www.youtube.com/watch?v=RskGVeKjxpo

That’s it. If you don’t go hard, you make it tough to learn from your mistakes and tough to make sure they don’t happen again. Why? Because you’ll never really know if your “failure” happened because you didn’t go hard or because of some other issue.

Lack of effort can mask the real problem that caused the failure. It’s imperative that you go hard in order to properly troubleshoot your problems.

For example, if a player is running bases, doesn’t go hard and gets out, neither the player nor the coach know if they got out simply because they weren’t running hard or if they should have never been running in that situation to begin with.

What about those times you see a player sorta dive after a fly ball? If they don’t go hard for that ball, they’ll never know if that miss was because they shouldn’t have dove for the ball (it was too far away) or if they just missed it because they hesitated. Go hard and you’ll know the answer to that for next time!

How about that pitcher doesn’t throw her changeup “all out” and has it pounded? Tough to tell why it didn’t work. There’s more than one possible reason that pitch didn’t work, but throwing it without being fully committed to the pitch just adds one more possibility! Go hard and you make it easier to figure out what the real problem was in that situation.

If you want a weak “excuse” for your failures, continue to give half baked efforts.  Yes, it can be terrifying to do your absolute best knowing that you might still “fail” but it’s the only way you progress and grow into a better, stronger player or coach!

Most people agree that confidence plays a big part in softball performance.  Did you ever stop to think that self doubt or feelings of insecurity in other areas of life can spill over into softball?  It’s possible, but it’s tough to carry yourself with confidence on the field when you feel bad about yourself in other areas.

If you want to dramatically improve your softball performance, make sure you are making “deposits of success” in other areas of your life such as:

• relationships
• family
• leisure
• school/work
• faith
• personal development (including health/fitness)
• etc

If you are failing miserably in any of these areas, it WILL affect your softball performance.  Drama at home or with loved ones makes performing well on the field more of a challenge.  Eating poorly or participating in other bad health/nutrition habits also makes it tough to perform your best.  If you’re stressed out about a major problem at school or work, it very likely your softball performance will be less than optimal.

As much as we’d like to have softball be a separate, almost “sacred,” part of our lives untouched by anything else, the fact of the matter is, it’s not completely separate.  It’s part of your life and of you as a whole.  Take care of your “whole” self and your likely to do much better on the softball field!

A happy, relaxed, stress-free, confident YOU makes for a better overall softball player (or coach)!

The video below does an excellent job of capturing why I love NCSA.  I’ve always said that when my daughter starts her college recruiting journey, we would do so with NCSA by our side.  We took the first step toward that yesterday.

My husband, my daughter and I spent the better portion of an hour on the phone with a real, live person from NCSA yesterday. It was awesome. We got to see a number of really cool tools that we’re going to be able to use during the next few years.  Tools that will really help us save a lot of time and make things easier for us.

But the thing I loved most, was that they helped  my daughter see not so much that she “needs” to do the things I’ve been telling her, but that it’s actually what SHE “wants.”  That is going to stick with her and impact her far more than me beating it down her throat ever could.

I could just see the light bulb turn on because they didn’t just sit there and “tell” her what she needed to do, they “showed” her.  They helped her see for herself that all of these “must do’s” is not “because mom said so” but simply steps that will lead her to reach the goals that SHE really wants. I’m not sure this is something I could have ever accomplished on my own much less do in less than an hour.  If you’ve ever been the parent of a teenager, I’m sure you know what I mean.

One of the reasons I believe in NCSA company so strongly is because I got to visit their offices back in 2005.  I can tell you, if you ever get to visit, you will see first hand, that while NCSA is a business, it’s not about the money.

Many people think I only talk about NCSA because of the referral partnership I have with them.  I can honestly say for myself that it’s NOT about the money.  I really, really wish, that every family and every dedicated student-athlete I knew would allow NCSA to work with them.  I never feel bad about referring people because I know, without a doubt, that if those people decide to work with NCSA, it’s a choice they’ll never regret.

Anyway - PLEASE watch this video - not because it will give you a taste of what really drives the people at NCSA, but because it also contains some very important college recruiting concepts for you to understand and keep in mind as you go through the college recruiting process as a student-athlete OR as a parent!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvBukhyOorg

To Learn More about NSCA, fill out this form and a real live person will get in touch with you just like they did with me yesterday.

Wishing you the best along your college recruiting journey!  You don’t have to do it alone.

Watch this video, then think about whether or not you’re ready for this.  Think about whether or not you’re on the path to being able to handle this?  Are you training as hard as your competition?  Or is someone out there going to take your spot because they trained harder and prepared better than you?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRco1ZgQl9k

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI8MoPPZppI

As stated in the video: obviously every defender should try to make their throw as easy to catch on the receiving end. However, many more balls go from ss or 3b to 1b to try to get an out than from outfield to the infield yet most coaches aren’t too concerned with how the ball gets from 3b/ss to 1b so long as it gets there relatively straight and catchable. This is why I wanted to point on this situation so that coaches can help their SS and 3b get better and so that players who play those positions can make themselves better.

After all, if you play SS or 3b and you’re fighting for a starting position and the 1b can always catch your ball with no problem to get the out and the other person playing SS or 3b has a tougher ball to catch and the 1b is dropping 1 of 10 or even 2 of 10 balls, who do you think is more likely to get the playing time? Just something to think about…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=futaYiqRijw

In addition, with the economy the way it is now, I can certainly see some players not wanting to ask their parents to pay for applications fees to colleges they won’t be attending.  After all, if you apply to 5-7 colleges, obviously you won’t be able to attend all of them.  I remember feeling like it would be a waste of money to apply to colleges simply to “have more options.”  So I really didn’t apply to very many.  Thankfully I had the academics to be that picky.  Other student-athletes don’t.

In other cases, applying to just a few colleges could be a big mistake.  After all, what happens if you don’t get in to any of the ones you applied to?  I’m not saying you guarantee anything by applying to more schools, but you certainly give yourself a better chance at being accepted to a school you actually want to attend.

So, a few years back I remember wanting to help out seniors with at least one application fee.  That’s why you see a “Road to College” widget up at Fastpitch Talk Radio.  I want to give others the chance to join in this cause as well.  Since this is the first time I’m trying something like this, my goal is to help just 20 student-athletes (that participate in fastpitch softball) to pay for the application fee to ONE college of their choice.  If you’d like to help out, just click on the “Chip In” button in the sidebar at Fastpitch Talk Radio.

We’ll be talking about:

• Whether or not is useful to do conditioning at the 10-12U level?
• Whether or not it’s safe for kids to lift weights?
• Whether or not it’s “ideal” to do strength/conditioning/speed work during the season?
• How you can incorporate conditioning into your practices
• What you can do to get into the best softball shape possible in just a few weeks
• and a few more things that I haven’t listed here

Should be lots of fun and I hope you enjoy it!

Get more information about the call HERE.

Related Resources

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