The Fearless Warrior Podcast

123: Do These 3 Things to CRUSH Your Tryout with Confidence

• Amanda Schaefer

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In today's episode, I am going to give you 3 POWERFUL things you can do tonight that will set you up for success whenever your tryouts are:

1. How to not let your identity be defined by your sport.
2. How to journal so you feel prepared and confident in your skills.
3. How to productively evaluate your performance.

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Welcome And Tryout Season Context

SPEAKER_00

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, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. This is going to be a really fun episode because it is very rarely that I get to do solo episodes. Welcome to my new office. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see my new office. I wanted to have fun with this because there is a theme that is popping up with all of my one-to-one clients, and it is tryouts. It is currently February, and so if you are going into tryout season soon for high school, and we're also going into the travel season in a huge part of the country. And so I thought I would take a moment to address some themes, and I want to give you three powerful things you can do that will set you up for success whenever your tryouts are for whatever team. Okay. You can pause this episode at any point. This is a great opportunity to get a pen and paper, a journal, if you will, to be able to reflect and write some things down. Chances are your parents probably sent you this. And so if you're new here, hey, I'm Coach A B. I coach high performers all over the country, and I work with a lot of softball athletes. But the examples that I use, I will try to work with any sport or if you're a multi-sport athlete. So with that, let's dive in to the three things you should absolutely do before tryouts. Number one, write this down. You are not your sport. You are not your sport. When you know who you are, nothing else and nobody else can define you. Not your stats, not where you hit in the lineup, not what position you play, not where you fall on the depth chart, whether you're a freshman or a senior, and definitely not whether you get a certain jersey, whether that's making the team, making JV, or even making varsity. None of that will ever define you. So here's how you're gonna remember this. As a washed up 35-year-old mom of three, I can tell you wholeheartedly that while you're experiencing this right now as a teenager, it might sting when you don't make the team, or you're nervous, or you're worried about it. And it feels really big. And I promise you, 20 years from now, it will not feel as big. I promise. The problems I'm facing today are the problems my dad warned me about. He would say, Don't grow up, just be a kid. And I rolled my eyes at him. So if your parents are telling you things like, You got this, don't stress, I believe in you, they're not just saying it to make you feel better. They really do believe it and they have the life experience to back it up. Right now, my days are filled with answering emails and running payroll and submitting taxes. These are all boring adult things. And I would give anything to be able to have a tryout, to be able to wake up early for morning lifting or morning conditioning. And so please hear this with a grain of salt that if I could put my softball pants on, if I could lace up my cleats, if I could just have one more game, you two will be in my shoes. And this is the conversation that I wanted to have with you is a lot of the conversations with my one-to-one clients, a really great technique is to zoom out. This is just one part of your life. It's not your entire life. And if you can just take a little bit of pressure off of this one tryout, this one year, I want you to enjoy it. So here's your first task. I want you to write these journal prompts down. And this one has three steps. Again, you can pause it or you can come back to it as well. So, step number one, I want you to list all of your identities. Athlete is probably the one that comes to mind first, but it's just one of them. Or more specifically, you could say, I'm a softball player, I'm a pitcher, I'm a catcher, I'm a soccer player, a basketball player, and so on. Then you're gonna add all of your other identities, such as sister, daughter, student. Again, there's lots of those that you could think of. And then any other sports you do or your hobbies. Are you a pianist, a drummer, a dancer, self-proclaimed chef? Are you a reader? And any other things that make up who you are. Are you a Christian? Are you a Nebraskan? Are you a coffee lover, a dog lover, a Husker fan, a nature lover? Pause it and see how many identities you can come up with. And all of these things include how you spend your time. So think about how do I spend my time? Now, a lot of your time is spent in your sport, and that's okay, but it won't always be that way. So go ahead and list all of your identities that you can think of. Step number two, I want you to put a star by the identity of your sport, specifically the one that you might be stressing about, because tryouts are coming up. Once you've starred that, step three is to reflect. This is a really powerful question. When I have done this in trainings, sometimes it brings up tears, and that's okay. This is the question I want you to write down and reflect on. If this identity was no longer a part of my life, am I still me? Now, if you'd like to pause and go ahead and do that now, I'll read it one more time. Write this down. If this identity was no longer a part of my life, am I still me? As I continue on, if you've unpaused this, I'm going to spoil the answer. So if you haven't paused by now, I would highly recommend pausing and journaling on that and reflecting on it. This thing that you starred, it's very important to you, this identity as an athlete. But one day, this identity will fade away. It feels big right now because