Never Swing at the First Pitch
After an August hiatus we’re back, so an end-of-summer/baseball themed post felt appropriate…
My dad has always been full of advice, usually of the sports-analogy type. Sometimes, this was out of place (I once remember something about a football player comparison as I got ready for a tap recital..) but other themes, the analogy and guidance were fully aligned. And sometimes, the advice was actually about sports. A common piece of guidance my dad, as a softball coach, gave me, as a softball player, was, “Never swing at the first pitch”. The idea is that the first pitch is the pitchers fastest, and by not swinging at it, the batter not only avoids the risk of swinging at an unhit-able ball, but the batter is also forcing the pitcher to have to throw more, leading to fatigue. It’s generally perceived as good practice in baseball, and if you think about it it’s actually a good practice when it comes to mindset work too, since in coaching we’re often telling our clients not to believe their first thought. (So basically, though not a life coach and not totally sure of what a life coach even does despite his daughter being one, my dad was on to something).
As a coach, it’s my job to help my clients see what their brain is serving up to them, and then decide if those thoughts are actually going to help get them to where they want to go. And like a first pitch, most of the time your first thought served up by your brain in any situation, is not going to be the one you want to spend your energy swinging at.
Let me throw a change up and give a non-sports example (ha ha for those paying attention).
(And as an aside before we get into this - this example is about weight, and there are rightly volumes worth of blog posts on the internet about women and weight and mindset work because frankly there’s a lot to say….But this example will show you my point about your first pitch/thought pretty easily so just go with me here and stay tuned if you want to read more about how a life coach handles the massive topic of “Being a woman in the world who dares to actually eat and have the body of a woman in the world who actually eats…”).
I got out of the shower this morning and pulled on a pair of jeans. The jeans were in a size that usually fits me best when I’ve been working out and eating well and generally taking care of myself on a better-than-average level, which has been the case as of late, so sized-down jeans were the choice for the day. But when I wiggled (like truly twisted and contorted) my way into the jeans, they were tighter than I expected.
My immediate thought was, “Shit, I’ve gained weight”.
This, my friends, is the coaching equivalent of the first pitch. And swinging here would have been a major waste of time and energy. Why? Because if I “swung” (believed) this first thought, I likely would have felt something like disappointment or frustration (I’ve been working out! Eating well! Sleeping! I feel great! So how the fu*k did I gain weight!) and spiraled into some action like upping my workouts to some ridiculous effort or taking all the joy out of food and eating the same boring meals for a few days until I felt skinnier (“skinny” is not a feeling, btw) and/or until those jeans felt looser. And none of those things would be been useful or productive or how I actually want to spend my time….But that thought (“I’ve gained weight”), or some variation of it, has been so ingrained in my mind after 40+ years living on the planet as a woman who has been told that in order to be worthy of anything I must take up as little space as possible, that it is my first pitch, every time my jeans are the tiniest bit snug.
Thankfully, I’m not at bat without tools here. I am a coach. I have the ability to know my mind, know that that first thought is often the equivalent of a slider with a tone of heat on it, and I know I don’t have to swing just yet. I don’t need to believe that thought. I can let the ball sail by me, right over the plate, let the umpire call a strike even, and know I still am not out. I can choose instead to wait for a better pitch, one that I have a better chance at knocking out of the park and swing at that one.
In this case, my better pitch is usually something like the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th thought that comes to me after that first, shitty thought ( “I’ve gained weight”) sails past me. Most days, including today, that thought might be something like simple curiosity:
I wonder why these jeans are tight?
Huh, these are tight, that’s weird?
What could be going on that’s causing my jeans to be tight?
I could then go on to other thoughts - thoughts that actually help me explore what’s going on rather than just assume one answer is fact:
Oh wait - didn't I just wash these? They always seem a bit tighter after they’ve gone through the dryer…
My rings were actually tighter too this morning and I ate sushi last night with a ton of soy sauce so maybe I’m just a little bloated from all that sodium (hello!)...
I did JUST get out of the shower and am not fully dry yet and it’s always a little harder to get my jeans on when I just jump out of the shower (again, hello!)...
Or even this one, which is frankly the home run of the whole thing:
Maybe I have gained a little weight - why is that such a problem?
It’s fucking not, actually….so maybe I can chill out, know that anyone’s weight can go up or down a bit at any given time for any number of reasons, and move on with my day because I’d rather be spending time thinking about other things…like Bravo or actual baseball or literally anything other than this!
On most days, including today, it would likely take me a few minutes of thinking consciously to get to that last, most useful thought, but I’d get there…as long as I stayed at bat.
As long as I remembered that the key to anything is to manage your mind, no matter what the guy on the mound is doing or how many soy-sauce-soaked spicy tuna rolls I had last night.
As long as I kept waiting for the right pitch, rather than panicking and swinging at the first one.