As a private instructor, one of the questions I often get from parents of new students is, “How much should my daughter practice?” While well-intended (see what I did there?) the question is usually a tipoff that said new student generally doesn’t practice very much and the parent is looking for someone who isn’t them to make their daughter practice more.

My answer typically is, “As much as it takes.” I say that because practicing is not a time-based phenomenon. It’s goal-based.

Yes, it would be nice if you could quantify practice into increments of time, such as practice three times per week for a half hour and you will be great.

The reality, however, is it doesn’t quite work that way. Because basing practice on the amount of time ignores an essential ingredient to success in fastpitch softball, or any other endeavor for that matter: intention.

When you perform whatever skill it is you’re working on in practice or a game, you have to have an intention to do it at the highest, most focused, most energetic level you’re capable of on that particular day. The measurable outcomes will vary from day to day depending on factors such as whether you’re tired, hungry, stressed, injured, happy, inspired, “in the zone,” etc.

But the intention to do your best with whatever you have that day should always stay the same. Anything less and you’re basically cheating yourself.

Think of it this way: your ability to execute in a game is greatly affected by how you execute when you’re working on those skills.

If you base your practice on time alone it’s easy to walk through the motions without putting any major effort in. Ask any kid who was forced to take piano lessons from 150 year old nun who seemed to go out of her way to find the most uninteresting music every written for her students to play. Sorry, just had a traumatic flashback.

Back to our topic, let’s take a pitcher who is supposedly trying to increase her speed. Sure, she’s going to a pitching lane three days a week with her mom or dad and throwing for an hour.

But how is she throwing? Is she just throwing pitches from full distance in a way that is easy for her? Or does she have the intention of throwing harder and thus is doing things that might be less fun and less comfortable for her, such as working on her arm whip from a close distance into a net or trying to improve her leg drive by exploding out as quickly as she can without the ball?

Is a hitter just swinging the bat and knocking 100 balls off the tee because she heard somewhere that to improve you should take 100 swings a day? Or is she focused on trying to get her sequence correct and feeling the energy flow up through her body and out her bat with the intention of seeing the ball fly off and hearing a resounding crack?

One might drive minor improvement through sheer volume. The other will take an average or even good hitter and help her become a great hitter in a shorter amount of time.

That’s what having intention is all about. It’s not just about putting in time to check the box.

It’s about putting in real work to ensure that when the game is on the line you’re prepared to perform at the highest level of which you’re capable.

That doesn’t mean everyone has to practice like a maniac. If you’re playing softball for fun in your local rec league and not really too concerned about how you perform overall you don’t need to bring a whole lot of intensity to your practice routines.

As long as you’re doing something a couple of times a week you’ll probably improve enough by osmosis or sheer repetition to perform at an adequate level.

But if you’re a youth player and your goal is to play in college, or win a high school state championship, or dominate in travel ball (even if you don’t plan to play in college), or win one of the big tournaments, you need practice with intention.

If you’re already a college player and your goal is to get off the bench, or win a conference championship, or play in the Women’s College World Series, you’d better be bringing a whole boatload of intention not just to every practice but to every rep you take during that practice. Because if you don’t, someone else will, and they’ll be getting all the glory while you’re stuck watching from the sidelines.

The good news is intention is something you have complete control over. All you have to do is decide you want something bad enough and then put in the effort to get there. It doesn’t cost a cent and it’s readily available whenever you want it.

If you really, truly want to get better and become whatever qualifies in your mind as a top player, don’t just go through the motions and put in the “required” time. Starting cranking up your intention to perform at the highest level you can manage every single day and you’ll find improvement comes faster and more easily.