Many baseball players struggle with these mental game challenges. Cleveland pitcher, Justin Masterson is aware of the mental battle with himself. Masterson helped the Indians beat the Red Sox 11-0 last Wednesday night.

“You get a little excited, but once you get on the field, it is game time. Half the time, the battle for me is with myself,” Masterson said.

Half of the battle is fighting with your own mind. Many ball players sabotage their performance; they can’t get out of their own way. They set high expectations for their performance. If you expect to perform perfectly or not make any mistakes you are setting yourself up for failure. When you don’t achieve those expectations, you become frustrated with your performance.

You can also sabotage yourself by adopting negative self-labels. Negative self-labels are confidence-busting names you use to describe yourself. You might tell yourself you’re a streaky hitter, for example.

Even though you may engage in self-sabotage, you can improve your mindset. First, let go of any expectations you have for your performance. Instead, focus on what you need to do in the moment to execute, such as seeing the ball well. Next, change your negative self-labels into positive ones. Instead of calling yourself a streaky hitter, tell yourself you’re a consistent hitter.

If you feel like you’re losing the mental battle, stay patient–you can improve your mental game with practice. Take time to become aware of your mental shortcomings and work to improve your mindset. A strong mental game can only benefit your performance.

A pre-pitch or at-bat routine is designed to help you:

•  Focus on what’s important
• Prepare consistently for the pitch or at-bat
• Feel confident before execution
• Trust your swing or throwing action

Phillies pitcher, Roy Halladay, recently threw a perfect game to beat the Marlins 1-0. Before his perfect game, Halladay was coming off a poor start this season. He had given up seven runs to the Red Sox in 5 and 2/3 innings. How was Halladay was able to turn his poor start around to throw a perfect game? He attributes part of his success to having a pre-pitch routine.

“I think you pitch the same regardless, even whether you give up a hit or not. I think you try not to be concerned with the score, one way or the other. You’re just trying to make pitches. That’s your only job. So, whether you’re giving up hits or it’s 5-0, 0-0, you’re just trying to make pitches,” said Halladay.

A common mistake that ball players make is to think too much about the score. Batters are often over concerned with their performance at the plate; they pressure themseles to make up for an 0-4 performance in the last outing. Pitchers might be thinking about how many runs they have given up or the current score of the inning. By having a routine, you are less likely to think results and more likely to focus on the process and your exectuion, one pitch at a time. A routine occupies your mind with what’s important, such as what you need to do to execute successfully.

If you notice you’re starting to think about the score, take a moment to regroup. Step out of the batter’s box , clear your mind, and refocus on execution. Find a thought to help you regroup. You might tell yourself to “Stop,” and remind yourself that that’s not important. Then, tell yourself what to focus on for this pitch only. You can focus on your plan for the pitch or seeing a good pitch, for example. Remember to keep things simple. You should only focus on one thought at a time.

Your mental game of baseball tip for today is to use a routine and stick to it. If you find yourself wavering from your routine or are distracted, take a moment to regroup and restart your routine.

For more information on preshot and pregame routines, check out The Relaxed Athlete

The Los Angeles Angels fell 0-6 to the Toronto Blue Jays Monday night. Angels pitcher, Joe Saunders, didn’t perform his best allowing three runs, four hits and five walks over 6 1-3 innings.

“It’s not really frustrating. It’s a good positive for me, knowing that I’m starting to get back to what I know I can do. But team-wise, it’s frustrating that we can’t pull out more wins. We just need to stay positive, and we need to execute better. We need to play the way we’re capable of playing. We just haven’t been doing that consistently this year,” said Saunders.

Confident athletes stay positive after losses, benefiting their performance. Positive thinking will help you bounce back from losses quickly. Instead of losing confidence after a poor performance, notice what you did well. You might have reacted quickly to a fly out or had a good strategy when you were down in the count. Then, take a look at what you didn’t do as well. Use that information to work on your weaknesses in practice and improve as a player. Above all, look at your weaknesses as opportunities for improvement rather than a sign of inadequacy.

