Keeping your eye on the ball

In baseball one of the most dreaded pitches is the 'changeup'. Unlike the fastball, it's not feared because of its speed but because of its deception. Stay with me, even if you're not a baseball fan. The dynamics of a fastball are very simple.  The ball is thrown as fast and hard as possible at the catcher's mitt. The idea, of course, is to make it too fast to hit. Simple

The change up, on the other hand differs in two areas; how the ball is delivered and how the batter perceives it. The ball is cradled further back in the hand, making its release slower while still maintaining the look of a fastball. According to various sources, the human eye cannot tell the ball is significantly slower until it’s too near the plate.

I know you’re starting to wonder where I’m going with this.

Now consider the game of life you’re playing every day you go out into the world. You get up in a great mood, full of energy, ready to knock one out of the park. You stand at the plate, ready to deal with the things life tosses you and nail everything it throws, inspiring everyone to do the same.  But there are other times you walk confidently to the plate, dead sure you’re going to make history and hit nothing but air. You swing but still strike out.  Everything gets by you and you walk away, head down, humiliated by your failure.

But this is where my analogy comes in.

What if you start looking at those pitches differently? Wayne Dyer said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”  Not unlike the changeup, you have to see what’s coming at you for what it really is.  How many times do we think we’re going to fail before we even try? We tell ourselves we don’t have the talent, or intelligence or some other characteristic we deem necessary to succeed at a goal.

My brother, one of my favorite people because he's inspirational in that respect, can take a bad situation, put a completely different spin on it and have me laughing uncontrollably. Like Dyer, he’s always telling me “You just have to see things a little differently.”

Life is unpredictable. Things we don’t expect will come at us every day. They will challenge our resolve, our patience and our focus. But that doesn’t mean we have to strike out.  The most important thing is just to keep your eye on the ball.  Persistence, focus and unrelenting determination can help change the way we see what’s coming at us.

I’ve heard people say “watching baseball is like watching paint dry.” That also could be true for some of the mundane tasks we face every day.  But “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”  It’s where you stand in the batter’s box that determine what you hit and what you miss.  Stand closer to the catcher, and you’ll see a fastball coming. Stand near the pitcher and you’ll hit those off-speed pitches.  

It’s all about perspective. Alter how you see what’s being thrown at you, keep your eye on the ball and you’ll hit a grand slam.  Like my brother says, “You never know what’s possible until you look at things a little differently.”

Play ball!