What Story Do You Tell Yourself? Part One

We all have a story.  And we tell it to ourselves over and over and over ….

Sometimes the story is a positive one and sometimes it is not.

Baseball is a game of failure so it is very easy to gravitate towards a negative story.

• I’m not a very good baseball player.
• I can’t hit.
• My coaching style is not good for today’s player.
• I’m wild.
• I have no power.
• I can’t throw a change-up..
• Everyone else is bigger / stronger / faster than me.
• I’ll never play in college.
• Baseball is just not my game.

The totality of these comments become our story and, good or bad, we keep replaying that story over and over in our minds.  This creates problems that are totally outside of our own awareness.

Deep within our brainstem between the brain and the spinal cord, we have something called the reticular activation system (RAS).  This area has several important functions but one of the more fascinating ones is that this system acts as our brain’s gatekeeper.  Every second of the day we are bombarded with information entering our body through our senses.  Of course, we cannot possibly pay equal attention to all of it at the same time.  If we did, we would never be able focus in order to get things done.  We would be forever distracted by new information coming in and our brain would lock up similar to a computer that has been asked to do too many things at once.  This is where the RAS comes into play.  It filters the information and lets through what we deem to be important or relevant to us.

In a noisy room with multiple conversations going on, a person on the other side of the room says your name.  You will hear it over the commotion because your RAS knows that your name is relevant to you.  If you ever bought a new item (car, baseball bat, spikes, a brand-name hoodie, etc.) then you probably began to suddenly notice all the other people who also have that item.  You began to see that type of car (and color) on the road.  You noticed all the other kids at school who are now wearing the same hoodie.  Did everyone suddenly buy that car or hoodie just like you did?  Of course not.  They were always out there. It’s just that you never noticed it before because your RAS filtered it out.  When that item became important to you, the RAS began to allow it through the gate and into your awareness.  It suddenly mattered and you started noticing.

This is why the story we tell ourselves is so important.

Let’s say a player does not believe he is a very good baseball player.  If he starts thinking that way, his RAS will start searching for information or evidence in the environment that supports that belief and allow it through the gate.  In essence, your brain will search for evidence that your “story” is accurate even if it may not be and filter out evidence to the contrary.  The player will only notice their mistakes, failures, and screw ups.  When asked how the game went, the player will not hesitate to list all the bad things he did and add nothing to the positive side of the list.

Sound like someone you know?

The good news is that with practice and discipline, a person can get this system to work for them instead of against them.

By Coach Bob McCreary – Baseball By The Yard