My friend John Otterness gave me a wonderful birthday present night before last.
He then died yesterday.
I’d picked him up at the cancer center and driven him to his home where the Hospice guy was waiting.
We maneuvered him into a reclining chair.
True to our entire relationship, John was giving to me the whole time, but it’s in that chair that I’ll remember it best.
It wasn’t what he said (he couldn’t say much), it wasn’t what he did (he didn’t do much but breathe), but it was in allowing me to see this great man, a big, strong, Texas man, be so graceful and well-spirited when he knew virtually every thing he did was the last time he’d do it.
He gave me the reminder that that chair is waiting for me.
Someday that will be me.
May be sooner, may be later, but one day I’ll be in that chair (or its equivalent).
So when later that night both my kids, at separate times, woke up and woke me up, I actually enjoyed it.
Because I knew I wouldn’t always be able to get up. Someday they’ll likely help me into a chair.
I doubt I’ll be able to hold that strong of a perspective on life all the time. (You know how when you’re sick you think you’ll never take being healthy for granted again, but then you do?)
But I’ll try.
And so one take away can be one of the core principles of the mental game:
Have a big picture vision of your target, of what you want in the future (what do we want to have for memories while we sit in the chair?) and then pour everything we’ve got into the present moment.
Focus on enjoying and competing on each of life’s pitches as if that chair was waiting for us.
Because it is.
Thank you, John.
Tom
Dr. Tom Hanson
