57 | Father-Daughter Duo CRUSHES Goals with Positive Affirmations!

[00:00:00] Yeah, it's actually weird to think about. I had this little notebook and I wrote after my freshman year. I wrote maybe six or seven on there. And when I moved into my new apartment, I had it magneted on our whiteboard, like right now near the door. And my sophomore year, I don't think I accomplished any of them.

[00:00:27] But after my sophomore year, I wrote down like little notes next to it where I think one of my goals was to have 150 strikeouts and I had 127. I said, so close and then 127.

[00:00:39] Hello and welcome to Catching You, a dad and daughter softball journey. I'm Rusty, a dad who's been in the dugout and on the sidelines.

[00:00:47] And I'm Lacie, the daughter whose journey through softball has been filled with incredible wins, tough losses, and so many lessons both on and off the field.

[00:00:55] For the past 16 years, we've navigated the highs and lows of softball together, from the local fields to national tournaments and everything in between.

[00:01:04] From the challenges of recruitment during COVID to the mental and emotional rollercoaster that comes with being a student athlete,

[00:01:10] we'll be sharing the perspectives of both the parent and athlete and firsthand experience of the impact of sports on mental health and the importance of support from the sidelines.

[00:01:18] Welcome back, everybody, to Catching You. I'm your co-host, Rusty Hamm. With me is my beautiful daughter in her room, Lacey Hamm. Lacey, say hi.

[00:01:28] Hi.

[00:01:29] You are home for how long?

[00:01:32] Till the 11th. We get you for 11th.

[00:01:36] We get you to the 11th.

[00:01:38] Yep. Then I'm gone for five months.

[00:01:42] For five months. Your senior year, going to graduate. Everyone's asking you what you're going to do, which is going to lead into what we're going to talk about in the second.

[00:01:51] Yeah. What are we doing Saturday? We're leaving Saturday for what?

[00:01:55] Monterey trip?

[00:01:56] Monterey. We're going to drive up to Monterey, so we're going to stop off in Santa Barbara, which is a really nice place.

[00:02:02] Hopefully we'll walk up and down State Street.

[00:02:05] And then we'll go to Monterey. You're going to go to the aquarium. Jesse and I are going to go play golf.

[00:02:12] Spend New Year's Eve there, right?

[00:02:14] Yeah. I would love for all of us to go to the aquarium.

[00:02:20] But man loves.

[00:02:23] Yeah. I've seen fish in tanks before.

[00:02:26] Awesome.

[00:02:29] Anyway, today's podcast is going to be super short. We're entering into the new year.

[00:02:34] When this comes out, it's going to be New Year's Eve.

[00:02:37] So Lace and I are going to talk about not, we're not talking about, what are we not going to talk about?

[00:02:45] Resolutions.

[00:02:46] Resolutions. Resolutions typically last probably maybe in the neighborhood of four to six weeks.

[00:02:54] And then for about six weeks, it's done, right?

[00:02:57] Oh, I'm going to lose. I'm going to go to the, I'm going to the gym. That's why gym membership is skyrockets in January because everyone wants to create this new habit, which is working out.

[00:03:09] And then they work out for six weeks and they go back to their old habits.

[00:03:15] We're going to talk about goal setting.

[00:03:19] And I have a book behind me.

[00:03:22] If you can see it, it's called The Gap and the Gain.

[00:03:24] And The Gap and Gain really talks about goal setting and how goal setting is good.

[00:03:33] So for, for, for some reasons, there also can be a hindrance because it could be a mental distraction, right?

[00:03:43] If I have a goal and I don't reach it, a lot of people mentally, they get not destroyed, but they just, they feel let down, right?

[00:03:53] They get sad or they get depressed because hypothetically, say I'm going to lose 25 pounds and I only lose 15.

[00:04:02] I'm, I would be sad because I didn't get to the 25.

[00:04:05] The book called The Gap and the Gain talks about the gain.

[00:04:11] Yes, I didn't hit my goal, but what did I accomplish in that, in those 15 pounds?

[00:04:16] I created a new eating habit.

[00:04:18] I started reading.

[00:04:19] I created all these habits in that, even though I didn't lose the 25 pounds, I lost 15.

[00:04:25] But in that process of losing 15, I changed things about my life, right?

