What’s Your “Until Moment”?

Figuring out your team’s “Until Moment” is vital if you’re ever going to successfully dominate it and get past it.

To do so you better tear it apart, figure out what the small pieces of it are and know how you’re going to practice the parts.

This process of looking closer into a problem by tearing it apart and then practicing its parts is crucial in order to be successful the next time that situation happens. Because trust me, it WILL happen again!

All players and all teams have “until moments” but too often our only methods for dealing with them are either hope or blame. Hoping these things won’t happen again puts fate in charge of the outcome instead of you. Relying on hope works out just like the title of the book says, “Hope is Not a Method” (by Gordon R. Sullivan and Michael V. Harper). “Hoping” things won’t happen is what you want your opponents to rely on, not you!

If hope isn’t your course of action during these challenging moments, then maybe it’s blame. Blame shows itself in the form of excuses – the umpire wasn’t calling the outside pitch, it was too hot, it was too cold, we don’t ever play well in the morning…excuses only block your chances for success not to mention that they empower your opponent or obstacle.

To really fix your “until moments” you need to think in as small a detail as possible. You need to “think small” about anything that changed during the game that made you say we did good “until”, until what? until they got runners on 3rd base? until your pitcher got 2 balls on the batter? until they got runners on 1st and 3rd? until we got into the 5th inning? until our shortstop made an error? What was it that turned the tide? What was your “Until Moment?”.

Here are some keys that will really help you figure out just what’s causing your “Until Moment”:

1. Finish this Sentence – “our team was doing good until:_________________________, “my player was doing good until: ____________________________”
2. Check the Book – you might have to look back through your scorebook to get a better sense of just when your “until moment” occurred or occurs (if it seemed to happen a lot). Try to avoid letting the emotion of the most recent moment cloud what actually happened or when it actually occurred.
3. Get as Small as Possible – instead of saying our team does good until the end of the game, be more specific. Can you narrow it down to a particular inning that the “until” occurs? Does it happen all the time or only against certain teams? Then what do those teams have in common? (are they all better than your team? are they all worse than your team? are they all power hitting teams? are they all speed teams? is it always when we have a lead? or always when behind? always in a close game? always in a blowout? always with 2 outs? always with 0 outs?).

   If a certain player is the cause of your Until Moment then closely examine what’s happening to her and what is leading up to that moment. Delve in and really tear your Until Moment apart by examining what happened just before it as closely as you can or in as small a detail as possible.

4. ID it and practice it – By probing and asking smaller questions you can identify just what is causing that Until Moment, which means you can start practicing to prevent it. If it’s your pitcher that does great until…and you have ID’d her Until Moment as the last part of the game, then she can understand that what causes her “until moment” is that the umpire changes the strike zone slightly when he/she gets tired, which happens later in the game and that she must be ready for it and then adjust to it as soon as she sees it change – instead of fighting it.

By discovering what is actually causing your Until Moment you put yourself and your team in a position to prepare for it the next time it starts to appear, and we all know it will. Blaming someone or something for our own failure means we are not in control of the outcome that someone or something else is. That’s not how champions think so if you want your team to play like champions and one day to become champions then identify what is causing your team’s difficulties and practice to overcome them. Those situations will happen again and when they do, champions are ready for them!