Growing up from third grade to my sophomore year of college one of the lights in my life was softball. One of my favorite things about the game of softball is the mental game

To be successful in softball, you must learn how to be resilient. A 400 batting average in college is considered good and that still means you will fail 6/10 times. Softball is where I learned teamwork, dedication, hard work, resilience, and how to overcome failure. Whether that was hearing a coach tell me I would never be good enough to play in college or missing an important ball to get an out we needed or striking out at a key at bat, it was on the softball field that I learned how to pick myself back up, stay determined, and be ready for the next ball.

The softball field is a lot like life. In life, we face many challenges, setbacks, and hardships but it is how we respond to those situations that determines how we will move forward. Those missed balls, mistakes, and setbacks do not define us, but they are a part of our journey to become the best we can be.

Softball taught me a lot that I continue to hold to in my life today. Here are five life lessons I apply to the game of life:

1)    Giving up is the only way to fail

“Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” -Babe Ruth

In softball my favorite games were the ones where in the third inning we were down by a ton, the other team was already giving up because we were losing so bad. Yet the fourth inning we came back scoring lots of runs. We didn’t give up but came back each inning ready to give our all. We end up winning because we didn’t give up in the third inning.

You don’t fail when you make a mistake or have a setback, we fail when we give up in the third inning. We fail when we quit trying. When you go through a challenge or fail at something in life remember that you are gaining strengths during this season that will set you apart.

2)    Your ability to bounce back is key to your success

Being able to bounce back after a missed ground ball or bad at bat, is key to getting the next one. When I played, I had a leave it in the dugout rule, this meant that whenever I made an error on the field, I could be mad about it in the dugout but I had to leave it there. The minute I stepped on the field again, I had to forget about it.  In life, your bounce back game must be strong, you HAVE to learn to be resilient quickly so that you can move forward.

3)    You must control your self-talk, or it will control you

At the end of my softball career, I learned to take mental notes after each game of how my self-talk was. I realized a correlation between how well I played and how positive my self-talk was. This taught me to be intentional about my self-talk and be aware of my thoughts. This started from the minute I woke up on game day. In life, we also must be aware of how our self-talk is affecting our life. We must take our thoughts captive to not let negative self-talk or harmful words of others impact our lives.

4)    Confidence is key

When I would mess up on the field, you could see the confidence being sucked out of me. I had to learn to be confident even when I wasn’t playing my best because my confidence affected my self-talk which affected my game. So I would reset after every play. I learned to be confident in my abilities, preparation, and my team. In life, we must be confident in who God says we are and in who He has created us to be. 

5)    You are your biggest competition

You can’t be worried about who you are competing against. You can only control how you show up. How prepared you are. Being the best at what you do is what matters. If you are working hard and being the best you can be, that is all you can control. Comparison will steal your job. Always be ready to leave your heart out on the field and in life.