The Fearless Warrior Podcast

094: 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before College Softball

• Amanda Schaefer

Share episode

If you could go back in time, what would you change? What message would you tell yourself? On this week's episode, I go down memory lane and share my love letter on 10 essential lessons I wish I knew during my college softball career. 

Episode Highlights:

• Take the weight room seriously
• The Spotlight Effect 
• Your relationship with coaches and teammates takes on new meaning when you understand their true motivations
• Listen to your mom's advice to have fun while playing
• Your dad pushes you because he cares deeply
• Mental skills matter
• Develop interests outside softball
• You are enough

If any of these lessons resonated with you, I'd love to hear your feedback! My DMs are open on Instagram, or leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube. 


More ways to work with Fearless Fastpitch

Follow us on Social Media

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the fearless warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success, so if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. All right, this is not going to be your typical podcast episode, and I have this thought how cool would it be to send you a love letter, a note, a thing of all the things I wish I would have known? And if you can know these things, I think you're gonna be way more prepared, especially for college.

Speaker 1:

I put this list together one day after my workout and I thought man, if I could go back? One of the techniques I use with clients all the time is go back. What message would you tell yourself? What have you changed? What has been different? What are the lessons that you've learned, because, even as a mental performance coach, I will instruct you to realize your superpower and your lessons, which are far more valuable than anything I can tell you. So I'm speaking from experience. These are the 10 lessons I wish I knew in college, and here's what I'm going to do I'm going to lay them out for you, I'm going to read them to you and then I'm going to go in depth. This is going to be about a 15 to 20 minute episode as I record this for you. So this would be great to listen to on the way to a game, a practice, a lesson, and I think you're gonna find it really insightful because, just reflecting on some of these, it just has been really powerful. So here they are.

Speaker 1:

Number one take the weight room seriously. Number two understand the spotlight effect. Nobody is paying attention to you as much as you are. Number three your coach wants you to succeed. Number four mean girls will be mean, and it means more about them than it does about you. Number five your teammates don't have to be your best friends, but when you have each other's backs, no matter what, you'll make some amazing memories. Number six your mom was right. Have fun. Number seven your dad was hard on you because he cared. Number eight mental skills matter. Number nine there's so much more to life than softball. And number 10, you are enough. You will always be enough.

Speaker 1:

Now, if any of those piqued your interest, stay tuned. I have notes for you on each of these and why they're so important. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we've been putting our podcasts on YouTube. Forgive me as I look down at my phone. I took so many notes in the past couple weeks. I've been adding to this, reflecting on some of these, going back down memory lane, and if I can help prevent you from experiencing some of these heartaches, then I'll have done my job. So let's dig in this one I have a lot of thoughts on.

Speaker 1:

Take the weight room seriously. Strength serves a crucial purpose, and the mistake that I made, especially in high school, is you're given these workouts and the weight room environment becomes a because I told you so environment. I always felt like the weight room during the summer months was hey, I'm just in the weight room to show my high school coach that I'm committed, I'll check the box, I'll do it. And then, once I was in the weight room, it almost felt like a punishment, like we were just trying to get into shape. And it's not just about getting into shape. If I know what I know now.

Speaker 1:

If I would have taken the weight room seriously, I think it would have unlocked another level for me, because I know it sounds kind of ridiculous, but it's about building strength, and I didn't realize that as a high schooler. And so if we're stronger and faster, it can also prevent injury, and so there's a lot of myths around it. I avoided lifting heavy on my arms because I thought, as a pitcher, it would bulk me up, and that's further from the truth. It would have prevented injuries and I had shoulder injuries and I think I could have avoided that by strengthening all the muscle groups instead of just throwing, throwing, throwing and so, again, you're not going to get bulky and I was wrong. And if I would have been taught the correct form, I highly suggest hiring a trainer or if you have a lifting coach.

