Take Out the Trash: Compartmentalization Over a Long Season

Compartmentalization is necessary to perform, and in the short term the process is usually helpful:

• Isolate the issue from any other challenges you are dealing with—most of us can only focus on one emotional task at a time.
• Apply extreme focus to that task until it is complete.
• Take steps to complete it, putting one foot in front of the other.

Think of emotions like taking out the trash. You don't carry the garbage outside every time you empty a milk carton; you throw it in the kitchen can and close the lid. When the can is full, you take it outside. Putting emotion away during competition is necessary—but it creates problems if you never empty the can.

A baseball or softball season is long. Slumps, playing time, travel, school, family—it accumulates. Many players know they need to set emotions aside to perform; few acknowledge the need to empty the trash afterward.

This process has the best chance of success during downtime: an off day, the bus ride home, the week after the season. What's in your trash can? We all have one.

Exercise

1. What is in my trash can right now?
2. When will I take it out?
3. Who will I take it out with?