I’ve been listening to a lot of Dr. Rob Gilbert’s Success Hotline calls and the accompanying podcast lately. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Gilbert he’s a sports psychology professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

If you’re not listening to him you should be, because he has a lot of great insights on how athletes, or anyone for that matter, can train themselves to be more successful. Thank you to my friend Linda Lensch, the pitching coach at Montclair State, for turning me on to him.

One thing I heard Dr. Gilbert ask recently is a question that is really critical to an athlete’s or a coach’s or anyone’s approach to whatever they do. In our case, though, we will limit it to softball.

The question is, are you IN softball, or are you INTO softball?

What’s the difference you ask? It’s huge. .

Let’s take practice and ask the same question: are you IN practice or INTO practice? In other words, did you show up and are being compliant with whatever the coach says? Or are you really digging in and giving your best effort on every repetition, trying to maximize the value of the drill or the exercise or whatever it is you’re doing?

If you’re at a private lesson, are you going through the motions and/or putting in a little effort, or are you really engaged in whatever the activity is? Are you trying to get through the lesson or really trying to get better?

If you’re playing a game, are you just sort of there, doing what you’re comfortable with and playing it safe or are you pushing yourself to play as well as you can.

You get the idea. But there’s more to it than that, because there are two ways to approach being INTO practice, lessons, games, etc.

If you are INTO the event, are you INTO it some of the time or are you INTO it ALL of the time?

It’s easy to put it into cruise control while you’re doing warm-ups or repeating a drill you’ve done a thousand times before or especially until the game gets critical. The sameness breeds a certain level of mindlessness as you cover the same things over and over or have gaps between plays.

But if you really want to be great at something you can’t approach it like it’s a light switch, turning it on and off depending on whether you feel like giving an effort. You need to be present and mindful (to use what I think is still the current term) on every repetition or every play to take yourself to the next level.

I admit that it’s difficult to be INTO it all the time. While the action of plays may be fast, the game of fastpitch softball moves at a slow pace relative to sports such as basketball or soccer or hockey.

There’s a lot of downtime between plays, and it’s easy to fall into the distractions trap. It’s also easy to decide that what you’re being asked to do is too hard or too unfamiliar and you’d rather do it your way.

But remember if you do what you always do you get what you always get. What you don’t get is better.

For that you have to be willing, even eager, to do more. And a big part of that is being INTO whatever it is you’re doing, not just some of the time but all of the time.

The good news is you don’t need anyone else’s help to get yourself to be INTO what you’re doing all the time. It’s a choice you alone can make.

While I’ve been taking this idea from the athlete’s point of view, it applies to coaches too. (Let’s see how many continue to cheer “right on!” when I apply it to them.)

If you’re going to be IN practice you can keep doing the same general practice plan over and over. You can even buy generic practice plans on the Internet and follow them to the letter.

If you’re IN a game, you can keep the same lineup from the beginning of the season to the end and follow the same strategies over and over regardless of how they work. That’s the easy way to go.

But if you’re INTO practice you’ll take an objective look at what your team does well in games, as well as what it struggles with, and tailor the practice to what they need to do to get better. If you’re INTO games you’ll use data and look at how other coaches are structuring their lineups or the in-game strategies (including pitch-calling sequences) they’re using to decide if perhaps you need to change it up.

Here’s the thing: most people aren’t really INTO games or practices because it’s difficult. It’s much easier to just be IN the game or practice and give a little effort now and then – or maybe none at all – and check it off the list.

But if you really want to become the best version of yourself as a player or coach, don’t just be IN softball. Be INTO it.

And not just sometimes but all the time. You’ll like the results much better.