Baseball is Similar To Life
Here is a blog which I was hesitant to write because it might confuse some people, but I believe that leadership is earned through taking complicated things and making them simple. It seems as though everyone has a book written about how to improve your life and how to win at life. We are no different. Since the release of Perpetual Improvement we have been on a mission to help people ‘perpetually’ improve their life. What separates Formal Fitness Training from ‘influencers‘ or so called ‘experts’ is that we have actually walked the walk, talked the talk & wake up each day in the trenches working toward a better tomorrow for today, and our future generations. We believe anyone can achieve high levels of health, wealth, success, happiness, great relationships, good fitness and high quality nutrition. Progress does not come overnight but it will always be worth it.
As we enter the final hours of 2020 it is important to look at where you are and where you want to go. From there you will make progress! Persistence leads to progress which leads to perfect practice which gets you close to perfection.
Now on to baseball:
Do you like baseball? If not that’s fine you can use any sport really for the example I’m about to uncover just switch out pitcher with quarterback, basketball shooter, driver, etc. It gets a little muddy but I think you will understand the concept.
What does baseball America’s past time have to do with success and life?
Let’s start at the beginning there are two modes in virtually all sport’s; Offense and defense.
Every day is similar to an at bat for offense, you will strike-out, bunt, achieve a single, double, triple, or steal a base. You might get a walk or on rare occurrences you will achieve the grand-daddy of them all a GRAND SLAM.
Confused? Here we go! Think of all the little decisions you make day in and day out and how they can effect your health or virtually anything else. A single could be making a smart nutritional decision at dinner, a double could be two weeks of clean eating & a grand slam could be losing twenty pounds in three months with a complete overhaul to your lifestyle while creating new habits to improve your health, fitness & nutrition together.
Every day is similar to pitching for defense. Life is going to come at you and throw you all sorts of things curveballs, fastballs, change-ups, screwballs, knuckleballs, split fingers and many other options. Sometimes you are going to give up hits (singles-home runs) and that will impact you in one way or another but that is where your team comes into play.
Every baseball organization consists of a team of individuals working together towards a common goal (winning games). In life you want to (win the day). The team is organized with a supporting cast of bullpen pitchers, pinch hitters, utility players, coaches, trainers, nutritionists, doctors, lawyers, agents, sponsoring companies all the way around to the hot dog venders and beer distributors. This is your network! If you don’t have a good team of support around you (I hate to break it to you) but you will never achieve anything big in your life. Life is meant to be done together!
The last thing I want to touch on before I attempt to tie this all together is the ‘seasons’ of baseball and life. There are off-seasons, pre-seasons, in season and post season. Just like there are different seasons of life. Seasons of life include adolescence, teenage, young adult, middle adult & older adulthood. During these seasons you need to be considering your long-term vision no different from the baseball team trying to win a championship.
In an effort to get better sometimes you need to adjust your starting line-up. These decisions can be hard but if you are not surrounding yourself with the type of people you are looking to become you will have a hard time reaching the level of achievement you are looking for. I’m not endorsing eliminating people who don’t support your goals, mindset or are not trying to do what you are; rather saying that you should endeavor to reach out to the people who are going to support you and assist you in moving forward. It has been often said that your income and level of achievement/success will be directly tied to the five to seven people you spend the most time with. Choose who you spend the most time with wisely!
This was just a start to what inevitably could be a book about baseball and the road to success but it is just a start. It is my hope that you found insight to inspire you to take 2021 by the horns and get things done.
If you enjoyed this blog please leave a comment or send us a text or email so we can continue to connect with you!
For now. Onward and Upward always!
~Mike
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
