By definition a New Year’s Resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to one or more lasting personal goals, projects, or the reforming of a habit. That means on the first of every year you renew your commitment to the lifelong goal of bettering yourself. What an awesome thing to do don’t you think? After all it’s hard for most people to look at themselves in the mirror and want to change. People hate change! For those of you who are making that effort, I commend you!
But this year I want you to take it a step further and really challenge yourself! Here’s why.
Statistically speaking, about 14 days after the first of the year most people will have given up on their New Year’s Resolutions and fall back into their same old routine. It’s your fault, I promise! It’s simply how people are wired. Let me explain.
In theory, if you were committed to your change for just 30 days you would accomplish your goals and put a check mark to your resolutions. After those 30 days are up, you would feel like you have been living that way your whole life. So why do most people never make it past 14 days?
Most people know this time period as the “Learning Curve”. The first 14-15 days are the toughest two weeks you will ever experience! Believe or not, you brain operates on habitual behavior more than even you might realize. Just like physically training your body, you must train your brain to react the way that you want it too. After all you are trying to teach yourself a brand new way to live.
The easiest example to relate to is the time you go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. Even waking up just 15 minutes earlier than you are used to is enough to through anyone off for an entire day! For you adults out there, try cutting back on your morning cup of Joe? Imagine two weeks without a cup of coffee in the morning? But, if you stuck it out for 30 days, you will wonder why you ever started drinking coffee in the first place!
This whole cycle of habit creation is what brought you the term “muscle memory” with regards to sports training. When swinging a baseball bat, your brain naturally wants you body to work in a certain way. To improve you swing, you must teach your brain an entirely different way of hitting a baseball. So do you have 30 baseball swings in you right now that will change the way you hit?
I don’t think so!
Unlike getting up in the morning or simply not drinking coffee, improving your mechanics can be much more difficult. It requires patience and understanding of the goals you need to accomplish each and every swing. This is why I want you to step up your New Year’s Resolutions and take them one step further onto something I call the Daily Player Contract.
This Daily Player Contract is a commitment to your baseball batting training session that will happen that very day! Instead of focusing on your goals once a year, why not focus on what your goals should be that day and that swing! I think you would all agree that if you were able to get better even just a little bit every day or understand your batting mechanics a little better on every swing, by the end of the year you would be a completely different player! A better player!
So this year I want to challenge you to fill out this contract every single day. What do you want to improve upon? How do you intend to improve? The baseball swing has a lot of moving parts to focus on, what is going to make you improve right now.
Humor me and try it out for just 30 days and see if your batting skills don’t improve dramatically.
Call or email me with any questions.
Happy New Year!
