Palmer Trinity School

taking a difficult exam, the battle that is each question or pitch should be taken one step at a time. This outlook has always come easy to me in baseball, yet I have struggled at times to apply it to my academic life. Frequently, I find myself lacking trust in my ability and taking one lost bat- tle as an entire war; a single challenging test question can not only destroy my confidence but hinder my motiva- tion. This flawed mindset implies that a single "good pitch" would make everything else seem unhittable. They say we suffer more in imagination than in reality and that those who fear suffering are suffering from what they fear. It's taken me some time to understand that. I'm still understanding it. And as I've matured, this mindset has adjusted to mimic that of my mindset in the batter's box. I've learned to roll with the pitches, fight off "good pitches," and treat each pitch like its own battle—I no longer stress over a disappointing grade all day or beat myself up over something as simple as not being prepared for a challenging question. I just get ready to swing again. Baseball is iconic for its reputation as a sport of failure; if I fail 7/10 times, I'm a Hall of Famer. Of course, this means we must be resilient in order to succeed long term, but it also means we must be accountable—analyzing each failure to further perfect our swing. Standing on the sidelines, it's easy to shout out one of the many cliches of life: "Failure is part of success" or "Failure is opportunity." Yet, in practice, applying these platitudes becomes challenging. Our minds are trained to view a strikeout, a loss, or a bad test grade as an insurmountable failure. Yet, getting caught in that overwhelming and demoralizing feeling will only lead to more failures. Therefore, the key to success in life— on the field and in the classroom—is cliche, it is annoying to hear, and it does sound unrealistic, but training your mindset to view failure as a learning opportunity is the key to long-term success. It was only when I finally decided to treat a bad grade, like a bad at-bat that my academic performance began to turn around. Even if I swing-and-a-miss, there's always the next swing. After all, a strikeout is never the end. Walking back to the dugout, I reflect upon the first pitch curveball which set the tone for the entire at-bat—a disappointing one to say the least. YET, AS I RUN BACK TO THE OUTFIELD, THE STRIKEOUT QUICKLY BECOMES IRRELEVANT, BECAUSE NOW WHAT MATTERS IS MY NEXT AT-BAT— WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT'S AHEAD OF ME NOT WHAT'S BEHIND ME. THE K E Y TO SUC CE S S IN L IFE–ON THE FIEL D A ND IN THE CL A S SROOM–IS CL ICHE , IT IS A NNOY ING TO HE A R , A ND IT DOE S SOUND UNRE A L IS TIC, BU T TR A INING YOUR MIND SE T TO V IE W FA ILURE A S A L E A RNING OPPOR T UNIT Y IS THE K E Y TO L ONG-TERM SUC CES S. JADEN BUTLER '26 35

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