10 Incredibly Easy Mental Hacks for Baseball

Learn to master the head game of baseball using these 10 incredibly simply mental hacks to help you be mentally tough in the field, at the plate or on the mound. Good ballplayers prepare and they build strong routines around those preparations. Whether in conditioning, stretching, practicing, warming up or playing, most successful players will tell you they have a routine they follow. Start to develop your own routine that allows you feel comfortable and at the top of your game. Consider adding these visualization techniques to build even more control into your game.

See it: Spend time before each game visualizing yourself making clutch plays. Whether hitting the ball, throwing, pitching or catching. See every aspect of that play, from start to finish, as if watching a movie in slow motion. Involve all of your senses. How will it look?

Smell it: Smell the fresh cut grass, the popcorn from the concession stand, and the leather of your glove. Involve any detail that will make the memory come alive as you recall it.

Taste it: Taste the sunflower seeds, gum or Gatorade you will have during the game.

Hear it: Hear the sounds of the crowd, the crack of the bat, and the pop of the ball as it hits your glove.

Notice it: Notice every little detail. How will it feel? Kick the dirt, feel the drop of sweat, the grip of the bat and the pounding of your heart before the three, two count pitch is thrown. Note your perfect body mechanics, knees bent, pushing off from the back leg, balanced extension, and two-handed perfect execution.

Feel it: Experience the intensity of the emotion that comes from making the big play. The feeling of adrenaline as you make an essential out or game winning run. How your heart beats faster and you jump in the air, ready to start celebrating with your friends. Each detail will further cement this memory in your brain.

Review it: Each time you see yourself successfully making that play, you will exponentially increase your chances of actually doing that when you are in that situation on the field. Because of the Reticular Activating System the brain, you are strengthening this important synaptic connection. Your brain only knows what you repeated tell it. If you tell the brain something often enough, it will work to make that happen. So keep playing that perfect movie in your mind (little details are important) and you are very likely to execute them the next time you are on the field!

Detach from it: When the movie doesn’t play out like you have envisioned it, you have to practice detaching yourself from it and moving on. Like being able to watch it on a video, seeing that it happened but not internalizing that it happened to you. Once you start internalizing that it happened to you, then it starts affecting your game. Then it affects your team, and not in a good way. You owe it to yourself and your team to detach from the error, own it, but move on from it. The next play must start fresh. You have to keep your mind from attaching itself to that error. Detach and let it go! Keep your head in the “here and now” game only. Detachment lets the past keep on going like water down the river… you can’t get it back again. Your focus must always be on what is coming downstream now.

Expect it: See yourself making the play. Always mentally talk yourself up. Have positive phrases to say yourself to stay mentally up if you start feeling bad about how things are going. If you go into an inning already worried or fearful of not being able to execute a play, then the brain will set you up for that outcome. It is essential that you see yourself as capable of getting the job done. That is why when teams start to lose focus they can let a game slip away. It is also why momentum can help a team rally, as this type of mental conditioning can work in the opposite manner to help a team.

Build it: Good ballplayers prepare and they build strong routines around those preparations. Whether in conditioning, stretching, practicing, warming up or playing, most successful players will tell you they have a routine they follow. Start to develop your own routine that allows you feel comfortable and at the top of your game. Consider adding these visualization techniques to build even more control into your game. When starting to create these visualizations start with small sessions, maybe one specific play. Find a quiet spot where you can be relaxed but alert. You may want to put on head phones and play a certain upbeat song (if that doesn’t distract you) and then begin creating the movie in your mind of the play going perfectly. Keep replaying it in your mind, adding more and more sensory details until it is so realistic you can’t imagine that play going any other way other than how you just imagined it. Then another time you can imagine another play or hit or pitch. Before a game, take time to sit quietly and mentally replay that movie that you created earlier. This is where that visualization becomes powerful. In a game situation, you can flex that memory like a flexing a muscle and it becomes easier to execute that play just as you imagined. If it works for top athletes, there is no reason, it could not work for all athletes. It just requires desire to succeed and commitment to try.