Self-Sabotage on the Softball Field and in Life

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When I was in middle school, our school had an end-of-the-year event, which included food, music, and activities. One of those activities was a softball game. My gym teacher assigned me to my perennial place in the right-right field, where I acted bored and distracted. I say “acted” because, in reality, I was scared to death that the ball might be hit to me, and I would miss.

I desperately wanted to be a good athlete. However, my skills at athletics were…let’s say “modest”. How you would judge my abilities would depend upon my competition. If I were up against a person in a comatose state, I would have been considered the MVP. Alas, this softball game included powerhouse athletes like Dan, Tim, and Bob. In my mind, these three were Olympic gods, who could do no wrong. The various balls that came their way seemed to bow down to their prowess. Resigned to be caught, the balls approached their gloves in slow motion. When those same balls came my way, I could swear I could hear laughter, and the loud break of the sound barrier.

The game was a close one. We were ahead 3-2 going into the 9th inning. The first batter approached. “Please don’t hit it to me. Please don’t hit it to me,” I muttered. The batter struck out. Two outs to go. The second batter got a hit to center field. When I first heard the crack of the bat, the ball looked like it was coming my way. I panicked, but it easily landed in Dan’s glove. One out to go.

I busied myself by looking down at the dandelions. I noticed a friend of mine on the sideline, and I started talking to him. Better to not pay attention, so that if the ball came my way, I had an easy excuse for why I missed. “I don’t even care about softball. Stupid game. If I had been paying attention, I would have caught it, but it’s just a dumb game and I don’t even wanna be here.” But I was paying attention—close attention. We just needed this last out, and we would win the game. As long as he doesn’t hit it to me, we’ll be good.

This game stands out to me as a pivotal moment, because I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before. I noticed myself, acting like I didn’t care, fearful that I was about to be humiliated, praying to the softball gods to send the ball in another direction. I also noticed Bob at shortstop, crouched down, peering with close attention at the plate. He was ready, and he said something that I couldn’t imagine anyone ever saying. “Come on! Hit it right here.” He held up his glove, and showed the soft heart of the glove to the batter. “One more out and we win. Hit it to me!”

“WHAT?!!!” I thought to myself, incredulously. He wanted the ball?! He felt supremely confident in his ability to make a play, and tempted the fates by calling out his desire to finish the game. And guess what? The ball was hit sharply, straight at him, about two feet above his head. Bob jumped up with his glove held high. I heard the ball thump into his hand. The force of the shot made his body spin counterclockwise and he fell flat on his chest. He popped back up, ecstatic, holding the ball above his head. It was an out! We had won!

I remember how much I admired him for his courage and skill. I remember feeling jealous for his experience. I remember thinking it must feel really good to take a risk like that, and then conquer it in front of all of those people. I remember thinking I wanted to feel like that myself someday.

What is there to learn from this story? A few things:

1) Confidence makes you willing to take risks. Think about an area of your life where you feel confident. If you’re really good at math, and a math challenge comes your way, you’ll be much more willing to give it a try. If you have low “math self-esteem,” you’re much more likely to dismiss the challenge as a waste of time, or otherwise give a low level of effort. This is a metaphorical looking at the dandelions.

2) Your confidence level will impact how you interpret your success or failure. If you’re a math star in your own mind, and you try out the challenging math problem, what’s the worst that could happen? Success would just confirm your confidence in your math ability. Failure wouldn’t be a threat to your confidence. Instead, you would be interested to know the solution to the problem, and would add that to your ever-expanding knowledge about mathematics. Conversely, if you have low confidence in your math ability, and you succeed, you’re less likely to give yourself credit. You might tell yourself, “It was an easy problem,” or “I was lucky.” Failure, however, would be attributed to your lack of ability.

3) Your low level of confidence can incentivize you to sabotage yourself so that you have an easy excuse for failure. Better to not try and fail than to give it your all and find out you weren’t good enough. If you’re a student, and you “forget” to study for your exam, or you stay up late partying and show up exhausted, you can attribute your bad grade to external reasons, rather than making it a personal failure.

In what area of your life are you underconfident? What tactics do you use—be honest—to sabotage that area so you don’t have to face your self-appraisal?

Here is a key question for you to consider:– How important to you is being good in this area? If it is really important for the future you’d like to create—if you really want to be a better musician, athlete, parent, or spouse—then it’s time to face up to your self-sabotage and decide to put in the time to become better. You can begin changing your own narrative today. Bob wasn’t born great at softball. He probably played consistently over the course of many years. If this area you’ve identified is really important to you, then begin the years-long process of improving right now. No BS, no sabotage, no excuses. Start over, and get to work.
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A version of this post was previously published on DrJohnRich.com and is republished here with permission from the author.

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