Speaker 1:

I think one of the mistakes is during summer months if you're a parent listening to this you sign your kid up for summer conditioning and lifting. That's in a huge group and you know the music is blaring and we have an hour to shuffle 80 kids, 100 kids I don't know how many kids are at your school but if you feel like you're not getting the attention you need and you're not doing the correct form it's so valuable to understand form in the weight room over reps and then what happens is we were just told, add more weight, add more weight. Well, if you're doing the incorrect form, adding more weight is also going to create anxiety. And so even today, I'm lifting more than my PRs in my prime of my 18-year-old self, my 21-year-old self. I'm lifting more now because I also have the mental ability to not psych myself out. I remember putting plates on the bar and remembering in high school I can't lift this, this is too heavy, and it felt so heavy on the bar and I felt like my back was going to give out. And now I have the mental coaching, I have the physical coaching to lift stronger, better, and so if you have big goals, like if you're thinking about playing division one softball or D2 softball or just playing college softball if you start to take the weight room seriously now, it's going to propel you so much further ahead, especially from where I was. So take the weight room seriously and have fun with it. It doesn't have to be a negative environment for you. It can actually be fun and competitive on how you can get better yourself and increase your weight.

Speaker 1:

All right, number two understand the spotlight effect. So next week's podcast episode, after this one, stay tuned. Because Hannah Pryor is a good friend of mine. She helped me kind of unveil what this is, what it means, and so I'm going to give you a little preview of next week's podcast episode. Nobody is paying attention to you as much as you are.

Speaker 1:

The spotlight effect is a psychological phenomenon where people overestimate how much others notice them, particularly their mistakes or embarrassing moments, and so it comes from the ego. We all have an ego, and so the ego causes us to feel like our world revolves around us, because we are at the center of our world, and so naturally it regards you as the center of your existence rather than simply in the world where everyone has their own spotlight on them. And so one of the things I ask all the time with my one-on-one clients is hey, tell me about a teammate, and then you know, or somebody at school, and I said I want you to tell me in great detail what did they wear last Wednesday, and sometimes they can tell me and for the most part they can't I don't know what they were wearing. Could you tell me what you were wearing last Wednesday? Yeah, you could, because we agonize over how we are perceived in the world, and so what I want to remind you is that it's not about you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, it may feel like when you're pitching or when you're hitting, the whole ball field, the stands, the coaches, your teammates everybody's looking at you, and then when we strike out or we fail, we feel like everybody is judging us. And it's just not the case, because when I ask hey, if your teammate were to make an error, what do you think of them? Do you think they're so dumb, they're horrible? No, you think, oh my gosh, they made an error. That sucks. I hate that. When that happens to me, they're good, I know she'll get it next time, and so the spotlight effect is really something when you start to understand people just aren't paying attention to you as much as you're paying attention to you. I think that would have been really helpful in college, because I felt like everybody from my high school was like following my college journey, because I was really good in high school, and then I started to struggle in college. Nobody cares, like really I don't say that to be mean, but people aren't paying attention as much as you think they are.

Speaker 1:

Number three your coach wants you to succeed. This piggybacks off of number two. Because we care so much about ourselves. We feel like we have a chip on our shoulder. We have to prove it to our coaches. We have to prove our playing time that our coaches are obsessing over us and what we're doing and what we're not doing. Or, um, I think this happens a lot where maybe you were hitting in the two hole or the four hole and you got moved to the eight hole or the nine hole, and then we immediately attach a meaning to us. What does it mean about us? Oh, it means my coach doesn't trust me, it means that I'm not a good enough hitter. Or if we get pinch hit, for what does it mean about us? And if you can zoom out, your coach also has their own spotlight effect. So what's your coach's job? Your coach's job is to write a lineup to give your team the best possible chance to win. So in this case we're making it mean something about us when really it could mean nothing about us at all and maybe our coach needs our speed in a different spot. Maybe our coach wants to give us a different look. Your coach wants you to succeed. So if you're not currently succeeding or you feel pressure in the four hole or as the lead off, maybe they're mixing it up so that you can succeed.