[00:04:31] And I think that's what we're going to talk about now.

[00:04:33] Lace, you're coming into your last collegiate eligibility of softball.

[00:04:41] What kind of goals?

[00:04:44] And then what kind of, what are you going to, how do you manifest those goals?

[00:04:48] We talk about manifesting goals.

[00:04:50] What are some of your goals for this coming season?

[00:04:53] So we actually did that as a team before we left for winter break.

[00:04:58] One of our last practices, we all brought in a sheet of three specific attainable goals that

[00:05:06] we want to accomplish this season.

[00:05:08] We all established our team goals at the beginning of the year.

[00:05:11] We all knew, we all know what those are, but the coaches really wanted to see us create

[00:05:14] our individual goals.

[00:05:16] So mine was to earn pitcher of the week three times, three times and more or more.

[00:05:22] Attain a 2.5 ERA or below a 2.5 ERA.

[00:05:28] And then I think my last one was pitch, either pitcher of the year or first team Mountain West.

[00:05:36] So those were my three.

[00:05:38] Yeah.

[00:05:39] And I remember, I think it's maybe a four by six yellow, yellow pad where you have,

[00:05:47] I think you had five or six goals on there.

[00:05:50] Maybe a little bit more, maybe 10.

[00:05:52] Yeah, it's actually weird to think about.

[00:05:54] I had this little notebook and I wrote after my freshman year, I wrote maybe six or seven

[00:06:01] on there.

[00:06:03] And when I moved into my new apartment, I had it magneted on our whiteboard, like right now

[00:06:12] near the door.

[00:06:13] And my sophomore year, I don't think I, I don't think I accomplished any of them.

[00:06:20] But after my sophomore year, I wrote down like little notes next to it where I think one of

[00:06:26] my goals was to have 150 strikeouts.

[00:06:28] And I had 127.

[00:06:30] I said, so close.

[00:06:31] And then 127 in parentheses.

[00:06:33] Or I don't know other.

[00:06:35] I think my academics weren't that weren't good that year.

[00:06:38] So I was like, you can do better type thing.

[00:06:40] And then last year for my junior year, I, it stayed, it's stayed in the same exact place.

[00:06:46] So every time I walk out the door, I see it on my whiteboard.

[00:06:52] And last year I earned picture of the week.

[00:06:55] One of the, one of the weeks we had.

[00:06:57] So I got to cross that off.

[00:06:59] Then for my fall semester of junior year, I got a 4.0.

[00:07:04] So I got to cross that one off.

[00:07:06] And I think those were the only two that I crossed off.

[00:07:10] Yeah.

[00:07:11] That's awesome.

[00:07:11] Cause the 150 and the 127 kind of reminds me of what I just said, which is the gap in

[00:07:16] the game.

[00:07:16] You had a goal at 150.

[00:07:18] You had 127, which is really good.

[00:07:21] No, cause you're not on a team where you're like the only pitcher, right?

[00:07:27] You share time.

[00:07:28] So it's not like you don't have a ton of eighties.

[00:07:32] 127 is that's why I was talking about the gap in the game.

[00:07:38] The game is you struck out 127 people, right?

[00:07:43] So because even though you didn't make the 150, which is for me, you, you had a positive attitude,

[00:07:51] which is, Oh, you're almost there, which is a positive thing.

[00:07:55] And then with the grades, Oh, you can do better, right?

[00:07:57] You didn't meet, you didn't reach your 4.0, but you knew you can do better and you turned

[00:08:02] it into a positive and you were able to accomplish a couple of those goals.

[00:08:06] That's awesome.

[00:08:07] Are there some techniques because having goals can just, anyone can have a goal, right?

[00:08:13] Anyone can just set a goal, right?

[00:08:15] My goal is to lose weight.

[00:08:16] Okay, great.

[00:08:17] What are you going to do about it?

[00:08:18] We talked about it off the air, but manifesting, what are some of the things you can do in order

[00:08:24] to reach those goals?

[00:08:26] One way I just already talked about was having it visible for you to see every single day.

[00:08:31] So the ones that I wrote down before I left for winter break for my team, I taped it to

[00:08:37] the inside of my locker.

[00:08:39] So I see it every time I open my locker.

[00:08:41] That's one way.

