05/02/2020
"My negative mindset cost me a chance to play college golf. Is your teen dealing with the same thing?"
During my student athlete days, I witnessed a coach tear into one of our best players for not running out a ground ball. After the game that player ripped all the buttons off his jersey and was never the same again completely losing all confidence and passion for the game.
My teammates all thought losing a game, making a mistake, or playing poorly was best dealt by taking it out on our equipment. Nobody taught us how to use or move past negative experiences and mistakes or get ourselves into a proper mindset before a game. I too destroyed a few baseball gloves, golf clubs, and racquets in my youth. That negative mindset even cost me a chance to play college golf. My putter might still be stuck up in that pine tree!
Years later when I started practicing mindfulness and gaining the power of enhancing my mental skills by moving through negative thoughts and emotions, I started to think, if I only had those skills back when I was in school.
When I started coaching my kids’ baseball teams, I noticed similar behaviors of tantrums and lack of confidence not only in baseball, but many other youth sports. I also saw kids being coached by anger and fear. There was a lot of crying in baseball. One high school athletic director recently told me many of his student athletes simply don’t enjoy playing sports anymore…too much stress, anxiety, and pressure to perform. Is it any wonder where that came from? That’s why I wrote a mindfulness book for student athletes.
I’ve been partnering with parents of student athletes and sports coaches to help their young men/women to find their passion, power, and presence both on and off the field.
Certainly the physical skills are important and that’s where your sports coaches come in, but If you’ve noticed your student athlete(s) has been having trouble shine because of performance anxiety, stress, lack of enjoyment, or has just been having trouble handling the pressures of sports or school, please reach out to me for a free discovery call on how I can help.