Faith is the Best Mental Game

The mental game has become an increasingly hot topic within the world of sports. It is something that I neglected for a long time in my own career. As athletes, we have the tendency to spend so much time focusing on preparing our bodies, and we tend to forget to challenge the mental game. There are hundreds of trending techniques and motivational videos; everyone senses it. The right mental state unlocks something the body cannot produce alone.

But what if the one thing that moves the needle the most in the mental game isn’t a technique at all?

The Problem With Performance-Based Identity

When your worth as a human seems to rise and fall with statistics, ERA, your coach's approval, or wins and losses, you are standing on sand. It sounds obvious, but this is the state I found myself in so many times throughout college baseball.

Tim Keller breaks this down very simply:

“If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”

I think many athletes play the game stuck in this cage because this state can be so subtle. It disguises itself as “caring” or “being competitive,” but underneath… it is fragile. It is unsustainable in a game that is bound to go away.

Searching for Purpose

Before this perspective ever made sense to me, I began reading through Ecclesiastes in a team bible study at CMU. I found myself asking the question, “Why do I spend so much time working for the game of baseball and pouring into something that will inevitably end?”

Solomon had everything that most of us are chasing. Success, wealth, influence, accomplishment. He tested it all and observed life at the highest level. His conclusion was striking to me. He calls it all “Meaningless” or, as many translate it, “vapor” or “breath”, something that is here one moment and gone the next. They are bound to fade; they cannot carry lasting purpose on their own. He built, achieved, and experienced more than most ever will, yet he continued to come back to the same conclusion. Nothing under the sun can satisfy. I am left with more questions than I had when we began the study! Is there truly no value in the game that we play?

Solomon comes to a conclusion in chapter 12,

“Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” Ecclesiastes 12:13

Our purpose is not in the things that we do, but who we play for. That apart from Christ, our ventures under the sun are “vapor,” but when we do it for the Lord, there is an eternal purpose instilled into what we do.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” Colossians 3:23

The purpose was never in the game itself; it is in our purpose. We are not called to play for the approval of others; we are called to work in everything we do as if we are working for the Lord, not for Man. For the first time in my career, I began to see that I am not competing for accolades for myself or for the approval of my teammates and coaches. Competing for Christ opens the door for freedom. When we compete in Christ, all that exists is opportunity to compete, to grow through experience, and to use the game as a platform for the Gospel.

What This Looks Like Practically

This isn’t about going through the right routine the night before you pitch, or overthinking your process the day of, it is about seeking relationship with Christ daily so that it becomes our natural response. This is not to discredit routine, and discipline, each play their own role and can be very beneficial to performance.

Throughout my career I thought just perfecting my routine would solve my problems. If I could just do everything the same way, eat the right thing the day before, drink the same thing the morning of I would perform the same way. When failure came I would overhaul what I did because it “didn’t work”. I didn’t actually have much of a routine at all. When it came down to it I was chasing after the wrong things.

In order to “think God’s thought’s” once we get into competition, we must draw near to him consistently. Spending time seeking the face of the Lord through prayer and time in the word can teach us more about our identity, and prepare our minds for adversity more than anything else.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

Isaiah 26:3

This must become a habit. The most simple thing we can do is create a strong habit of reading the Bible, and spending time in prayer. When we keep our mind on the Lord there is a perfect peace that comes with trusting in the Lord in all circumstances.

My goal for my writing is to document my learning as I continue through my career. This is not something I have mastered, in fact this serves as a reminder to myself just as much. I hope that as I document my learning it can help athletes that are working on blending their relationship with Christ and their sport. Thank you for reading!