Growing up, baseball was my favorite sport. I had been playing since I was eight years old. I knew that this was the only thing I really loved to do, and I later came to think that I was good at it. During high school, I was one of only three ninth-graders to receive a letterman jacket along with the varsity team. I was proud to wear it.
My most exciting game was during my senior year. I was the first-string catcher, and I played almost every single game. I wasn't considered a power hitter, but I was a fair hitter. My strength was in my ability to catch and perform on the field. One of the younger pitchers that I caught for, often, was so very fast, he had remarkable speed to be so young. After he graduated a year later, he signed to go professional instead of going to college. That's how fast he was!
During one particular game my senior year. Something happened that I'll always remember. Again, it was years later when I was studying psychology before I really understood what actually was taking place back then.
At the start of this particular game, the coach came up to me and said that he wanted to give the second-string catcher a chance to play, but he wanted me to stay in the line-up and hit. The second-string catcher was also a senior, but he normally played in the outfield positions. I only played the one position regularly.
This was a very unusual situation for me. It took me by surprise and it literally changed my entire mental state during that game.
I was always so accustomed to coming off the field perhaps a bit tired, having just enough time to take off the catcher’s equipment if I thought my turn to bat would come up. It would take me a few minutes to run back to the dugout and put the equipment back on, if I ended up getting a hit and running the bases. And -- I didn't like being center of attention, so I had to do this quickly or in my own eyes everyone else would already be on the field focusing and patiently waiting for me. Or so it seemed.
Because of how this particular night was going. This was the very first time I had plenty of time between times at bat. Matter of fact, I didn't have to go out onto the field at all until it was my time to bat. This was a huge change in my daily routine. It literally effected my entire mental game.
I was even given an extra bonus that night and I hadn't thought about it before.
While my teammates were on the field playing, I was sitting in the dugout with two or three girls that helped out with our score-keeping as well as collecting our bats and equipment between innings. I'm sure you already guessed it by now -- yep, one of them was a popular cheerleader for our football team as well.
She was in fact the one I had a huge crush on!
Maybe I was only one of a few she could talk to while the other players were on the field, but I didn’t care -- I was eating it up. She had never given me so much attention! I almost forgot that there was a ball game going on. That's how much I was really focused on the game consciously.
I wasn't scheduled to bat until 5th or 6th in the line-up as I recall. Again, I wasn't a power hitter or I would have been 3rd or 4th. Matter of fact, in the past I seemed to be always focusing too hard on trying to hit the ball and on the fact that I was nervous at bat, that it was really effecting my true potential. Again, focusing on what I didn't want rather than focusing on what I wanted. See, I knew I was so nervous each time up at bat that I was always focusing on how nervous I would get during certain situations. It must have been my conscious mind focusing on hitting the ball and my unconscious mind focusing on my nervousness.
This night however was different. I was focused (consciously) on nothing but this girl. When I finally came up to bat, all I could think about was how she had just asked me to hit one for her. I was so relaxed that the first time up to bat I had to be swinging from within my subconscious mind, since I was focusing my conscious mind on her. Well, you guessed it. I swung the bat at the first good pitch and hit that ball right out of the park – HOMERUN!! No, wait, it was really a GRANDSLAM. I didn't even realize that the bases were loaded, so when I hit it, four runs actually scored!
For a split second while I was rounding those bases, my nervousness started to come back to me, but it wasn't long before I was back to where I was before -- in the dugout, talking with my dream date.
Next time up to bat, you wouldn't believe it. Bases loaded again. What were those odds? By then, even the other girls were making comments like "Hit one for me". I wasn't myself that day, that's for sure. It was obvious. My conscious thoughts were offtrack and my subsconious was relaxed enough to take over for me.
By the third pitch I had hit another GRANDSLAM. Another four runs scored!
Ok, third time up to bat. I'll admit it. My nervousness must have hit me strong by this time. Talk about being the center of attention -- I had every eye on me this time around. (It was all I could think about now.) Well, I hit the ball. It went straight up and actually fell just between the pitcher and the second baseman. But neither caught it, and I made it to first base in time for a single. A very humble single. It wasn't pretty but it was recorded as a single. Three for three so far, as they would say. Batting a thousand for the game.
My fourth time up to bat. I must have been back to my sub-conscious mode once more. Thinking again about my dream date back in the dugout. All I wanted to do was to get back to that dugout to be with her. Bases were empty. But with one hit, a SINGLE HOMERUN. I ran those bases on cloud nine -- I couldn't believe the game I was having. I couldn't believe the NIGHT I was having! We were only friends but she never gave me so much attention than that one particular day during that one particular game.
I will always remember that game for the rest of my life. We won, 13 - 6. I was given credit for nine of those runs.
The next day at school, they announced my name over the loudspeaker. Headlines even came out in the Clarion Ledger Newspaper and the Jackson Daily News "Hilton Grands for FH". They wrote up a nice little article on all the games played that night and started the article with the first two or three paragraphs and headline about me. I graduated from Forest Hill High School in 1978 with those wonderful memories.
Years later, while reading a book called "Unlimited Power" by Anthony Robbins, I discovered a bit of truth about that particular night.
Sometimes we can hold ourselves back from really reaching our true potential when all the time we have what it takes already hidden inside us. Our subconscious mind is the real source of our true potential. Unfortuately we've programmed our subconscious to react in certain situations that work against us rather than for us. This fear or nervousness was programmed into me during my early years of childhood development and it was on automatic pilot each time.
Think about it. I had been playing baseball since I was eight years old. I had swung that bat a million times. My subconscious already knew how to swing that bat perfectly after years of practice. In fact, I was holding myself back by allowing my fears to control the situation. It only took one simple change in my daily routine to prove that to me. It's that simple to break a pattern. You have to make a change that will alter your daily routines. This will allow your subconscious to take back over and produce some amazing results.
This is a story that I will always cherish and I use it when I'm teaching other parents about the incredible power behind the subconscious mind. If you haven't looked at it yet. Visit our nonprofit organizational website http://www.praisingyourchild.com
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