[00:08:42] A lot of people make it their lock screens of their phone, as we all know how much people

[00:08:48] are on their phone.

[00:08:49] You talked about affirmations.

[00:08:53] Yeah, so you're placing yourself there, right?

[00:08:55] So you want to be, you want to be picture of the week three times, right?

[00:08:58] So instead of saying, I want to, you can maybe manifest it by meditating and picturing yourself

[00:09:09] having those awards on what you said, on the whiteboard.

[00:09:13] Like, oh, I am, I am a three-time picture of the week for San Jose State.

[00:09:18] I am first team all Mountain West, right?

[00:09:22] So you're placing yourself as if it happened already, right?

[00:09:27] It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy too, right?

[00:09:30] A lot of people say, I can't do this.

[00:09:32] I can't do that.

[00:09:32] When you say you can't, then you're already defeated, right?

[00:09:38] So you want to place yourself as if it already happened.

[00:09:42] For my business, I have certain goals for the year.

[00:09:45] And then on 12, 31, 25, I'm visualizing what that looks like.

[00:09:53] And what that looks like is I've already accomplished those goals that I've set.

[00:09:57] And on 12, 31, 30, 25, I've made X amount of money.

[00:10:02] I've acquired a certain amount of homes, right?

[00:10:05] So I've already done that mentally.

[00:10:07] I've done that.

[00:10:08] I haven't done it yet.

[00:10:10] Those are some of the things that we talked about off the air, which is just meditate.

[00:10:16] Or maybe you just write, you write in a journal every day.

[00:10:19] Or you write, you, it's not necessarily meditating, but you write in a journal.

[00:10:25] You're what you've accomplished mentally, what you've accomplished.

[00:10:27] I've been a three-time pitcher of the week for the Mountain West.

[00:10:32] And then you open it up and you read it every day.

[00:10:35] So these are some of the things you can do to help obtain your goals.

[00:10:40] Having goals, everyone has goals.

[00:10:42] What we also had to do, we did a, for my sports psychology class, we had an end of year goal-setting project.

[00:10:50] That was, we had to do throughout the year.

[00:10:54] And we had to, first off, in the beginning of the year, do a proposal of what our goal would be.

[00:11:00] But we also had to write down what were our, what were the actions we were going to take in order to reach that goal.

[00:11:08] Because if you just have a goal, but there's, you have no idea how you're going to accomplish it, then what's the point?

[00:11:15] You said, I want to lose weight.

[00:11:17] Or, okay, how much do you want to lose?

[00:11:19] Okay, 25.

[00:11:20] Okay, how are you going to do that?

[00:11:22] I don't know.

[00:11:23] It's okay.

[00:11:24] You have to at least have some sort of idea.

[00:11:27] So let's say, I did something with softball and pitching.

[00:11:30] And I wrote three times, go to my trainer three times a week to loosen up my shoulder.

[00:11:37] Do mobility three times a week with my trainer in the weight room.

[00:11:42] Or I think I use, I also use an example of weightlifting.

[00:11:45] If I want to squat a certain weight by the end of the semester, how am I going to reach that by the end of the semester?

[00:11:53] If I just lift the same exact weight and squat the same weight the entire semester, I'm not even going to be able to reach what I wanted to do.

[00:12:01] Just, you need to gradually increase it.

[00:12:04] But I feel like a lot of people have these goals but really don't know what to do in order to attain them.

[00:12:14] And then some people have unobtainable goals.

[00:12:17] They have these goals that realistically aren't going to happen or can happen.

[00:12:22] So you have to look into that too.

[00:12:23] You got to be realistic with yourself.

[00:12:25] And we said off the air what you alluded to, which is SMART goals, right?

[00:12:28] What is SMART?

[00:12:30] It's an acronym.

[00:12:31] Yeah, it is an acronym.

[00:12:33] So the acronym SMART, we were talking about this off the air.

[00:12:37] What's the acronym SMART stand for?

[00:12:39] So it's specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.

[00:12:47] Time-based, yeah.

[00:12:48] Yeah.

[00:12:49] It's important to have time.

[00:12:50] And some people split their year into quarters and trimester, right?

[00:12:55] So my business, we do trimesters.

[00:12:57] So by the end of trimester one, we want to accomplish a certain thing.

