patience towards progress

Patience towards progress. I love this topic as we enter the off-season of baseball and softball. It’s such a perfect time for us as coaches, parents and mentors to help our athletes see the opportunity they have right now to set goals for areas of their mental and mechanical game that they want to improve. It’s also also the time for US to have conversations with our athletes about the process and patience it takes to get better, and the fact that that doesn’t happen overnight or in one practice or lesson.

One of the biggest mistakes we see when our young athletes are training is that those supporting and coaching them don’t allow them to fall in love with the process. Athletes become so consumed with the results and the fear of failure that they don’t allow themselves to fully engage in the process that will ultimately create those results. We can be guilty of that as adults, because we can see what we want the athletes to do differently, change or adjust, but we don’t always have the patience to support them as they learn, fail and grow through those adjustments. We become fixated on what they’re not doing right, and want to correct everything at once. After being in the private instruction world for over 10 years, we’ve learned (and changed) so much about how we approach our instruction as we work with athletes. Creating a space where athletes are allowed to have patience with themselves and patience with the process is absolutely critical for their success in sports, but gives them the framework to do so in school and in life.

Here are a few things we do at 360 to encourage patience towards progress:

1. DELAY GRATIFICATION - delaying gratification is so foreign today as everything can be accessed in a click or swipe. Even writing this blog, with AI as accessible as ever, the temptation to throw my thoughts into ChatGPT and have it spit out a polished blog was certainly there, but was not in the best interest of those reading it (or even for myself to have to sit down and take the time to organize and articulate my thoughts for you all.) The same goes for our athletes. Something you will very rarely see at 360U in a session or lesson would be a group or athlete immediately jumping into live swings. Our athletes earn their live reps after thoughtful practice and reps on the tee and with their drill work. That makes our live reps all the more valuable and meaningful, and gives the sense of accomplishment during those swings.

2. EMBRACE FAILURE - this seems to be one of the most controversial stances in today’s coaching world. Notice we didn’t say "encourage failure" but instead "embrace" it. If your athletes are scared or nervous about your response as they are working through a new adjustment or challenging themselves to get better, they will undoubtably hold back and proceed with hesitation. Creating an environment at practice or on the car ride home where they can trust that their failure will be used for learning and teaching, rather than discipline or shame, will absolutely change the game for them.

3. MAKE IT FUN - At 360U, you’ll notice lots of energy, high-fives and kids having fun. This is intentionally designed and an integral part of our culture because we know an athlete that is engaged in what they are doing is learning and in an awesome head space to try new things and to challenge themselves. Athletes who are bored and going through the motions will only reinforce poor habits for themselves and will struggle to take away anything positive. Fun is okay. This is still a game after all.

4. BITE YOUR TOUNGE - this is more training specific, but worth a mention. Some thing we train our staff to do because we’ve learned this over many years. When you’re working with an athlete, especially younger athletes but even our most elite athletes, there’s a good chance you will notice two, three or even four things you’d love to get at and adjust right away - not out of criticism but out of excitement because you see their potential! BUT it is absolutely critical to not introduce ALL of these things at the same time, or even in the lesson. It takes an extreme amount of discipline because you want to help them see results as fast as you can, but it takes patience and foresight to know that introducing multiple adjustments at once will only confuse them and likely result in no progress whatsoever (and probably frustration for the kid). So moral of the story, be strategic about when and IF you decide to implement new adjustments -- timing is everything. So just have patience.