Confident athletes are also patient. Many players tend to expect results too quickly. When you become impatient with your performance, you can speed through your routine, lose confidence and focus on the wrong things. Patient players are focused on execution and trust that a good performance will eventually come. Their confidence isn’t thrashed around by results. Patient players are focused on gaining their confidence from more stable sources, such as their preparation and practice.

Your baseball psychology tip is to bounce back quickly from losses by staying positive and patient about your performance. Take an objective look at your game after your performances and work to improve your weaknesses. Stay patient with your results and eventually things will fall into place.

Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester is one of those players who thrives in crunch time. Lester pitched his way out of a bases loaded scenario to help the Sox beat the Angels 5-1.

“It’s nice to be able to fight out off that and get the ‘W. When you’re able to get out of those jams, it just builds confidence. So when you get into games that really matter, you can draw back and say, ‘I’ve been here before,”’ said Lester.

Some players tend to freeze under pressure when the team depends on them. You might over think your performance and analyze too much, which leads to tight and tentative play.

How can you perform your best under pressure?

Pressure is really self-induced and comes from within yourself, not the situation itself. It’s best not to put pressure on yourself to get a hit or pitch a strike. Try to avoid thinking about the consequences of the game or your actions. Don’t think about “what-if” scenarios, which doesn’t help you perform in the moment. Instead, think about your strategy or the little things that help you perform in the moment. A batter may think about standing tall. A pitcher may think about his target.

You also want to draw on your confidence in those moments. Remind yourself of the times when you performed your best, just like Lester suggests. Replay those good performances in your mind to help you feel confident as you go up to bat or pitch to the next batter.

You can also rely on having an effective at-bat or pre-pitch routine. Use your routine to help you get into a confident and focused mindset, and stay in the moment. By focusing on what you need to do, you shut out distractions, and can focus on one pitch at a time. But keep it simple: plan it, see it, and do it!

You can also check out The Focused Athlete  to help you shut out distractions or The Relaxed Athlete to help you develop a pregame routine.

Recently, the Detroit Tigers blew a 6-1 lead game against the Texas Rangers. The Tigers were able to regroup and clenched an 8-6 win in the ninth inning. Brandon Inge played an important role in the Tigers’ victory with his second homer of the season.

“Sometimes you hit a spurt where no matter where you hit it, it ends up being an out. But that ends eventually. You try not to get too frustrated with things. I felt it was a matter of time. I needed to relax,” said Inge.

What can happen when a team lets the lead slip away? Below you’ll find the top mental challenges teams face that can cause them to blow a lead:

1. Thinking too far ahead. Some teams have thought they’ve won the game before it’s over. They lose focus in the present moment, such as the current pitch, at-bat, or game plan. Help your athletes think about what’s important to focus on in the moment, such as reading the pitch or focusing on the target. Remind athletes to refocus when they’re distracted.

2. Letting up because of a comfort zone. Some teams expect to win or lose against a certain team or by a certain score. Therefore, when teams are playing better than expected, they protect their score, sit on the lead and play tentatively. You’ll want your team to stay aggressive.

3. Lack of intensity or boredom. Related to the comfort zones, teams will lose intensity and feel that they are just going through the motions. They may have reached a state of boredom, not feeling challenged. Therefore, you’ll want to encourage your team to challenge themselves. You’ll want to set challenging goals such as varying your pitches or improving your fielding assists.

4. Trying too hard to keep a lead. Some teams will protect their lead and thus play more defensively. You think that you don’t have to score anymore runs and you can play good defense to win the game. This can be dangerous when your opponents win back momentum and make a run.

The goal in baseball is to win, score runs, and get a hit every time at-bat. This is obvious. If you dwell too much on winning or getting a hit, you can lose focus on execution. In addition, if you worry too much about the outcome, you can’t focus on what you need to do to get a hit. Results come from focusing on the process of execution. Focusing on the process is a simple concept to talk about, but one of the most difficult things for athletes to do consistently.

