The holidays are over and the calendar has flipped back to January. I would say people are stressing over writing the wrong dates on their checks but who writes checks anymore?

Except the little old lady in front of you in line at the grocery store when you just want to buy a loaf of bread or a half gallon of milk and get on your way?

While in reality New Year’s Day is just an arbitrary date (as evidenced by the many different calendars, each with their own first day of the year), the idea of a new year does provide an extra incentive to think about doing things a little differently going forward.

So with that in mind, here are a few ideas of how you can shake things up a bit and make this your best softball year ever.

1. Get New Batting Gloves

I actually see this one a lot. Hitters go to put on their batting gloves and half their fingers are sticking out, or the palm looks like a surface map of the moon. Or the stench is so bad it hits from 15 feet away.

Batting gloves aren’t that expensive, at least relative to most equipment in fastpitch softball, yet they can save you from a lot of blisters and other issues during long practice sessions. Sure, your daughter should have asked for them for the holidays but she didn’t, because the only time anyone thinks about batting gloves is when they go to put them on.

Don’t be cheap. Pony up a few bucks and replace them. If your daughter is superstitious, tell her she can keep the old gloves in her bag, or her back pocket. Preferably in a sealable plastic bag.

2. Clean Out Bat and “Go” Bags

Over the course of a season, bat bags quickly become a dumping ground for old water and sports drink bottles, half-eaten fruit rollups, used bandages, team handouts, the occasional extra shirt or shorts, miscellaneous plastic wrappers and other detritus of the sport. Not to mention field dirt and those little rubber pieces from turf fields.

With games at a minimum right now, this is a good time to completely empty out the ol’ bat bag, throw or put away everything that doesn’t need to or shouldn’t be in there, and give the inside of the bag a thorough scrubbing to boot. Maybe at a car wash.

The same goes for parents’ gameday “go” bags and coolers. There’s a pretty good chance you have a few science experiments running in there at the moment.

Clean them out before the season starts to crank back up in earnest. Not only will it be healthier (and smell better). It might even make everything a whole lot lighter.

3. Do Some Research about Doing Research

There is a metric crap ton of information about how to pitch, hit, throw, run the bases, warm up, and perform a variety of other fastpitch softball-related skills on the Internet and in social media. Some of it is great, but quite frankly a lot of it is useless at best and garbage at worst.

How do you tell the difference?

Well, rather than just jumping on to the first thing you come across in a search (or while scrolling), do some research about who is putting out the information, such as:

• What is their background?
• How long have they been teaching?
• Do they seem open to new information or are they stuck in their ways?
• How do their students do overall? Not just their one or two best students but across the spectrum?
• Does what you’re reading/watching make sense to you? (You’d be surprised how many videos, especially on apps such as Instagram, actually seem counter-productive when you think about them, even if you don’t have any expertise.)
• Does what the source is espousing match up to what you see the best players in the world doing?

Taking the time to check the source and evaluate what he/she is saying can save you from taking a long, frustrating trip down the road to nowhere.

4. Challenge Your Current Beliefs

It’s very easy to fall into a rut, or assume that you already know everything (or at least enough) about a topic. Taking that attitude can prevent you from discovering a whole other world of knowledge that can make you even better.

Every now and then it’s important to look at information that challenges what you already believe. Especially when it comes to mechanics and general approaches to the game.

You may end up right back where you started, Which is ok – it’s confirmation you’re already on the right track.

But you may also discover techniques or approaches you’ve taken for granted, or that you learned when you were a player, are not quite as beneficial as you thought they were. You can then decide whether to continue blindly following what you’ve always done or make a change that will help you going forward.

Either way, you’ll have made an informed choice.

5. If You’re Taking Lessons, Attend a Non-Affiliated Clinic or Camp

Taking private lessons is a wonderful thing. Obviously I highly recommend them as the best way to make progress toward improvement.

But after a while even the best-designed lessons can get a little dull. They also usually have a limited perspective, even if you’re in a group lesson with 2-4 other players.

Going to a clinic or camp with a different instructor(s) can help in a few ways. Not the least of which is a different instructor may see something your current instructor doesn’t because of familiarity. After a while, we all tend to see what we’re used to seeing.

It also gives you a chance to see how you compare to others. That’s especially important for those who are really driven to be the best.

Sometimes in the drive to get to the next achievement we forget how far we’ve already come. A large group setting can show that while you’re still working on things, you’re actually ahead of the curve overall.

It can also show if you’re behind the curve, which may be an inspiration to those who maybe have trouble getting themselves up for practice sessions. Nothing like seeing where others are to get a player to say “I’d better get after this.”

Many of these clinics and camps are just one day, so it’s not a huge time commitment. But they can be enlightening.

Just be sure to do your research again before just signing up for any old camp or clinic. Make sure the instructors are going to be teaching solid mechanics and approaches or you could end up going backward instead of forward.

6. Do Some Non-Softball Stuff

These days all competitive sports seem to take up a LOT of your time. While you no doubt love it, and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, there IS more to life than softball.

This is the time of year to find out what the rest of life is all about. Read a book. Go to a museum or a concert or a dance performance. Watch a completely different sporting event, either live or on TV. Go bowling or ice skating or to a trampoline park (just be careful not to get hurt).

Doing something just for the fun of it will clear your head, reset your spirit, and help you get ready for the long grind ahead.

Make It a Good Year

None of what’s listed here is likely to cost you very much. But the return on investment will be huge.

There’s a reason the windshield is much larger than the rear view mirror. This time of year provides a great opportunity to leave the past behind, symbolically as well as literally, and focus on the road ahead.

Doing these little things will help you do just that.

New Year’s photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com