[00:13:02] And how are we going to do that?

[00:13:03] And then can you measure it?

[00:13:05] And then, so we do trimesters, some people do quarters.

[00:13:07] You have three seasons, typically.

[00:13:10] You have a pre-season.

[00:13:12] Then you have conference.

[00:13:13] And then hopefully you have a third season, which is the Mountain West Tournament.

[00:13:18] Correct?

[00:13:18] Correct?

[00:13:18] Yeah.

[00:13:19] Because people would say it's like post-season conference, or no, pre-season conference,

[00:13:25] and then post-season.

[00:13:26] Post-season, yeah.

[00:13:27] So I just said, you have a pre-season, then you have conference, and then conference tournament,

[00:13:33] and that's post-season.

[00:13:34] Okay.

[00:13:35] Yeah, that's true.

[00:13:36] Yep.

[00:13:37] So hopefully you make the post-season.

[00:13:39] You made it your sophomore year, which is fine.

[00:13:41] You guys made it to the Mountain West Championship against San Jose State.

[00:13:45] We got throttled, but that's okay.

[00:13:47] You made it there.

[00:13:48] You weren't expected to.

[00:13:50] Against San Diego State.

[00:13:51] That's why I think I said that.

[00:13:53] Maybe not.

[00:13:54] But you weren't supposed to make it, and you made it, which was cool.

[00:13:57] You had a nice little run there.

[00:14:00] Boise twice.

[00:14:01] Yeah.

[00:14:01] And then unfortunately, you guys didn't make it last year, but this year, you guys are right.

[00:14:06] Again, we talked about it in other episodes.

[00:14:08] Nobody left.

[00:14:09] Nobody came in.

[00:14:10] You have a strong pitching coach that's coming in that has certain goals for you guys.

[00:14:16] I think because you feel good about her, I think you guys are going to pitch better.

[00:14:21] Yes.

[00:14:21] Those are the last pitching coach.

[00:14:23] You guys were on edge.

[00:14:25] It just was chaotic.

[00:14:27] I love it.

[00:14:27] If things are chaotic, then you're not going to go out there with the most confidence.

[00:14:33] And if you don't go out there with a lot of confidence, you talked about that already,

[00:14:36] that you feel confident.

[00:14:37] Even if you miss certain pitches, you feel confident that she's going to call the right pitch,

[00:14:41] and you're going to come back and do well.

[00:14:43] So looking forward to the year, sweetie.

[00:14:48] Everyone else, happy new year.

[00:14:50] Again, we're going to be in Monterey, so we don't know what we're doing yet.

[00:14:54] I know our day of me and mom going to the aquarium, and then you and Jesse golfing.

[00:15:00] Yeah, you've said that a couple times, but that's our Monday the 30th.

[00:15:03] New Year's Eve is the 31st.

[00:15:05] We have no idea what we're doing.

[00:15:06] Yeah.

[00:15:06] Good stuff.

[00:15:07] Everyone, happy new year.

[00:15:10] All that you want for 2025 comes to you.

[00:15:15] Manifest it, right?

[00:15:18] Do whatever it takes to achieve your goals.

[00:15:21] Lacey, do you have any parting words for 2024?

[00:15:24] Next year is a very big year for me.

[00:15:27] Don't ask me what my plans are.

[00:15:29] I'm figuring it out.

[00:15:31] Yeah, we have about a week here to maybe journal about it.

[00:15:36] You don't have to have a set and goal yet, but it's good to have an idea going into the year.

[00:15:41] At least idea.

[00:15:43] Yeah.

[00:15:43] If I had no idea, then I'd be worried.

[00:15:46] Right.

[00:15:47] There you go.

[00:15:48] Awesome.

[00:15:49] 2024 was awesome because we were able to start this podcast and hang out basically weekly.

[00:15:56] Not every week, but we were able to hang out weekly and talk to some awesome people

[00:16:00] and interview some great people and hopefully keep doing it more in 2025.

[00:16:08] All right, everybody.

[00:16:09] Happy new year.

[00:16:10] Take care, Alex.

[00:16:10] I love you.

[00:16:11] Love you.

[00:16:12] Take it right on your side.

[00:16:14] See you in five seconds.

[00:16:16] See you in five seconds.

[00:16:17] See you in five seconds.