These three are perhaps the mental pillars of playing well. While I’ve known this for decades, I recently read a book that really reiterated this. I kept hearing about the book Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind For Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life by Jim Murphy, a former professional baseball player. I finally decided to buy and read it. It was pretty good, though of course some of it is similar to what various sports psychology books suggest, but it put a lot of good info together. Page 54 emphasizes BFF – Belief, Focus, Freedom (i.e., play free). What does this mean?

• Belief– You must believe in yourself. If there is any doubt, your subconscious picks up on this, leading to hesitant or erratic play. It’s not a matter of waiting until you play well and then believing in yourself; you must believe in yourself first, and go from there. Once you can do this, your play will improve, and you’ll have even more reason to believe in yourself – and it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy as you ride it to the top.
• Focus– You have to clear your mind. If you have other things on your mind while playing, or aren’t really concentrating, your play will suffer.
• Freedom– You have to let yourself go and play freely. Don’t try to consciously control your play; let your training take over. Your conscious mind should only operate between points, and only on simple tactics. Otherwise, just focus on watching the ball and let your training do its job.

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