10U & 12U Rising Stars Watch List Nominations Close December 14, 2024
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds
Nominations are now open!

The Mental Edge: Performance Trainer & Former DI Softball Coach Julie Jones… Ask These Questions to Improve Your Performance!

Get access to even more Extra Inning Softball content!

Every athlete faces it: a moment where the stakes are highest and the pressure intensifies… today, we learn some questions to ask in these moments to help us better improve performance in these times!

Extra Inning Softball has partnered with former DI softball coach Julie Jones (Akron, Cleveland State) and current Mental Performance and Mindset Coach to help give athletes, coaches and others in the softball world the “Mental Edge.”

Julie Jones

Julie spent 26 years leading Division I softball programs with her mission being simple: to build smarter students, stronger athletes and better people.

Today, she also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Ursuline College teaching well-being and performance, mindset training, athletic coaching and career development courses in both the undergraduate and graduate studies programs.

Continuing her work of helping student-athletes reach their goals on and off the field, Julie regularly sends Mindset Made Simple Tips to players and coaches across the country as well as posting them on her site, SSB Performance.

Today’s “Mindset Made Simple,” we learn from Julie some ways we can improve our performances when the stakes are highest.

She explains:

“If we can shift our mindset with a few questions, we can alleviate some of the pressure that is inherent in certain situations!”

Keep reading below to find out what those ways are (or watch her cover it in the video version on YouTube!):

 

*****

It’s March Madness time! There have been some GREAT GAMES so far and I LOVE championships in any sport.

Watching teams compete when it’s “win or go home” is thrilling.

I really came to terms with my love of championship competition when I had the opportunity to serve on the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Fencing Championships Committee.

Although I knew very little about fencing when I started, watching these athletes compete at the highest level was awesome! Although the sport was foreign in many ways, everything about the competition was familiar!

No matter the sport or arena, we all face very similar situations in competition and performance.

We tell our athletes that the game is always the same, no matter where we play or what tournament we are in.

It’s true. The game doesn’t change. Like the movie Hoosiers points out, the bases are still the same distance from the plate, the rim is still 10 feet from the floor, the pitch is still the same size (approximately), etc.

If only our minds were so consistent!

But things do change and watching champions, like those in the NCAA Fencing Championships, hammered home that how we handle pressure and expectations makes a huge difference in performance.

We can’t change what’s happened — good or bad — but we can be focused on the upcoming moment and ask other questions to help us be more outward reaching to help take the pressure off ourselves!

Admit it! We sometimes feel and act differently based on the ramifications of the game’s outcome. We think a little bit differently, we feel different and thus, we behave a little differently… and so do our players!

If we know this happens, how can we do a better job of managing the pressure we allow to slip in at conference or tournament time?

Clearly, the more we focus on routines and consistency, the better. The more we see what we want instead of what we don’t want makes a difference. And as we talked about last week, turning more our “what ifs” from thoughts of catastrophe to thoughts of victory, we are putting ourselves in a more productive position.

If we can shift our mindset with a few questions, we can alleviate some of the pressure that is inherent in certain situations!

Question 1
When the stakes are highest, being outward focused and asking “How can I help?” can help us be more self less!

First, think about how the pressure could wain if we could train ourselves to walk into practice and pressure-filled games and ask:

“How can I help?”

When we focus on what we can do to help others or make the situation better we take pressure off our own performance. This changes our perspective and forces us to look for solutions instead of looking for problems.

When we are looking to help, we are observing the situation – what is going on around us. It puts us in a selfless mode…meaning we are literally thinking of our SELF LESS!

This is often helpful since, when we are thinking of ourselves, we can get lost in that non-productive narrative that runs in a full-court press during pressure situations!

Question 2

Regardless of how helpful we are, things aren’t always going to go our way.

Successful athletes shake off mistakes to focus on the next play and ask: “What’s important now?”

Whether your sport has continuous play like soccer or basketball, or if you have built-in stops in play like softball or golf, how we manage those less than desirable happenstances determines how we face the next play.

That should prompt the next question of:

 “What’s important now?” 

We can acknowledge what happened. We all know it happened… but it is what it is!

The most important thing is that we move on to the next play or we will be a step slow as we hang on to what just happened or spend time fretting about what is about to happen. And we know what happens then!

As the sayings go, “full minds are empty bats and tight muscles are slow muscles!”

Isn’t it amazing how much of our physical action is determined by where our thoughts are at the moment?

Full mind = empty bat. This has nothing to do with our ability to hit the ball. It has everything to do with our ability to pick a pitch that will help make us successful.

Tight muscles = slow muscles. Again, this has nothing to do with our speed, flexibility or natural ability to react.

Both have everything to do with how we handle the pressure of any given situation. Are we present? What’s important now?

Question 3

You can go one step further if you have the time and ask:

How can I make the situation better?

Or break it down further into: Where are we? What do we need to do? How will we do it?

Athletes who are in control and want to help their coaches and teammates can ask, “How can I make the situation better?”

We don’t always have time to answer the three follow-up questions, but if we do, answering them keeps us searching for ways to help and move forward!

No matter how much time we have, no matter what’s at stake, no matter who we are facing, if we focus on how we can help and look for ways to make the situation better AND if we focus on what is important now, we are diffusing pressure by being outwardly focused and solutions focused. 

We are not worried about what we HAVE to do. We are focused on what we WANT to do and what we CAN do.

Seems like a pretty good place to be if we want to be our best!

As you look at your week, how can you help and what’s important now?

I am off to see how I can make my next team better 😊!

Have a great week!

Julie


To learn more from Julie check out her social media sites below; to contact her personally, she can be reached via email at: juliej@ssbperformance.com

SSB Performance:
Website: www.ssbperformance.com
Facebook: /ssbperformance
Twitter: @SSBMindset
Instagram: /ssbperformance

More
articles

Get the Latest Updates

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter

Sign up to receive immediate, daily, or weekly news updates!

Search

Transfer Tracker Updates

Fill out this form to submit your transfer updates. These changes are subject to approval.

Player Name(Required)
MM slash DD slash YYYY
Position(Required)

Interested in an Extra Elite 100 shirt?

Fill out the form below to verify that you’re part of the Extra Elite!

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.