Renowned author and coach with a unique blend of experience as a former D1 softball player, Certified Mental Performance Consultant, and a distinguished 15+ years honing the mental toughness and resilience of Soldiers through expert teaching and training. Passionate about empowering today's youth.
My high school team had a magical playoff run during my sophomore year. We were in the state championship softball game. I led the team in hits and RBI throughout the playoffs. My home run in the semi-final game propelled us into the big game. I entered the batter's box with two runners on. A base hit would have broken the game open.
Then something strange happened. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t relax. My mind started racing. My shoulders felt tight and I couldn’t get comfortable. I fouled off two pitches I should have hammered. Then I watched the 3rd strike without swinging. I struck out, stranding the runners in scoring position. We ended up losing the game 2-1 against a team we had the talent to beat. I had let myself and my team down. That failure bothered me for months.
Fast forward to the end of my Junior year. We made it to the state championship game once again. I came up in the 7th inning of a tie game with the winning run on second base. I was ready. Earlier in the game, I had driven an inside pitch into the right center gap. The pitcher refused to throw me an inside pitch during this at bat. We battled hard. I fouled off 8 straight two strike pitches and on pitch number nine; I took a mighty swing… and struck out again. My response to that strikeout as a junior differed from the previous year. I was confident and remained calm. And I knew I would not fail if I got another chance.
At the bottom of the 10th inning, the game remained tied. A runner was on first base. On the first pitch of the at bat she pitched me up and away again. I drove the ball off the left field wall for a game winning double (it could have been a triple but by the time I got to 2nd base my teammate had scored so I made a slight detour towards home plate to dog pile on her instead). Yes, it was outstanding winning the state championship. More importantly for this story, it proved that my recent training with my sport psychologist worked. And it led me to choose this path for my career.
Baseball and softball are both games of failure. Hitters will fail more than they succeed. I was the same size, strength and person as a sophomore. During my junior season, I became Confident, Calm and Clutch.
Here is the shocking truth about competitive athletes. All the physical skills in the world don’t guarantee success. Less talented athletes can beat more talented athletes because they are mentally tougher. Athletes who can't get out of their heads will struggle.
I was never the best athlete on any team I played on. Through mental toughness, I hit and defended well. I succeeded with mental quickness rather than foot speed. My mindset helped me go from being an all county high school catcher from a small Christian High School to the starting second baseman for the University of Minnesota for four years.
This book is about how you can improve your athletic success by mastering the mental skills necessary to compete at a high level. I know you can do it because I did it. Several travel ball coaches told me I was too small or too slow to play on their team. Several told me I was too slow to play second base in college. And yet, I became one of the best fielding second baseman in the Big Ten conference because I possessed mental toughness and understood how to maximize my own strengths. I refused to accept the limitations others attempted to impose on me.
The parent of a high school athlete who is a five star recruit every coach wants has an enormous opportunity. I hope you will read this book to make sure your child gets the most out of their talent by learning the right mental approach to thrive.
If your child is not an all-star recruit, then you should read this book to help your child overcome their supposed limitations. Coaches prefer average talent with a great mindset over superior talent with a bad mindset any day.
This book is for high school players who want to perform better, whether they are trying to be recruited or not.
College coaches recruit talent and everyone knows who the super gifted athletes are. But 80% of the players in college sports are not super gifted. They outwork and out think their competition to get where they are.
Mental toughness is important for any athlete, but it is essential for athletes with less physical talent than the superstars. Only 5% of high school players are the superstars every college coach wants. The rest of us have to work harder and play smarter to earn our scholarship or spot on the team.
The shocking truth
Every competitive high school sport requires hours of practice to master the game skills. Few high school or travel ball coaches have the certification to help you master the mental toughness skills needed to perform at the highest levels of your sport.
If you will not receive mental skills training from your coaches, then you must take it upon yourself to read this book so you can become the best version of yourself. Imagine...
Feeling strong and confident on the field
Overcoming an error and make a brilliant play on your next attempt
Performing at your best in the clutch moments that matter.
Getting better everyday throughout your season/career.
Playing with joy and enthusiasm every day because you focus on the right things.
Performing at the peak of your abilities every time you take the field, court, or pitch.
Receiving multiple scholarship offers to pay for your college education.
I achieved these things because I was lucky enough to learn the sport psychology techniques and mental skills to maximize my athletic skills while I was still in high school. You can learn these skills as well.
A lack of confidence or refined mental process often derails performance. If you build the right processes, you will build the right level of confidence. The performance gap between a confident athlete and an athlete that doubts themselves is enormous.
This book will help you discover the 7 mental skills needed to perform at the highest level in your sport:
Understand what mental toughness is, and why it is important.
Regulate your emotions by managing your thoughts and actions in productive ways.
Build your Coachability by taking responsibility for your thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Develop a support system that will remove negativity from your life.