it occupies a lot of your time and a lot of your life, especially if you've been playing since you were five or six. And the reality is, many of us do not get the opportunity to play our sport in college, let alone professionally. And even if that's your dream, eventually you will have to hang up your cleats. The best case scenario is that you get to play into your 20s and maybe your 30s, but if you can zoom out for me, again, I'm 35, and my life isn't even close to half over, God willing, you will have so much more to your life than these fleeting moments. And my goal for you is this: would you rather spend these years playing the sport you love and stay in love playing it, and it brings you joy instead of stress. It's not what you do. Sorry, let me rephrase that. It is what you do, not who you are. So softball is what you do, it's not just who you are. And spoiler alert, to answer the question, if this identity was no longer a part of my life, am I still me? And it's yes. If I go O for three, am I still me? Yes. If I go three for three, am I still me? Yes. Whatever happens, nothing gets to define who you are. So go into tryouts knowing it doesn't matter what team you make or where you fall on the depth, can you ask yourself at the end of the day, am I still me? And the answer is yes. Okay, this leads me to the second thing that you should do to prepare for tryouts. Number two is to create your confidence receipts. And this comes from Justin Sua. I love this concept. Um, it can be called many things, like the confidence cookie jar, the proof, the evidence. But I like the idea of receipts. If you were to prove to somebody that you purchased something, you would need a receipt. And so the brain is wired to find evidence of what it believes to be true. So if we're gonna use the neuroscience to our advantage, we're gonna give our brain what it craves: proof. And this is not fluffy I am statements, it's not cheesy, it's not motivational quotes, this isn't even a pep talk. This is real, evidence-based, the skill of self-talk. Not positive self-talk. If you're in our programs, you understand the difference, but neutral self-talk. What are the facts? Get ready to write this second journal prompt. This is number two for you. And there are also three parts to this one. Let me explain it first, and then we can break it down part by part. I have prepared for by therefore. Sounds kind of weird, but I'll put it together. So step one is write down this line. I have prepared for. And then you're actually going to insert in this case, tryouts. I've prepared for this event. You're gonna insert the event. In the future, you could use this journal prompt for a camp, for a recruiting visit, for an interview, a big test. You could use this journal prompt for anything. But in our case, the first line should say, I have prepared for tryouts. Second line, and you're gonna leave lots of room to create bullet points, is buy. And you're gonna list as many things as possible of what you've done to prepare. I've prepared by going to lessons, I've prepared by going to practice, getting extra reps in the backyard, in the basement, in the garage, sessions with your mental performance coach, sessions in the weight room, camps you've been to, skills you've picked up, PRs you've accomplished. If you've been working towards a PR and you finally got it, I hit 70 exit v low. I hit my first over-the-fense home run. Anything that you've done to prepare for this moment counts towards this. Past teams that you've made, tournaments that you've won, anything in your past that can create this evidence to your brain that you can and you have done it. And then the final piece is therefore. I have prepared for tryouts by bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Therefore, I can compete knowing. I can compete knowing that I've done everything I can to possibly prepare. I can do my best. I can leave it all on the field. Whatever belief you need to feel confident going into tryouts, finish that sentence. I have prepared for tryouts by da da da da. Therefore, I can have fun at tryouts. Whatever belief you want. And anytime your brain tries to throw a negative thought loop into your mind, you get to remember this cheat sheet, your confidence receipts. You have proof that what you said is true. Therefore, you get to refocus and have something to go to when those negative thoughts creep in. It's not a matter of if they do, it's when they do, and you'll be ready. I love this one. And this tool, again, you can do this as many times as you need. It's very powerful to review this the night before tryouts. So if you do this exercise early, revisit it the night before tryouts. All right, the third and final powerful tool I will give you. It's something we do every single session inside Fearless Warriors. And even when we meet as a staff, if you're in a meeting, a group session, a one-to-one with me, we start every single call the same exact way. So much so that if you're listening to this and you're a fearless warrior inside our programs, you're gonna say it with me. Ready? Wins. A win is a win, is a win. I sound like a broken record. If you're inside, you know I say that every single call. So what's a win, Coach A B? A win is something that is something good in your life that you notice or that you celebrate. Nothing is too small, nothing is too big. I think we have a tendency sometimes to not want to share our wins because we don't want to come across as overconfident or cocky. But if you can back these wins up, you're celebrating it. It's not for other people, it's for you. And so it could be related to your sport, it could be a gratitude in your life. The key is that when you look for the good, the good gets better. You start noticing more things that are going good rather than going wrong. And so I'll give you a very real example of this. Let's say you're going into trials with a worry or a belief that you're not good enough. What you've just programmed in your brain is a psychological state