The Peak Performance Expert

In less than half an hour, my (note the possessive “my”) Red Sox will confront the L.A. Haloes for game 4 of the ALDS.  This is a game that should not have needed to be played but here we are. 

Tonight the Sox need to focus, focus, focus on each pitch and they must forget about any bloopers that happen and move on.

 As I’ve mentioned before, focus occurs on 3 dimensions: width -  focus is either broad or narrow; direction - focus is either internal or external; and time – our focus is on the past, the present or the future. 

Flexibility is key.  Although a batter might reflect on what he knows about the pitcher and consider the kind of pitch likely to come his way (broad-internal-past focus), he will perform better in the moment with his attention focused externally, on the pitch coming his way. 

This may sound elementary but the reason some batters get into trouble is they are thinking too much, either about the pitcher, the way they are feeling or their last at bat. This is where healthy amnesia comes in.  If a guy had a lousy at bat, he might want to briefly review what went wrong and how he can make it right but then he needs to forget about it and move on.  If not, his focus is narrow-internal-past instead of where it should be – narrow-external-present. 

Of course, all this holds true for the pitcher as well.  Look closely at the guys tonight.  Who’s the coolest customer?  Who is able to quickly review and learn from a mistake, shake it off, and move on?  That will likely be the winning pitcher…assuming he has a good offense piling on those runs! 

On with the game!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Mental Toughness, Red Sox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.