Compound your strengths through self-care and effective thinking.
Appreciate and use exercise and physical training as a tool in mental toughness.
Step outside of your comfort zone and move towards thriving in sport and life.
And if you are a parent reading this book, I will provide you with some tips about how to help your teen overcome the mental hurdles to their success. Unfortunately, misguided but well-intentioned parental pressure can make the problem worse, rather than better. If you and your child are on the same page, you will thrive.
My favorite quote of all time is by Yogi Berra, the Hall of Fame catcher for the New York Yankees. He said, “90% of the game is half-mental.” And I think he was right!
My tournament fast-pitch softball career began in Southern California when I was 8 years old. I was the youngest kid on the team. Over the next 10 years, I played over 1000 travel ball games because we played 48 weekends a year. My teams competed at the ASA softball nationals every year. (ASA was where all the top players in the country competed.)
I earned a BS in kinesiology from the University of Minnesota in 2006 and my Master’s degree in Mental Health and Sport Psychology from Boston University in 2008. As a Certified Mental Performance Consultant with the Association of Applied Sport Psychology and a trained Health and Wellness Coach from the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy (FMCA), I work with a variety of clients.
Since 2008, I have been a Mental Skills Trainer for the United States Army working with Soldiers. The skills we help them develop matter in life or death situations. I teach them to remain calm under pressure, to focus on what they can control, and to persevere against all odds. For my Soldiers, these skills can mean the difference between surviving the battle or not, saving lives or not, making it through an important Army school or not.
The human brain is an amazing device. It is also the root cause of performance failures when it gets in your way of doing what you need to do to perform. Sport situations are not usually life or death, but your brain can respond like it is. The huge spike of hormones and counterproductive changes in your body prevent you from getting into the zone. It impedes your ability to perform under pressure, which needs to be done to excel and thrive. In the championship game, I struck out when I had the ability not to. The difference between failure and success is understanding how to apply specific mental toughness techniques.
The fight-or-flight response is a biochemical reaction to stress. Stress causes a physiological reaction that prevents smooth fluid muscle motion. Left unchecked, the muscles tighten and do not respond as you need them to.
In my work, I help Soldiers not just survive, but also thrive under stressful and sometimes life-threatening conditions. I have played sports my whole life, have struggled and failed, competed and succeeded. I have overcome my physical limitations to play the game better than superior athletes born with more talent.
I can help you become a better performing athlete. Most youth coaching focuses on the mechanics of physical skills, with little time spent on mental training. The greatest improvement in your play and enjoyment of your chosen game will happen when you develop the right mental skills to become a Confident, Calm and Clutch athlete.
This book will help you build the foundational skills needed to become Confident, Calm and Clutch. (Grab a copy here)
If you still aren’t sure whether you need this book, take this short quiz called the Athlete Skills Coping Skill Inventory for free on my website. This scientifically validated instrument will score you on the key areas of mental toughness. If you score low on any of the items, this book will help you overcome your deficiencies!
Special note to parents
Many parents secretly wish their child would be the star of the game. You want them to win the game for their team. You want them to excel at their sport. And it’s pretty exhilarating to brag about your budding star when you get back to work after the big game. However, no parent wants to cause their young athlete’s failure. Unfortunately, one of the biggest reasons young athletes at elite levels quit their sport is because of the significant amount of pressure placed on them by parents and coaches.
Research suggests that parents (particularly fathers) may not perceive their own behaviors as exerting pressure on their child. Performance experts agree that children who perceive parental pressure are likely to experience competitive anxiety and sport burnout (Kanters & Casper, 2008). The number one reason kids quit a sport is because it is no longer fun. They started playing the game because it was fun, and when it was no longer fun, they move on to something else.
The pressure on young athletes has mushroomed with the “pay to play” model. Sports like baseball, basketball, hockey, gymnastics, volleyball and soccer demand young kids specialize in their sport earlier and earlier if they want to succeed. As a parent, I know you love your child and you want what’s best for them. So here are some simple tips to avoid putting pressure on your child that might cause them to stop having fun, underperform, or even quit.
Parental tip 1
Every young athlete who wants to play their sport at an elite level needs to receive high-quality coaching when they are young to learn the fundamentals of the sport. Don’t focus on playtime, focus on coaching and skill development. If they receive good coaching, they will get better. Assure your child that they will get to play when they work hard to refine their skills. If you focus on selecting a team based on the amount of play time they get, you may hurt their long-term success. So be careful of your motivations when you select a team.
Parental tip 2
If you become a coach for your child’s team, it is essential that you award playtime based on performance and not on nepotism. Your child should understand the need to earn their playtime. If they don’t, they will be missing an important life lesson and their progress will stall. Very little in adulthood is given. Jobs, pay raises, opportunities must be earned. If your child learns how to work hard and earn their way onto the field, the hope is that they will be better equipped to earn opportunities as an adult.