A key lesson I teach to baseball players is how to maintain a present focus. I often need to repeat myself several times and say the same thing in different ways to get the point across. Good results such as getting a hit and winning games comes from focusing on the process or paying attention to one play at a time; one at-bat at a time. You should “see” a positive result in your mind as you settle into the batter’s box. But you don’t want to become so fixated on getting a hit–”I need to get a hit”–that you worry about not getting a hit, going 0 for 4, and tighten up.

Some sport psychologists would say that choking is caused by not paying attention to what’s important —execution. When you focus on execution, it helps keep your calm and free of result-induced pressure. What do I mean when I say focus on execution? Execution is not focusing on the mechanics of hitting. You want to have a plan for each at-bat and stay committed to that plan.

By immersing yourself in your preparation—set-up, balance, visualizing a good at-bat, and focusing only on the pitcher, you put yourself in a position to get a hit. You can’t alter the outcome after the bat makes contact with the ball or the ball is in the catcher’s glove. Plan your at-bat, rehearse it in your mind, prepare your body, and react to the pitcher. What happens next is out of your control. You control your mental focus and you want to use this to your advantage when thinking about your mental game of baseball.

Total concentration is the ability to immerse yourself in a task without becoming distracted or pulled off task. Great players talk about concentration as being “in a bubble,” or “in a cocoon” during which nothing can penetrate their focus. Concentration involves several elements.

These include (1) knowing what cues to focus on; (2) staying focused on those relevant cues; (3) keeping a narrow and external focus; (4) the ability to shift attention when needed; (5) the ability to refocus when distracted; and (6) controlling your thought process. In this article, I discuss specific methods for sticking to the process and improving your focus.

(1) Stay Present Focused. You must keep your mind in the present moment on what’s important to play your best. This is easier said than done. It is easy to think about the last strike out you had or think ahead about the results of striking out. Know the task-specific cues you should focus on and be aware when you are not on task. Stop and refocus your mind on the task or on what you should think about to execute well.

(2) Think One At-Bat at a Time. Think about only the one pitch at a time to help you stay focused on execution. Separate each pitch from the rest and don’t think about the consequences of getting a hit. You don’t want to be thinking about the last inning when you are at the plate in the middle of the game.

(3) Don’t Think Results. If you think about what you don’t want to do, you’ll tighten up and make a controlled swing. When you think about results, you’ll create tension and indecision. Focusing on execution will help you get good results. In an earlier article, I discussed how your at-bat routine should help you focus on specific cues to follow as you prepare for each at-bat. If you don’t have a routine, the mind is free to wander aimlessly as you prepare for each pitch.

(4) Cue Yourself to Concentrate. Sometimes it’s hard to refocus when the last at-bat was 30 minutes ago. Lock in your concentration once it is your turn to at the plate. To help you click in, try using a physical trigger to focus your mind, such as tightening the Velcro on your glove before start. You want to turn your attention to preparation and execution for the first pitch, and if anything else enters your mind, let it pass through your mind.

(5) Relax Your Focus While You Wait. Not too many players can focus continuously for two to three hours. When you are up to bat it’s important to be ready, but you don’t want to grind and overanalyze the entire game. After each inning, relax your focus and save your concentration for the next time at-bat. This will help you be “fresher” for the end of the game.

(6) Rehearse While You Wait. Rehearse your at-bat before you’re up to play if you have trouble focusing after a long delay. For example, while on deck, imagine that you are at the plate taking pitches. Time your swing with the pitcher and “see” yourself make solid contact. When it’s your turn, you will be prepared to click in the focus because your have already rehearsed your at-bat routine.

This is an important lesson I teach–to get a hit or to get an out, you must pay attention to task-relevant cues. This simple concept is easy to forget when you care too much about winning or what winning means. “Don’t strike out,” “Don’t walk this hitter,” “Don’t miss this pop up ball” are examples of what you might say to yourself with a result-focus. A result-focus–worry about the consequences of your actions–does not help you perform; it only creates tension and leads to worry. This is when you have to refocus your mind on the current pitch.

