I'm fairly certain that I read this somewhere over the past few months but a recent situation brought it back to light. The situation was losing. In this particular situation, I was working a baseball camp and towards the end of the camp, we had a running competition in which two runners would face off against one another. The runners would run a suicide-like sprint. For the uninitiated, this normally works on a basketball court in different variations but a standard one looks like so - the runners run from the baseline to the half-court line, back to the original baseline and then all the way to the opposite baseline. Whichever runner makes it to the opposite baseline last is the "loser." 
So, we had a similar situation setup in our baseball camp. Two campers were facing off in the run and one runner got out to a large lead. The other runner began to realize that he was way behind and started to give up, allowing the other runner to increase his winning margin. 
This situation reminded me of this idea - that even though the losing runner was way behind, the sprint still represented an opportunity for him to improve. He might lose this race, but if he fails to take advantage of the opportunity to give his full effort and improve, he lessens the chance that he is going to win in the future.
The applications to baseball are pretty obvious here, but I'll present this situation - your team is losing in the middle or late in the game. If the margin is large enough, this presents a pretty good opportunity for a team to give up and just try to get the game over. However, the team needs to be reminded that this is a learning opportunity and although the score might be out of hand, it's a chance for them to improve for future competitions. Who knows, with this mindset, you might even get the team to rally and come back to win the game.
There's another twist on this that I came across while watching a small college fall practice this year. The college team was split up into two squads and they were completing their annual fall world series. Rather than keeping a culmulative score for the entire game, the score was based on how many innings each team won during the game. So the overall score did not matter! Team 1 could have scored 50 more runs than Team 2 overall, but if Team 2 won more innings during the game than Team 1, Team 1 would emerge victorious. I thought that this was a great idea to maintain competitiveness during games even when one team jumps out to a big lead - change the objective for sustained effort. 

I read this in "The Practicing Mind" by Thomas Sterner. I've always felt a struggle between focusing on results vs. process - I do believe in the process but believe that goals/results are important to give you direction. I love how the author describes it here with the example. 

I enjoy what he writes here. Just before this passage, he mentions goals being like a rudder.

   Recently, I've been thinking more about the mental side of baseball and how to introduce this to my team. A few different influences have shaped my thoughts on this over the past few weeks and my Thanksgiving drive today allowed me to mold those thoughts into an actual plan. So, disclaimer here - I have not tried this plan with a team yet but hope to try it out soon. These are my thoughts about how I could see a basic potential mental training plan panning out. Note also that what I present here focuses mainly on developing a breathing and meditation practice. I also believe in developing proper overall mentality by discussing mindsets (growth vs. fixed) among other things, but I will not adresss those other points here. Primary influences in building this have been Alan Jaegar, who I heard speak at a California coaches clinic, and Jeremy Sheetinger's interview with Nate Trotsky.
   First things first - I think the importance of the mental game needs to be explained to and actually practiced with athletes. Many say that baseball is 90% mental but the mental game is either never practiced or, if practiced, is practiced very little. I have always known that the mental side was important, but being able to explain the "why" behind it is just as important to get young athletes to buy into a regular mental game practice routine.
​   One way that can help explain the why involves getting players to think about "the zone" - when they feel that they are in "the zone," what are they actually feeling? Many, I'm sure, would describe an increased sense of focus, a feeling of calm and an ability to concentrate. 
   Once you get them to describe what the zone feeling is, I believe that you can introduce breathing exercises such as square breathing as a way to facilitate those feelings of focus and calm (aka, the "zone" feelings). Square breathing is an exercise during which the breather breathes in for 4 seconds, then holds the breath for 4 seconds, and then breathes out for 4 seconds. Repeat as many times as you wish. You can also vary the timing from 4 seconds to any other length of time that you desire. Check in with your athletes afterwards - how do they feel? Do they feel that engaging in this activity has increased their "zone" feelings? 
   After introducing square breathing, I would leave it at that for Day 1. You've so far introduced them to the concept of being able to adjust their state simply by engaging in a breathing exercise, thus emphasizing the important connection between the breath and both their physical and mental state. To take it to the next level, I believe that you need to introduce them to the concept of meditation.
   Meditation, in my opinion, should be introduced to athletes in a similar way to how we introduced them to square breathing. We first need to explain the application of meditation while also introducing it as a way to enhance and or strengthen their mental state. I personally believe that meditation is great for developing the ability of one to notice their thoughts and realize that one can have thoughts but choose to not engage them. Simply strive to be an observer of the thoughts passing through your mind - let them pass through like clouds passing across a blue sky. Meditation can help us do this. 
   While developing the ability to notice your thoughts is one application of meditation, another is to remind your players that in order to perform optimally in a game they'll have to be "in the zone" (mentally focused) for up to several hundred pitches. Developing that kind of focus and not taking plays off (as Trotsky has said) will not come easy and will require practice.  
   So, how do we practice meditation? Calm.com offers free guided meditation which can walk you through the basics. Again, the key lesson that I believe the coach needs to relate to his or her players is that you're never going to be able to completely clear your mind. What you do have control over, however, is whether you choose to engage the thoughts in your mind or not. Don't fight the thoughts - just notice them. It's a skill that has to be practiced through meditation. 
   As a sidebar, I think that at some point while explaining these mental concepts to your players, it's important for them to understand that there are 3 main periods of time in which we can exist - the past, the present and the future. While we want to maintain living in the present moment as much as possible, different thoughts cause us to experience various emotions which may detract from our optimal mental state. Thoughts about an error we made (the past) can cause sadness and regret whereas thoughts about the future yet to come may cause anxiety. On the other hand, residing in the present moment can bring feelings of calm and focus (remember these? These are the same feelings we associated with being in the "zone"). So the key point difference between maintaining presence in an optimal state is our thoughts. If we're feeling regret or sadness, we may be engaging thoughts about the past whereas if we're nervous or anxious, we may be engaging thoughts about the future. The key is to learn how to have these thoughts but NOT engage them. 

Implementing the ideas - 

To summarize, here are some of the key ideas and practices that I believe will help develop a team's mental ability and improve mental performance.

• Start by asking the team to describe the idea mental state - When you're locked in, what does it look/feel like?
  • Ideally, you'll start to talk about focus, concentration, clear-mindedness and other adjectives that go along with a heightened mental state.  
  • Introduce breathing techniques, such as square breathing, as a way to enhance mental clarity and state. Emphasize a focus on the breath. Check in with your athletes after using the technique - how do you feel? Do you feel a heightened mental state? 
  • I would recommend stopping at this point for your first session.
• At your next session, explain the 3 different states of being and emotional characteristics related to each. 
• Introduce meditation as a way of developing your athlete's ability to observe and choose which thoughts to engage which will then help the athlete keep his/her mental state rooted in the present. While practicing meditation, encourage them to view their thoughts like clouds passing by in the sky. They can choose to engage the thoughts or let them pass - it's up to them. Letting them pass will provide mental clarity where as engaging them will lead to a dissipated mental state. Feel free to use a guided meditation app, such as Calm.com, to facilitate the meditation. 
  • Further qualify meditation as a way to develop mental fortitude - something in which repeated practice will allow them to maintain mental focus for long periods of time during competition. 
• Repeat, Repeat, Repeat! The team will only notice changes if they do these activities often. Start all of your classroom sessions or team gatherings with at least 5 minutes of breathing exercise. Changes will not come over night; you need to build a regular practice with your team.