Parental tip 3
The process of success is more important than outcomes. Focusing on outcomes leads parents to being excited when their child gets a base hit and disappointed when they make an out. This can put pressure on your athlete to break one of the cardinal rules of performance enhancement, which is to control what you can control.
There is a correct way to approach and execute any athletic skill. Doing the skill right will lead to more success. Reward the correct approach and process and your child will improve. Focus only on the outcome and your player may get discouraged and fail. No matter what sport your child plays, applying the right effort or strategies and executing skills properly will go better for them in the long run. If they prepare well and use the right processes, they will set conditions for excellence.
Actual outcomes (wins, losses, batting average, touchdowns, goals scored) are often outside of their control. The right processes will help an athlete improve faster. Your goal needs to be understanding their process and helping them do it correctly. The right preparation, effort, skills and strategy should be rewarded. Focusing only on outcomes can be a disincentive to preparation. Parental displeasure when their young athlete cannot get the outcome you both want can undermine progress towards mental toughness. Make sure that your kid knows that your love and affection are not dependent on their results.
For more of the parent tips get a copy of confident, calm and clutch
See here.
Skill 1 mental toughness myths
Confident, calm and clutch are more than words in this book. These are the critical performance skills in every sport. Do you remain confident under pressure? Does your mind remain calm and free from negative thoughts during your competition? Do you make the play when it matters? Athletes who freak out from stress are not confident. They are not calm. And they are not clutch. Championship teams will face adversity during the season. Skilled players will face adversity during their season. The ability to remain confident, calm and clutch separates the average from the elite. Confident, calm and clutch players are mentally tough.
Let me explain why mental toughness is important to young athletes. I want you to imagine the following scenario. You have worked hard to develop your athletic skills. For years, you’ve played hundreds of games. You’ve gone to thousands of practices, trained your body, sacrificed your social life, and worked hard to become an elite player. You have done everything you can to be a successful athlete, hoping to be recruited for a college scholarship.
Then in your critical junior year, which is typically when colleges can talk to athletes. You have a change in coaches. Your new coach doesn’t know you well, doesn’t recognize the quality of your play, and decides not to play you at the important scouting tournaments throughout the summer. By the time you are at the largest exposure tournament that all college coaches attend, he has brought back college players who play your position. He reduces your role to part time on the team you helped earn a berth at nationals.
How would that make you feel? Would you think that was fair? Would your parents think your athletic career was over?
Could you manipulate this crappy situation to ensure that multiple college coaches wanted to offer you a scholarship to play the game you love?
Life always throws you a challenge. It is not the level of the challenge that defeats you; it is your response to the challenge. You cannot control what happens to you. You can always control how you respond to what happens.
This exact scenario happened to me. I got 7 at bats as a pinch hitter in seven games and never played in the field. How would your parents have reacted? How would you behave? Would your disappointment be obvious to observers? I will explain what happened in the next chapter when I focus on taking the best approach to overcoming adversity. But the key message for you right now is that my response and my father’s response made an enormous difference to the outcome.
After barely taking part in the games, I left the tournament with 5 recruiting visits booked. I accepted a full-ride scholarship at the University of Minnesota. I became a four-year starter for the Gophers. Thousands of young players in your sport have the athletic ability to play the game in college. But far fewer have the mental toughness to achieve that goal.
This book will explain the mental toughness skills you need to be a person college coaches want to invest their precious scholarship dollars in. My personal stories show the mental side of sport throughout this book. I will explain how you can put yourself in the best position to achieve your dream of playing your sport in college. Mental skills will help you thrive in any activity.
To strengthen mental toughness, it’s important to understand the concept in depth. Mental toughness is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and move forward by growing through every part of life’s process (school, sport, social life, family). Struggling is a natural part of living. What matters is how we react to struggle. It is super easy to be upbeat when everything is going well. It is far more difficult when nothing goes right.
To compete in any endeavor, you can not allow failure to knock you down and keep you down. Failure is an essential building block to greatness. Anytime you think you are perfect, a competitive failure reminds you that you have more work to do to improve. Overcoming failure motivates you to get better. And regardless of the sport you play, you will fail. You will get beat, you will mess up, and you will do stupid things. No-one is perfect. As soon as you embrace failure as a reminder that you have more to learn, you will begin your journey to becoming an elite mentally tough athlete.
Mental toughness is also the ability to take calculated risks (trying something new, volunteering to go first, being willing to make a few mistakes as you learn and grow, getting out of your comfort zone, etc.). This ability translates to being able to thrive in your sport and in life. Sometimes, getting by and surviving is necessary in life, but the goal is to move you towards thriving!
Thriving means living a life of purpose and meaning. It means having positive and fulfilling relationships with parents, friends, and coaches. It means accomplishing your goals. People who thrive are more positive. People who thrive enjoy life.