How do you stay focused on the process? Focusing on the process means knowing what performance cues are in baseball and keeping your mind focused on those task-relevant cues. You need to define what is relevant to performing the task. In baseball, the batter has specific cues for each task he must attend to. Some of the task-relevant cues are: studying the pitcher, knowing the count, setting up in the batter’s box, visualizing success, feeling confident, and focusing on the ball as the pitcher releases it.

If your mind wanders off task, that means you are not “on-task” and you are too focused on results or some other distraction. It’s OK if your mind wanders momentarily, but you want to be able to catch yourself and refocus on the current pitch as soon as possible. In this example, I would ask the baseball player to stop his at-bat routine, clear his mind, and restart his routine from the beginning.

To improve your mental game for baseball or softball, define the cues that are relevant to baseball execution and success–one pitch at a time. Also, know when you get off-task, and be able to stop and refocus on the task when you wander to results or are distracted!

To keep practice interesting and exciting, practice goals are important. Set goals to challenge yourself during batting practice. For example, you can challenge yourself to hit 7 out of 10 solid shots. Imagine yourself in a game situation and try to hit the ball in play 7 of 10 tries. Play an entire 9 innings in batting practice. The more “games” you can play to make practice interesting, the better your focus. Reward yourself for meeting your practice goals.

Creating competition in practice is another great way to keep the fun and excitement in practice. Be creative with your practice, challenge yourself or play a game with a friend. Have a batting contest with a friend or teammate. One game I like is “call your shot.” Two players are needed to play this game. Each person takes 10 pitches. One person starts by calling his shot such as hard line drive down the center. The other player calls the next pitch and you alternate until you finish the 10 shots.

Next time you get bored and lose focus, try the “two-minute drill.” The goal of this drill is to sharply focus attention on practice for just two minutes. I know you can focus for two minutes! See how keenly you can focus for those two minutes. When the two minutes are over you can relax and space out if you want. The goal is to practice with focus and intensity for short periods. Short bursts of intense focus with periods of rest or inactivity is better than practicing with 50% focus for the entire practice. What you will find is that you can stretch it out to four or five minutes instead of just two minutes at a time.

Coping with failure

Mariano Rivera, relief pitcher for the Yankees says, “the secret is not so much confidence as focus.”

Focus and the ability to concentrate in the now is important to develop a strong mental game. To be able to perform, you have to be able to focus on performance cues. You can’t throw a good pitch or get a hit without focusing your mind on execution. The good news is that every ball player has the ability to focus. But sometimes your focus can get displaced.

Ball players can lose focus by letting negative emotions, such as frustration or anger, get the best of them. Mistakes can cause you to feel frustrated, such as missing a fly ball or walking a batter. When players become frustrated or angry, they spend too much energy and attention on mistakes. You’re essentially focused on the past, which hinders your ability to focus on the current pitch or play.

Mariano Rivera is a good example of keeping his emotions in check and staying focused one pitch at a time.

“Nothing derails him, Chad Gaudin says. “No emotions get in the way. Ever. He is able to take all that energy of the moment and channel it into everything he has to do. Why doesn’t everybody do that? Not everybody has the power or self-discipline.”

Even though there will be times when you’re frustrated with your performance, the key is to catch yourself before your performance spins out of control. You’ll want to think of the times where you are most likely to become frustrated. Do you become frustrated when you’re down in the count? Or maybe you get frustrated when you’re not performing up to your expectations. The first step is to be aware of mistakes that can trigger frustration so you can develop a plan to bounce back from them quicker.

Failure is a part of sports, especially in baseball. The key is to not demand perfection and to be more accepting of your mistakes. You certainly don’t want to dwell on your mistakes or beat yourself up. Save your analysis of errors for after the game. Use mistakes as a way to improve your game. Think of your mistakes as learning opportunity to better your game in the future.