I was a really bad baseball player. I loved baseball, but as soon as kids got good enough to throw a curveball, it was all over for me.
I haven’t really thought much about baseball in a long time, but someone brought up the idea of how you grip a bat and it got me thinking.
As you get older, you’re taught to actually keep a pretty loose grip on the bat. You want to hold it more with your fingers than in your palm, and as you take your swing and get closer to making contact, your grip will naturally tighten up a bit.
Holding the bat loosely allows for a wider range of motion in your wrists and a wider overall range that you can reach with your swing.
We’re all taking a swing at something – a fulfilling life, work that we enjoy making and makes people happy, or maybe a product that really helps people.
But if we start by holding on so tightly to what we think success is, or what we think will get us there, or what we think is the right answer, we’re more likely to miss.
Relax. Loosen your grip. You’ve taken swings before, and you’ve missed a ton of them. You’ll continue to miss a ton of them. Hall of Famers miss two thirds of the time.