When you are working hard, running, lifting, swinging, taking ground ball, working on your blocking, or throwing a flat ground bull pen, the questions are who are you trying to impress and where is your drive coming from?
The answers to those questions should be yourself and within. If you are doing extra work to get praise from someone else, for example a coach, teammate, or scout you are doing the work for the wrong reason and setting yourself up for disappointment. Hard work is a trait and it will stick with you forever in anything you do as long as the work is being done for to get internal praise because the outside praise and fanfare will one day be gone, but there will still be things to work on for the rest of your life.
Being a good human being is something that needs to be worked on everyday of your life whether you are a super star athlete or a 9-5 marketing manager. It is of the utmost importance to practice doing things for the right reasons because your actions off the field and to the people you come in contact with will make impressions that go far beyond your athletic prowess. Give yourself a little test. When you hold the door open for someone to walk through and the do not say thank you, do you get mad? If so you are doing it for the wrong reason, you should hold the door open because you want to help someone not because you want to be thanked for helping someone. Now think about this, are you the guy who lifts early in the morning to get it out of the way and start your day or are you the guy who lifts when there is an audience so they can see how strong you are and tell you how great you are? This matters because your intentions are important. Your intentions should be to do whatever you can in order to get better so you can help the team. If you are doing the right things for the right reasons people will notice because it will show up on the field, but if you are doing things just for show then chances are that will also show up on the field.
Your drive needs to come from within. I say this all the time and I will keep saying it until it is not true. You should be able to push yourself to be great and you only need the praise of the person looking back at you while you are brushing your teeth at night. That praise is what matters because he will not lie to you and you cannot lie to him. If the person in the mirror is content with your work ethic then chances are you are doing something right and you are doing them for the right reasons. So keep working hard and playing for the love of the game.
