Exchanging Lenses

I used to think my performance anxiety couldn’t be channeled, now I know I can channel it into something powerful.

“Get La Flam going.” My heart rate takes off at the sound of these three words coming over the radio. Unproductive thoughts flood my mind as I begin to warm up, “What if I can’t throw a strike?” My arm is numb, and the rest of my body is buzzing with nerves. I continue throwing to my catcher, occasionally throwing a ball six feet from where I intended.

My coach’s voice comes over the radio again, “La Flam’s in the game.” Holy shit. At this point, I’ve thrown well enough to muster up the courage to at least take a step onto the field. I jog into the game, head down. I try to find my breath, but it’s nowhere to be found. I get to the mound and am greeted by six annoyed faces. “Here we go again with La Flam,” must be what they’re all thinking.

I start to throw to the catcher who’s in the game, except now there are thousands of pairs of eyes on me. “I used to enjoy competing in front of all these people,” I think to myself. I spike a pitch a foot in front of home plate, and the ball collides with the backstop - making heads turn. A flood of toxic chatter enters my mind. The rest of my warm up is good enough and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to face the first batter.

“Just get through the inning Luke - you can do it.” This was the usual half-ass positive self-talk I would provide myself before the first pitch. Ball one. “They should just come pull me now,” I say under my breath. This negative inner dialogue would dominate my headspace as I’d somehow find a way to get a couple outs, while walking a few as well. After another walked batter I get pulled from the game and take the stroll of disappointment to the dugout.

I find our mental performance coach and Chief Performance Officer/Co-Founder of Tignum, Scott Peltin. “Why can’t I calm down and believe in myself out there Scotty?” I ask. “Tell you what, come find me tomorrow and I’ll offer you some perspective,” he says. “Roger that.”

I find Scotty P the next day and we head out to the tunnel connecting the locker room to the field. I inform him of the disruptive inner dialogue infiltrating my headspace on the mound. He informs me of a study on dogs where different breeds were literally backed into a corner. “The study was done to learn which breeds would attack and which ones would submit,” he starts. Scott referred to this study because, “like dogs, every human has a part of the brain responsible for moving you towards something and another responsible for moving you away.”

“When you are ‘backed into a corner’ on the mound, you are focused on avoiding mistakes - moving away from them. This is called defense mode. In attack mode, on the other hand, you are focused on executing quality pitches - moving towards your intentions,” he explains. Defense mode: moving away. Attack mode: moving towards. The distinction is minuscule, but the effect was remarkable.

My perspective doubles in size right then and there. “My mind has two paths to choose from, not just one?” I think to myself. He continues to mention how it doesn’t seem this way because I’ve walked down the path of avoiding mistakes excessively - making the other hard to see, but he assures me it’s still there.

It was like my mind had expanded after hearing I could channel my performance anxiety. I learned, if my mind was focused on moving towards my intentions, I played relaxed. This was optimal compared to the suffocating feeling avoiding mistakes imposed. Throughout the rest of my time playing baseball, I possessed the awareness of what mode my mind was in. This awareness provided me the opportunity to channel my anxiety, and I found it easier to do so when I had a metaphor to help.

This is when I became connected to a lens exchange visualization to help me switch in and out of modes. One pair gave me a narrow focus - executing pitches. This was the attack mode lens. The defense mode lens allowed for too much to be seen, considering hundreds of the possible errors. Whenever I found myself with those nauseating defense mode lenses on, I would step off the mound, breath, and visualize exchanging pairs. It sounds crazy but it works, and not just with baseball.

My playing career is over, and I am pursuing different endeavors, yet those defense mode lenses are still so comfortable. I’ve even found myself with them on while I invest more time into writing. After sending out a post to my readers, I notice myself considering the opinions of way too many people. I start to believe thoughts like, “No one is being impacted by your words - you’re just 23, who’s going to listen to you?” Inner dialogue I thought was unique to baseball was infecting other passions.

I viewed this continued inner conflict as a great opportunity to learn more about myself and where these thoughts come from. This opportunity was unique because my passion for writing hadn’t beaten down a path in my mind like baseball had, making it easier to exchange lenses. With baseball, the defense mode lens was practically glued to my face. I had enough and was determined to do something about it - so I did some self exploration.

I reflected on my relationship with baseball, and realized I gave way too much weight to the mistakes I made. I had this blooper reel in my head, and watched it a hundred more times than I did my highlight reel. Looking through the lens of avoiding mistakes caused the blooper reel to became my tainted reality.

In my writing, I noticed I gave way too much credit to the pieces not producing any traffic to my website. This cracked me up because there were plenty of pieces increasing traffic to my site, yet somehow they were ignored. Once again, the defense mode lens had obscured actuality.

Now, I’ve learned to approach my performance from a neutral perspective - emphasizing my consideration of the possible positive outcomes of my efforts. When doing this, I find myself looking through the lens of moving towards my vision. I become honed in on executing the process I’ve put in place to write well, with no worries about the result. Focusing on the result is a symptom of avoiding mistakes, and is a terrible lens to see my role in the world.

The attack mode pair has been hard to keep on because it involves having the courage to move forward without all the answers. Will I be successful? Will this all be worth it? On the contrary, looking through the lens of avoiding mistakes sparks a self-fulfilling prophecy. When my mind is consumed by blooper reels, I find a way to make them happen.

So why even look through the attack mode lens? Why not just live a life where you know what to expect? My experiences tell me, on the other side of the unknown is fulfillment like I’ve never felt before. When you are in the mode of moving towards your vision, it’s a lot easier to see beyond the unknown, and you allow yourself to channel the anxiety around it. You will feel empowered, capable, and hopeful. The attack mode lens considers what you want out of life. It allows you to live out your day dreams.

I encourage you to put on your own set of attack mode lenses and move towards your unique vision.

With Love,

Luke