Speaker 1:

And again playing time. Another great example If your coach isn't playing you in bracket play or your coach isn't putting you into pitch against tougher teams, they could be protecting you because they want you to succeed and they feel like you're not at that point to feel like you could succeed in that situation. And so, again, open communication and figuring out okay, what is my coach really doing? And that's where those conversations come in, where you can get that feedback from your coach. Like, hey, what are you seeing? Talk me through this. And I would say seven out of 10 coaches are going to have that conversation with you. Three out of 10 coaches are probably going to lie to your face. But if you want that constructive feedback, three out of 10 coaches are probably going to lie to your face. But if you want that constructive feedback, your coach's job is to win and so, especially in college, at the college level. They have their own ego and their job is to win, and this is true for high school as well.

Speaker 1:

If they have 30 kids on a roster and I can only fit nine kids on the field, 10 with a flex their job is to create a lineup that matches with the team goals and their goals to win ball games. Again, it doesn't feel as good when you don't make that lineup, but it's not because your coach hates you, it's literally because they want the team to succeed. And how you fit into that is just a moving puzzle piece and oftentimes coaches will forget even down to like. I've had clients and I've experienced this where I play other positions. Does my coach know that I play shortstop, third base, first base, like why why is he not rotating me and why is she not putting me in? And I want you to remember when a coach has like 30 kids on a roster, they're not just thinking about you, they're thinking about so many other things and how you fit into that puzzle piece. The best recommendation is how can you contribute to the team and how can you help your coach succeed and see it from their point of view. That might require you to put in some extra reps, all right.

Speaker 1:

Number four mean girls will be mean, and it means more about them than it does about you, and so I want to talk about mean behavior. It can also be referred to as relational aggression, and so this has so many factors, and so I'm going to read you a few. This starts in middle school, and the reason that we create this, especially with females, is that we have to find our position, we're jockeying for position, we're feeling like we need to grasp control, and so this all stems from social status. And so when you start to experience, for the first time, self-doubt insecurities, you will whether you're a mean girl or not you will find ways to reestablish that security. And so sometimes, in order to increase our social status or gain popularity, that's when we make mean moves, we say mean things, we exclude people from groups, so if you've ever been in a situation where you're excluded from a lunch table or so-and-so invited you to a party, but the other person didn't, it's all social status and the need to feel accepted, and so this restarts in high school and it restarts in college, and so oftentimes, girls are taught to be nice because they don't want to disrupt the social status, and so far, often what happens is in male dominated groups. They'll say it like it is. They'll tell it to your face. In female dominant groups, they will be nice to your face, but then talk behind your back. And again, what I want to remind you is that it means more about them than it does about you. And so what you can do in these environments and I dealt with this in college because I felt like an outsider as a technical transfer is you have to be so secure in your confidence and your abilities that you don't give them access to disrupt your own identity, regardless of the social status. And so one of the comments I'll make on that is like, as you move into new environments and you have to re-figure out the hierarchy, a lot of my clients I've coached through their freshman year of high school really difficult, their freshman year of college really difficult, and my tip for this is that when someone's being mean to you, stay true to your identity, stay true to who you are, and when you lay your head down at night, remind yourself that you have not changed and the right people will come into your world and the right people will become friends with you. So on that.

Speaker 1:

This is why I wanted to talk about number five. Your teammates don't have to be your best friends, but when you have each other's backs, no matter what, you'll make some amazing memories. I experienced this in high school and I experienced this in college. I was not friends best friends with my teammates outside of softball maybe a few here and there, but it's very unrealistic to expect that the whole team is going to be best friends. And there's lots of team bonding and coaches are going to try to organically and forcefully create these friendships, and if you're a coach listening to this, I would also advocate team bonding is great, but when we create trust, what that means is is when we step on the chalk lines. I got your back and some of my greatest teammates we still joke about it today. We were all very different people and I specifically remember in high school there were six of us and when we stepped onto the field, we knew, no matter what, that we had each other's backs and we made some great memories. High school was great.

