Confidence in the face of adversity

For plenty of parents out there, Little League Baseball has kicked off with a bang this year. We’re only a week in and already right back into the thick of it. Back-to-back games, training sessions, batting practice in the rain. The whole beautiful scramble.

This year, my eldest son moved up into a higher age bracket, and it’s been great to be around a new group of players, parents, and coaches. One of the things I’m most excited about this season is the chance to focus not just on technical skills, but on something bigger: mindset, attitude, and of course, resilience.

And as the game gets quicker and emotions get bigger, we wanted to push a simple message for the kids to understand when things didn’t go their way. One of the tools we’re adopting is “ACE”.

ACE stands for Attitude, Communication, and Effort.

And yes, it’s a tool for Little League, but it’s also a useful tool for everyday life. As the name suggests, it’s something to keep up our sleeve when our day doesn’t go to plan.

Why we play sport

The thing I’m particularly drawn to in kid’s sports is that, at all levels, the kids will be practicing building confidence for when adversity hits.

And adversity is coming. That part is guaranteed.

Sport teaches kids what it feels like to lose, to miss, to fail, to fall down. But it also teaches how to get back up, dust off, try again, support team mates, and keep going when things aren’t going to plan.

And that is just how life works. In fact, often life is back-to-back adversity.

And in those moments, whether we’re on the field, in the office, or just trying to hold it together on a chaotic Wednesday, one of the best things we can do is get to work on what we can actually control.

Which, when you strip it all back, is really just one thing.

It’s us.

We can’t control the call. We can’t control the weather. We can’t control whether someone follows through, changes the project at the 11th hour, or says the wrong thing at the wrong time. But we can control what we think, what we say, and what we do.

That’s ACE.

Attitude = what we think.
Communication = what we say.
Effort = what we do.

Let’s break those down.

Attitude = what we think

The mind is a fast-moving machine, and these days it doesn’t need much encouragement to spiral (thanks social media!). Our brains are wired with a negativity bias which helps us stay alert to threats. What that means is that it’s natural for us to be on the lookout for what’s not going well.

That’s why our attitude matters. It’s our way of making a choice to take back control of the moment and focus on what is going well. A helpful practice here is gratitude: the deliberate focus on appreciating what we have instead of lamenting what we’re missing. This is the sort of stuff that trains the brain to notice what is still working, even when some things are not.

At work, this matters more than we realize. The strongest teams are the ones that refuse to let one problem poison the whole day.

A tool for the toolbox: Gratitude practice. When the mind starts spiraling, write down (or name) three things going well. It interrupts the negativity and puts our attention back where it belongs.

Communication = what we say

In sport, communication is how we respond after a bad call, how we speak to a teammate who made an error, or how we choose to share important info that might be needed in that moment.

In life and work, it’s no different.

Clear communication sets expectations. Encouraging communication builds trust and confidence. Honest communication reduces confusion. Additionally, when we’re under pressure, the way we communicate often becomes the emotional temperature of the room.

One of the best moments from a recent game was hearing the kids genuinely cheer each other on. It lifted the whole team and relieved pressure for some of the kids. Amazing to see the power of words in action!

At the office, this is one of the most underrated resilience skills there is. The people who communicate calmly will help teams stay steady.

A tool for the toolbox: Lower the volume. When pressure rises, strong communicators avoid matching chaos with more chaos. They slow down their delivery, choose cleaner words, and avoid making the moment heavier than it already is.

Small communication shifts can change the direction of a whole situation.

Effort = what we do

This is the doing part. The roll-up-our-sleeves part. The part where resilience is unmistakable. And also where confidence is really built.

Because confidence grows through proof. From having hard moments and getting through them. Each moment of adversity is a reminder that, if we can get through this, well then we can surely get through that. 

At work, this is the training session we don’t feel like attending, or the hard conversation we don’t want to have. I can think of hundreds of examples that feel overwhelming, but those are the moments that we forge our sharpest minds. Because the more crap we go through, the better we get at navigating it. We learn from it and we begin to use it to our advantage.

We trade questions like “Why does this always happen to me?” for “What can I get from this?”

A tool for the toolbox: Do one hard thing first. This is about doing one uncomfortable thing early in the day before the noise builds. Perhaps it’s 50 push-ups, 10-mins of meditation, or writing a journal. If we don’t want to do it, that’s the whole point! We’re training follow-through, no matter what mood we’re in.

That’s how resilience gets built. Rep by rep.

If you’ve been following along for a while, you know I’m a sucker for an acronym. ACE is right up there for me, giving us something practical to hold onto when life gets messy. It helps the pitcher on the mound, the employee whose client cancels at the last minute, and the parent stuck at the airport trying to get home in time for the game.

These are frustrating moments. And they’re going to happen to us all.

But when they hit, we now have that ACE up our sleeve.

Until next time, friends, stay resilient.

Carré at Resilient Minds

PS - if this hits, please pass this along to someone in your network who has kids in sport, or a colleague who struggles through the chaotic days.