Mental toughness is much like physical fitness. It will deteriorate if you don’t work on it. One way I can help you understand mental toughness is to debunk some myths that you might have heard. These common myths often impede mental toughness and slow down progress:
Mental toughness myths
Myth: Tough-Minded people don’t feel negative emotions. They don’t get sad or nervous or doubt themselves. This is a common misconception. Being tough doesn’t mean you don’t feel any negative emotions. All emotions are part of the human experience, and everyone feels them. By looking at the negative emotion and understanding it, you can move forward.
Myth: Either you were born tough, or you were not. This is definitely not true. It is possible to strengthen your mental toughness on purpose. Skills to build this ability are straightforward and will make big, positive changes in your life.
Myth: People who aren’t tough have a negative attitude. A negative attitude isn't the deciding factor in mental toughness. Strengthening mental toughness also has to do with taking positive action and changing negative behaviors.
Myth: Mental toughness only works in sports. This belief is false. Mental toughness skills improve all areas of your life. They improve relationships, enthusiasm, and drive, regardless of the state of your life.
Myth: If your mind is tough, you won’t have any more problems. Unfortunately, life isn’t always perfect or fair. It ebbs and flows, and we cannot always control it. Implementing these skills as habits will help you in times of ease and in times of stress.
The benefits of mental strength training
When you practice the skills that go into being mentally tough, you’ll notice positive changes in your life. Bouncing back from adversity doesn't necessarily mean things will return to normal. It often means you can reach a better place. Consider these benefits:
Mental toughness strengthens motivation and drive. Practicing mental toughness skills empowers you to excel. Objectively analyzing a situation will help you take more responsibility for your happiness. This will strengthen your confidence and willingness to take calculated risks.
Mentally tough people make good leaders. They know how to empower others. Good leaders know they can’t succeed on their own. Strengthening mental toughness will increase your ability to problem-solve and get the help you need from parents, teachers, coaches, or friends.
Self-awareness and self-motivation increase when you are mentally tough. Knowing yourself means knowing when you need to take a break. Setting boundaries with parents, coaches, friends, and yourself will get easier as you practice mental toughness skills.
Improving mental toughness will build your ability to accept what life throws your way. You understand things will improve. You will worry less about the worst-case scenario or the things you can’t control.
In short, mental toughness skills increase your ability to cope with stress, overcome setbacks, solve problems, remain task-focused, perform under pressure, increase your confidence and decrease helplessness, depression, and anxiety.
How to use new skills in practice
Implementing new habits can be difficult, especially when they involve breaking old habits. You can learn something from everything you encounter, and this is an excellent opportunity to improve your self-worth and enthusiasm for your sport, school, and life. When you learn something new, it’s easy to beat yourself up for not getting it correct right away. Learn to avoid self-judgment. If something doesn't work, try again. Make adjustments if you need to. Go easy on yourself when you’re discovering what works for you.
Keeping a journal can help you get your thoughts out, so you don’t have to keep them in your brain. Sometimes it's overwhelming to have so many thoughts swirling around like a whirlpool. Writing it out can help ease that feeling and gain some distance and perspective on the issue. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write whatever comes to you, even if it makes little sense.
One skill you’ll learn emphasizes building a community of support. You can use this skill to implement changes you want to make by asking for accountability and support. Having people around you who know the changes you’re trying to make will remind you of your goals and help you stick to them.
As your self-awareness improves, you will maintain a positive outlook on your progress. When you can look back at the work you’ve done and be proud of yourself despite not being perfect, you’ll gain confidence in your ability to grow and excel. Remember, despite what social media depicts, no-one is perfect. In fact, one of the most useful life hacks to raise your feelings of wellbeing is to limit your use of social media. If you are constantly comparing yourself to what you see on social media and feel like you are not enough or don't measure up, it might be time to take a break. Part of mental toughness is facing difficult emotional triggers head-on. Explore how to handle those emotions correctly in the next chapter.
If you enjoyed this excerpt and would like to read the rest of the book click here.
Read more from Valerie Alston
Valerie Alston, Mental Performance and Resilience Coach
Drawing from a rich background as a former D1 softball player and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, she boasts over 15 years of experience dedicated to teaching and training Soldiers in the intricate art of mental toughness and resilience. As a distinguished author and coach, she brings a unique perspective to the realm of performance enhancement. Currently, her passion lies in empowering today's youth, leveraging her expertise to build and foster resilience through sports and mental toughness training, ensuring the next generation thrives in both their athletic pursuits and broader life challenges. With a comprehensive approach to athlete development, she extends her expertise to parents and coaches. Committed to enhancing understanding, she collaborates with them to impart valuable insights on building the mental toughness of young athletes, fostering an environment that nurtures resilience and unleashes their full potential.
