The Not-Two-In-A-Row Rule

I was sitting in the stands watching my son's college baseball team play. The opposing pitcher had thrown a perfect game through 4 innings of the second game of a double header, in which they were only playing 7 innings per game. This meant he only had 3 more innings to go in order to complete the perfect game. Just 9 outs. You could tell he was feeling it.

In the 3rd and 4th innings he had worked out of a jam, getting behind on a couple hitters but then getting them to fly out or ground out. With every new out, he expressed his enthusiasm. Then, in the top of the 5th inning with one out, he walked a batter. As soon as he threw ball four, he took off his hat, slammed it to the side of his leg and blurted out a very colorful word as he walked around the mound. Visibly (and audibly) frustrated.

At this point, while the perfect game was no longer in play, the no-hitter certainly was. However, I could see that he had not let it go by the time he had stepped back onto the pitcher's mound to throw the next pitch. I leaned over to my wife, April, and said these exact words: "Because he's still thinking about the walk, he's going to give up a hit in this inning too."

The very next pitch to the very next batter... base hit up the middle. Just like that, the "no-no" was no more! One mistake was permitted to become two in a row.

Yes, I say "permitted," because I believe we have the ability to influence this. In sports such as baseball and softball, one error or mistake doesn’t devastate you. The key is to flush it and not let it become two in a row. Teams that do this regularly are elite. They know they are going to make mistakes. The difference is, they’ve just mastered the “not-two-in-a-row rule.” And the difference-maker in this is MENTAL STRENGTH.

Not understanding this truth is where so many (coaches and players alike) compound the issue. They think the solution is physical. More ground balls, more swings, run 'til you puke (and somehow that will keep you from making multiple errors in a row and giving up big innings). Never understood that one.

The fact is, the secret to being able to overcome the mistake and not allow one mistake to become two, then three... is not physical. It's mental. It's knowing how to react when something "bad" happens. First, it's not being surprised when something bad happens. Then, having a plan for how you are going to respond.

Everyone makes errors. The best in the game have learned how to not let one mistake become two in a row. Those who can't let it go usually just end up making things worse. The bad event that just happened does not have to totally define the final outcome from the bad event. The most important factor in the outcome is your RESPONSE to the bad event. Your response influences the outcome as much as the event itself. This is awesome news, because it means that while we can't control the event, we CAN have some control over the outcome! And the reason this is true is because we can totally and absolutely control our response to the negative event.

How is this done? I have discussed points similar to this in past posts, but repeated reminders in these matters is important, I believe. So, here are FOUR things you can put into practice immediately to get better at the mental game.

(1) First, learn to not be surprised when bad things happen. Baseball and softball are games that are full of adversity. It happens, we know it happens, every game... yet some players and coaches get all bent out of shape and act like they were surprised, and just can't let it go. Of course you are disappointed. You didn't want the negative event to happen, and you were not expecting it to happen (hopefully you weren't)! But, "not being surprised by it" means that you were PREPARED for how you would respond whenever something of that nature does happen. Which means, you are never taken to a place of being out of control of your thoughts and actions. Which means, yes, you can for a moment allow yourself to feel the disappointment of the negative play but then immediately know what to do in order to flush it away and refocus all of your attention on the next play.

(2) Then, after you recognize the disappointment of the mistake and BEFORE you react to that disappointment, this is perhaps the most important part. You must PRESS PAUSE and do something to allow the memory of that play to be flushed away. I recommend taking a deep breath. Three seconds of a deep, belly, inhale. Hold for one second, then exhale. This slows things down, and it also provides a physical process to blow the bad play out of your mind. It's a "releasing" deep breath.

(3) Then, you need to recognize that your mind is going crazy right now. It's telling you how bad that play just was, how much it's going to hurt the team's chances, and all sorts of other distracting, non-productive things. STOP listening to yourself, the voice in your head, which is still griping to you about the last play. Instead, START talking to yourself about what you're going to accomplish on the next play. Visualize the next positive play, verbalize to yourself what you are about to do, and then you are ready to get it done!

(4) Finally, take another deep breath. This time, zero your eyes' focus on something small for that entire three seconds of the deep breath. This again slows the moment down, puts everything that just happened in the rear view mirror, and gets you 100% focused for the next play.

This routine will probably need to be done a dozen times per game, or more. Think about it. In any given game, how many ground balls or fly balls are hit in your direction? Maybe 3 or 4, on average. How many pitches do you swing at in a typical game? Maybe 4 or 5, give or take. But in a game, how often does something adverse occur that you need to be prepared to deal with in a positive and constructive way?

Now for the next question... how often do we practice that part of our game?

You can practice 100 more ground balls a day and take 100 more swings a day, and none of that will help you with this (perhaps most important) aspect of the game. You HAVE to practice the mental game. You have to train and prepare yourself mentally in the same way you train and prepare physically. Have a plan, like what I described above. Practice that 4-step routine during your practice times. Practice it in all of life, whenever something adverse comes your way. It will not only make you a better player, and/or a better coach. It will make you a better person. A better student. A better son. A better daughter. A better husband. A better wife. A better employee. A better leader.

Tyler Tervooren has a website called Riskology.co, which is a community that assists and trains leaders in various aspects of success. In a recent article he discussed a simple principle to success that all great leaders have learned to master: don't fail twice in a row. Here is one very insightful passage from the article (the context for which he is writing is developing good habits):

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I think this is a big part of what accounts for success: never failing twice in a row. If you compare your successful habits to the ones you've struggled with, you'll likely find the times you've stumbled and veered off track are about the same. The big difference will be in how those stumbles line up over time.

If you commit to trying something new and forgiving yourself when you make a mistake, you'll see that when you mess up, you get right back to work. When it happens again, you do the same. Over time, your failures become fewer and further between.

But when you force yourself to be perfect from the outset, it's easy to lose motivation after just one stumble. One leads to two. Two leads to three. Pretty soon, you've given up entirely. The longer you veer off track, the easier it becomes to stay there.

Here is where the principle comes into play with our teams and players: "when you force yourself to be perfect from the outset, it’s easy to lose motivation after just one stumble. One leads to two. Two leads to three."

If the goal of your play is "perfection," this is when we allow one error to devastate us. We failed, and there is no way to go back and fix it, nor is there any forgiving ourselves because we feel like that would be lowering our expectations.

Nonsense! Perfection is not only improbable, it just isn't realistic. Even so-called "perfect games" in baseball and softball have mistakes, missed pitches, poor at-bats. In over 140 years of Major League Baseball, over 210,000 games played, there have been 23 "perfect games" recorded. By professionals at the highest level!

When perfection is our expectation, then it is easy to lose our focus after one error or mistake. But when we forgive ourselves (and our teammates), and we have a routine to flush the memory of it away and refocus on the next pitch, then we are setting ourselves up to minimize mistakes. This is what championship teams have learned to do better than common teams. Everything else being even – talent, physical traits, effort – the team that has developed this skill will outlast and outperform the team that doesn't, 10 times out of 10.

I am so confident in the benefits of a strong mental game that I am willing to say it guarantees more success for teams that value it. For me, personally, when I began to understand this part of the game is when I felt like I was just beginning to learn what coaching is all about. It has truly been a difference-maker, not only for my teams, but for every aspect of my life.

If you'd like for me to come and talk to your staff or your team about it sometime, I'd love to. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I love sharing what I do know and what I have experienced with others who desire to be the best they can be. Give me a shout!