Mental Baseball Drills - Failing Like A Champion

By Nate Barnett

There is no question that the mental part of baseball is vital in order to excel as an athlete. Dealing with failure remains a constant challenge for athletes of all ages.

Too many times you'll hear a coach remind a player to "flush it" or "let it go". It may have been just me, (though I have a sneaky suspicion it was not) but those simplistic phrases made me want to "flush" my coach. I know, that's not the right attitude, but failing made me extremely frustrated. I knew I needed to "flush it" but I didn't have the mechanism in place that would allow me to do that. I didn't know the skill of dealing with failure; I hadn't been shown any mental baseball drills to help me out. Here are some places to start:

1. Get onto YouTube and search for information on sports psychology or mental training.

2. As any coaches who played at a high level how he or she chose to deal with failure.

3. Always keep in mind that you are playing a sport (baseball) that is riddled with failures every game. Except it as part of the deal and learn to move on.

All champions fail. In fact, they fail a lot. Give me any well known athlete and I bet there are countless failures along his or her road to success. It's time to change the perspective on failure from something negative to something positive. It's tricky, but possible. Those athletes who figure out the secret get the most out of their physical ability. Those who don't unfortunately finish their careers without knowing how good they really could have been. Don't be that guy.