I saw a very interesting post on Facebook the other day. It was a picture of a shopping cart, or as we say in Georgia a Buggy, sitting in the middle of a parking lot. The caption states, “I don’t know one successful person who leaves their cart in the middle of the parking lot.” The moral of this message was a simple one, “If you are too big to do the small things, you’re too small to do big things!”
Let’s talk about how this picture and how it applies to our sport. We all know that playing the game of fastpitch the right way requires a player to do a very long list of small skills in a very complicated sequence to accomplish great things. Hitting sounds like a skill but anyone who has ever hit knows that from the time the pitcher starts her windup to the time we decide to swing the bat we have done countless little things to get ready to hit. Before the pitch leaves the pitchers hand she has done countless little things to get herself in a position to make magic happen. And on the list goes as we look at every part of the game. So physically, the little things matter a great deal.
Attitude is everything in determining what kind of success a player is going to have. When a player is willing to do the little things, to pay attention to detail and take care of their responsibilities we know we have a player who is much more likely to become a great player. When a player is lazy, careless, entitled or doesn’t like to work hard the likelihood of them being successful is greatly reduced. When we think of the cart left in the parking lot we know one of these player types sounds like they are the person more likely to leave it there. So attitude and doing the little things really does matter.
The small things are always going to add up to big things. If we work hard and invest a great deal we are much more likely to pay attention to detail and do all the small things to the best of our ability. When we do the small things well we are going to do the big things well. When we choose to ignore the responsibility of doing the little things then we are doomed to failure.
The shopping cart is just one example but unfortunately we all see a lot of them loose in the parking lot every time we go to the store. Makes me sad!
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
