Enea’s Corner: Dreams

Have you ever had someone tell you that you are not good enough? Or that you just don’t have what it takes? As an athlete we have all been in this situation before, some more than others. There always seems to be negativity coming from a coach, a parent, a teammate, or siblings. I am here to tell you how to push these “dream stoppers” out of your life so you can continue on your road to success!

How you think is everything:  Think positively in every situation or opportunity. Visualize success and not failure and avoid negative environments and people. The best response to a negative person or situation is POSITIVITY!

Write down your goals: When writing down your goals it forces you to CLARIFY what you want. Try to be as specific as you can. For Example, “I am going to have an ERA below 1.00” as opposed to “I want to pitch well this season.” Having these goals will motivate you to want to take action and succeed, therefore it will be a lot tougher for someone to try and convince you that they are not obtainable!

Block out the Nay Sayers: When you surround yourself with positive people, you will make a big difference in your confidence and performance level. The only reason to remember the doubts and criticisms from people is to add even more motivation. Sort of like fueling the fire! You keep all those doubts in the back in your head and use that to push you to be the best and show them that they were wrong!

Be stubborn about your dreams: First and foremost, when I say be stubborn, I do not mean to fight with your coaches or teammates because you want your way. But when someone says you “can’t” you refuse the statement and say you “can”. Be stubborn in the fact that there isn’t anything you cannot do on the field. Maybe there is something you are not particularly great at, and then you get to the field and practice it until you become great at it! The only person stopping you will be yourself.

Growing up I had a lot of people who did not think I would be anything but a mediocre softball player. My freshmen year in college was really hard because I was injured and forced to take on a role that I was not familiar with. Going into my sophomore year, I still had all these negatives that were burying me. I refused to listen to everything and reminded myself that I am a good player and that if I really want this I will work as hard as I can. At the beginning of that year I wrote down on my board that I wanted to be clutch any time we had runners in scoring position and to be an All-American. With the confidence from my coach and all the hard work I put in, both physically and mentally I finished my sophomore season up with the most RBI’s on the team and landed myself a spot on the Second All-American Team. From that moment on I knew there couldn’t be anything or anyone that can stop being from doing anything I wanted.

Tweet with Francesca Enea: @frangator10