Lake Zurich Baseball and Softball Association

Instead, measure success by focusing on:

• things you can control
• whether or not you played to your potential
• things that you learned at the game and that you can use to improve

After every game, do a quick assessment:

• Did I play to my potential?
• Did I take good at bats and / or throw quality pitches?
• Did I hustle and play aggressively?
• Was I mentally in the game on every pitch?
• Was I a good teammate?
• What mistakes did I make?
• What lessons did I learn?
• Do I feel good about my performance?

Answers to these questions are much more important then whether or not your team won or your own personal stats.  Start defining success based on your answers to these questions, not statistics.  These questions focus on the process of playing baseball or softball.  And playing ball is all about the process.  If you learn to be successful in the process of playing softball, I guarantee you that your personal stats and your team win loss percentage will improve.

So when people ask you “How was the game?”  Your answer will start sounding something like, “It was great!  We played a very good team and it was a real competitive game.  I had a couple of really good at bats against a very good pitcher.  On the mound, I struggled with my control a little so I need to do a better job of hitting locations with my fastball.  But we played hard and it was fun.”

Please don’t misinterpret this.   You still need to try to win every single game and battle every at bat and every pitch of every game.  Good ball players are relentless competitors who never give in to defeat.  But don’t let your definition of success be simply determined by the results of the game.  The process is more important.