Speaker 1:

College was a little bit harder, because now we come into social status of different majors, different interests, there's partying, there's decisions that are made that really are going to challenge your identity. And so if you're not comfortable with underage drinking, you're not comfortable with certain activities, again going back to your confidence in yourself, if you can come to those relationships and say you do you, I'm going to do me. But when we step on the chalk lines in college, I've got your back. But when we step on the chalk lines in college, I've got your back and that served me really, really well and I wish I would have known this a little bit sooner. Again, these are lessons that, if I can impart on you now, I didn't really figure this out until senior year, because at that point all of us were seniors. We had been through a lot. We had been through coaching changes, we had been through crappy seasons, we had all been through injuries and we just wanted to enjoy our senior year. And if we could all go back. I still talk with my college teammates and some of them are some of my best friends today outside of softball and we didn't get to that place had we not gone through that adversity. And so when adversity strikes again, we have to challenge that social status and come together and have each other's backs on the field, and sometimes that takes some tough conversations. So, again, don't feel like you have to force being friends with somebody if it violates your identity and your values as a person, but then when you agree on what that is on the softball field, I think coaches can do a lot to foster that in team culture.

Speaker 1:

Number six Okay, these are my favorite. The last five are my favorite. Number six your mom was right have fun. In this kind of situation I always share the story that I would be pitching on the mound and my dad would always be yelling keywords like glove up, ab or like throw a change up. We had like secret signals and he was constantly coaching me. My mom, on the other hand, would sit calmly in the stands and if she could tell that I was frustrated, sometimes embarrassingly, she would yell out AB, smile, have fun. And at the time I was so embarrassed and it would irritate the crap out of me and I would get so frustrated with my mom because it's embarrassing. But she was right and I feel like the years that I really needed this the most were middle school, as I was facing tougher batters. I was facing, you know, tougher competition. We were playing 14U and then, when I started playing second year 14U. I played high school division. So I played 18U for about four to five years and I was facing really tough competition.

Speaker 1:

And when we start to create that higher level, there's higher pressures and we lose sight of why we signed up for the sport in the first place. And so if you're finding yourself feeling burnt out, losing your why, feeling frustrated at the long seasons, then your mom was right. The whole point of this is to have fun, and so a mother's job is to nurture, and so please don't get frustrated with your mom Again. Going to my senior year of college, when I knew my career was ending, it was a lot easier for me to have fun because I had nothing left to lose. If you can tap into that now, it's going to serve you so much better in the long run. So shout out to mama you were right and I wish I would have had more fun sooner.

Speaker 1:

Number seven your dad was hard on you because he cared. I talk with this with a lot of my clients because you're at a high level. Your parents are investing a lot of time, a lot of money for you to be successful, and what happens is we get so ingrained in being successful that there's pressure there from our parents as well, because our parents want us to be the best versions of ourselves, and the reason that our dads are hard on us is because they see all the hard work that we've put in, typically in a dad role, a dad's job is not to nurture, like typically a male who is a father figure. Their job is to kind of guide the family right and in a traditional sense. That's what I experienced and I know. Not everybody has traditional families, but everybody has this, this person in their life that is going to push them. And so if this person in your life is pushing you really really hard, the one thing I want you to remember is that they're doing it because they love you, they see your full potential. They're just doing what they think is best to help you succeed, and so my dad cared a lot and I knew that my dad loved me and therefore he knew he could push me when he really needed to. And so if you have somebody in your life that is just pushing you really really hard, I encourage you to zoom out and figure out why and maybe that takes a conversation and coming and communicating that as well so my dad's no longer in my life. He's been gone for eight years now and I would give anything just to pitch to my dad on a bucket one more time. Pitch to my dad on a bucket one more time.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number eight mental skills matter. I don't really have to go too deep into this, because we've done a whole bunch of other podcast episodes on this, but the one thing I will say is that I did not invest in my mental game. In fact, I was doing things that would deteriorate it. So I didn't challenge my negative voice and I would do very superstitious things, like I would tie my shoelaces as tight as I could. And if my shoelaces were tight or my hair was done a certain way or I listened to this specific pregame song, then I would be successful. And those are based on superstitions, not mental skills. And so if I could go back, I would do better with my self-talk. I would challenge those negative beliefs.

