Baseball Season!
We are coming up on another baseball season and I looked back on the statistics for the last season. The number hitter in all of baseball last year was Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers. He finished the season with a .338 batting average. What that means is that for every three times he went to bat he was only successful once. In other words, one-third of the time he successfully accomplished his job.
How does a hitter handle that? He goes to bat again; he goes up convinced that this time he is going to get a hit, whether or not he was successful the last time.
One of my all-time favorite players and another one of the great hitters in baseball was Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves. Aaron was the the first one to break Babe Ruth’s all-time homerun record. I remember watching it on television; even at that age I was a rapid Atlanta Braves fan. Hank Aaron was more than just a homerun hitter, he was a great hitter overall. When asked about how he accomplished so much in the game, he said,My motto was always to just keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump, or feeling badly, or having trouble off the field; the only thing to do was to keep swinging!
The Key
There is the key to being the big hitter.
The successful DON’T STOP!
They keep going.
No matter what else is happening in their lives, they keep swinging and have the hope and belief that they will connect this time.
The salesman who wades through a hundred no’s until he gets to the yes.
The job applicant who goes to interview after interview, taking care to always look their best and always remain positive; enduring the uncertainty and lack of call backs until that time that the opportunity is offered to them.
The inventor who creates and redesigns products until she finds the one that meets the needs of enough people to make her prosperous.
Anyone who keeps adding value to others until they are able to reach their goals. Zig Ziglar said it best in his ageless statement
You can anything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want!
Keep Swinging
So how are some ways that we can keep swinging to become the big hitter?
- REFLECTION – spend time learning lessons from your experiences
- Daily – keep a journal. Look back at the day’s experiences and what you have learned from them. Learn from the good and the bad.
- Quarterly – what’s working? what’s not working? what needs to change to help move you towards your goals?
- Annually – look at you accomplished in the last year and look forward to what you want to accomplish in the coming year
- ACCEPT WHAT IS BUT NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH IT – Accept things as they are but be constantly looking for ways to make them better.
- DON’T STOP! Whatever else happens, keep moving forward towards the kind of person you want to be.
And take time out to go see a ball game on occasion!