that will follow with emotions that match those thoughts. Your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings create your actions, and your actions drive behavior. This comes from CBT theory, and it's a loop. And if you have the thought that I'm not good enough, you're going to manufacture feelings of insecurity, doubt, worry, possibly even anger or frustration, especially when you make a mistake, because your brain is looking for evidence to support that belief. And so you're going to say, see, I told you I wasn't good enough. You're going to feel tension in the body, and your actions will follow that emotional state. And so from these actions, you will start to behave in a way that creates more evidence. So the more mistakes you make, you're going to look to your coach's reaction. You're going to slump even more. And then you're going to find yourself saying, I knew I wasn't going to be able to make varsity. And the loop continues. And we're going to continue to find evidence that supports whatever you've been telling yourself. So if this is true, the opposite is also true. So if you didn't have a good tryout because you weren't good enough, is it because you weren't actually good enough, or because you let the thought that you weren't good enough hijack your brain and affect your performance? And so this is why looking at wins is so important. There's always a win to find. Even when you can't seem to feel it in the moment, you can find a win afterwards. And if this is new to you, I highly recommend doing this after a practice, after a tryout, when you get in the car, or when you get home, you can journal on this or you can vocalize it. But there's always a win to find. And it may not be overly glamorous at first. It may just be a small win. And little by little, those small wins will start to stack. So a great example is I just made great contact. I may not have gotten a hit, but I made great contact. Or hey, I tracked the ball down in the outfield. Or I've been working all winter on my crossover and it's getting better. Another example is I brought energy. I wanted to clap for my teammates and I showed up as a great teammate. There is always a win to be celebrated. And so I promise, when you start to notice them, you'll feel better and you'll be able to perform better versus beating yourself up. And so what you will believe, what you choose to believe, you will find evidence to back it up. And so if this is a couple weeks before tryouts, start to find a win every single day leading up to tryouts and watch how it changes your mood. The analogy I like to use is red lights. So negative thoughts, bad situations, things that make you nervous are all like red lights. We can't get rid of them. It's impossible. There would be chaos in traffic. But what you can do is you can shift your attention to green lights, the things that you know to be true, the things that bring you more productive thoughts, desired emotions, more overall joy. And so here's your final task. Again, whether it's the night before tryouts or the morning of, you're going to find a win every single day. You can write them down in a journal, or again, you can verbally share them with your parents. What is one win from today? The cool part about this is that it can be used long after tryouts are done. It could be used all season. We actually recommend this for every game, every practice, every lesson. We have a performance log that our athletes create and fill out so that they can start to see their wins and their evidence along the way. And so you're not allowed to be critical of yourself and dissect your performance until you find a win first. And the order matters because it's very easy after a tryout or a performance to immediately start to talk about the things that you did wrong. It's natural. It's what we're supposed to do as athletes. We're striving to get better. But what happens when we do that is we get so fixated on what we're doing wrong that we never take the time to celebrate what we're doing right. So, parents, if you're listening to this, this is a great tool for you as well. Before going into corrections and coach mode, discuss the wins first. Either make her say them, or you as the parent can point them out as well. And if you're a coach listening, this also applies to teams. Post-game reflections. How many times have I had coaches in the post-game huddle, we immediately start pointing fingers and talking about what we need to fix? It's really powerful when you can also recognize what's going right. And so watch how this changes your relationship with each other, um, you know, your relationship with your daughter, her relationship with her sport. And if you take nothing else from this podcast, celebrate the wins. Look for the good, and the good gets better. So there you have it. Three things you can do to crush your tryout with confidence. And I have a list, I'm gonna recap it for you. Number one, remember you are not your sport. At the end of the day, ask yourself, am I still me? Number two, confidence receipts. I have prepared for this moment by therefore. Super powerful journaling prompt. And three, find a win every single day, every single game. There you have it. I hope you have an amazing tryout whenever you find yourself at tryouts, even if you're a senior or a junior or an upperclassman that knows that you're already on a specific team or maybe you go to a small school, wherever you find yourself. All of these are incredibly powerful. And if you want more of this, this is exactly what we do inside Fearless Warriors. We've got all of our links below. And if this is something that you're craving as a parent or as a coach, send us a DM. We are always open. We love getting your questions. You can send us a DM at Fearless Warrior, or you can send us a DM at Fearless Coach A B. Those are also linked below. And thanks for listening to the podcast. You're gonna do great. Go crush it. You got this.

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host