Speaker 1:

I was using visualization, but I would use it the correct way and use it more. It was a very visual picture. I could see the next pitch. I could see myself throwing pitches. I would use it to get more reps. I would also use routines better. I talked about that Failure recovery. I was doing a little bit of failure recovery by going to the back of the circle, grabbing chalk, resetting myself, but again, it was sporadic. Sometimes I would do it, sometimes I wouldn't.

Speaker 1:

And what I will say on this is inside the Fearless Warrior program, the members that are starting to understand how to use mental skills and when to use mental skills. Each skill has a place, just like physical skills. Each skill is going to be used at a different time and we're not going to be using all the skills at once. So a good friend of mine uses the analogy of a surgeon. We have these tools right, but a surgeon is not going to go into surgery and use 10 tools at the same time. It just it's not. It's not going to work. A good surgeon is going to know what tool to use when in what situation, and that's the same with your mental skills. And so, again, I'm a mental performance coach and, knowing what I know now, I know that my career would have been way more successful had I invested in using these skills at an earlier age. All right, number nine, there's so much more to life than softball. I'll leave you with this from my college experience is that at some point your career is going to end, and one of the things that I felt really good about is in college.

Speaker 1:

My number one tip for you is to not just let softball be the only thing on your plate. Join a club, find friends outside of softball. Go do fun things like try restaurants, go to coffee shops, find something to do like kayaking or like a lifetime sport. I get that you can't go skiing or skydiving, but you need something outside of softball to carry you through when softball is really really hard. And this could be something as simple as like reading a book or, again, having a friend you can lean on outside of the softball team, because in college your roommates are typically softball teammates. You lift together, you go to class together, you eat together, you're in study hall, and every waking moment feels like you're with your softball teammates. There has to be something outside of softball in your life. Huge recommendation there. And lastly, number 10, you are enough. You will always be enough. You will never, ever have to wonder if you're good enough, because there was a time in your life before softball was in it, and there will be a time in your life that softball will not be in it, and whether you go three for three or over three, you're the same person.

Speaker 1:

I could strip away softball from your identity and you could. I said this today on a client call. I thought it was really cute. You could go be a competitive sandcastle builder. And if you are who you are and how you were made, if you're a competitive person, if you find joy in competing or you are a type of person that loves to strategize, well, that's who you were made as a person and it can be applied to anything. And so if you weren't playing a sport and you were doing something else, like building sandcastles, that doesn't change in who you are. Whether you're building sandcastles or racing a bike or family game night, your competitiveness, your ethics, your humor, what makes you you will still be there, even if your sport's not there, and I know that's hard for some of you to fathom.

Speaker 1:

And if you're listening to this, that's my message for you. You is that you are enough. Your sport does not define you. And if you can learn these 10 lessons now, I would love to hear your feedback on which one really opened your eyes the most, and just the fact that you're here right now learning these lessons. I'm so proud of you. Keep doing the dang thing. Play the sport because you love it and it's fun, and the rest will follow. The stats will follow, recruiting will follow. Everything will fall into place how it's meant to be.

Speaker 1:

Again, I had so much fun reflecting on these 10 lessons. If I could go back and tell myself these 10 lessons and learn them sooner, faster, just a little bit different I think I would have had more fun in my playing career, and not that I didn't have fun. But if I can give these to you as a gift this is a gift from Coach AB let me know which one of these resonated with you. My DMs are open. So if you have any questions on these, shoot me a DM. If you just loved this episode and you want me to do more of these, my DMs are open. Dm us on Instagram. If you're watching this on YouTube, let us know in the comments. And I'm so glad you're here in the Fearless Warrior podcast. Thanks for being a great listener, and that's it for now. Thanks for listening.

People on this episode

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host