One of their recent entries was titled “How to Overcome Your Worries: 5 Timeless Thoughts from the last 2500 Years.” As the title suggests, of course, the gist of the article was how to focus on the positive and be action-oriented, rather than sitting and worrying about life. Good stuff.
Being a golfer as well as a business guy, as I read the article, I immediately contemplated how these Thoughts would apply to both the business world AND the game of golf.
You can find the entire article here. I urge you to read it, as it includes many great tips on how to move from worry to action.
In the meantime, here are the 5 Timeless Thoughts, some quotes from the article, and some GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS.
1) 80-90 percent of what you fear will happen never really come into reality.
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” -Winston Churchill
This is a big one but one that is easy to forget about. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.
GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS:
Golf is such a fantastic analogy and microcosm for life. While golfing, quite often your ball simply goes where you place your focus. If you focus on the fairway, your ball lands softly therein. If you focus on the water left, or the forest right, your ball makes its way there.
So in some ways, yes, 80-90 percent of your fears will come to fruition, if you focus on your fears.
But there’s another way to look at it. All of you have stood up on the tee, worried about the water left, and then conjured up all sorts of fears and negative emotions related to the possibility of hitting it into the drink.
- You have a great round going and one bad shot will ruin it.
- Your partners will laugh at you.
- You’ll make a big number on that hole.
- There’s water left on the next two holes as well.
- Why do you even play this game?
- Blah blah blah!
And what happens if you do happen to get your ball wet? Well, you drop, hit your approach up onto the green, two-putt, take your bogie and move on. Big deal!
A round of golf is full of shots that don’t turn out perfectly. And yet, golf goes on, life goes on, and you make the very best of your next shot. And 80-90 percent of your fears do not come true.
2) Don’t mountains out of molehills.
“Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” -Arthur Somers Roche
It’s very easy to fall into the habit of making mountains out of molehills. You think and think about a small problem until it becomes something that you believe may ruin your life.
GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS:
Once again, this is what most golfers do with hazards, be they bunkers, waste areas, rough, water, etc. Hazards are not simply physical in nature. They’re primary effect is mental.
Golfers look at a tee shot with a couple of bunkers in play and somehow mentally those bunkers come to dominate the vista.
In reality, their ball’s landing area is 90 percent fairway, with a bit of rough way off on either side, and a couple of sand bunkers. But in many golfers’ minds, the landing area is 90 percent hazard and 10 percent fairway.
3) Let go of that familiarity and certainty.
”People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” -George Bernard Shaw
Whatever you have been doing perhaps for decades feels familiar and comfortable. Even if it may be something destructive as worrying. Taking a leap of faith and going into the unknown, making a change that may turn out to be positive, can feel scarier and more uncomfortable than what you are used to. Even if what you are used to is worse in the long run.
...
One great tip that I have learned for making it easier to let go is to first accept it. Then to let it go. When you accept something instead of resisting it you stop feeding more energy into your problem and making it even bigger. A bit counterintuitive.
GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS:
So you, like many golfers, slice the ball with your driver. This great burden seems to weigh you down. On the first tee you announce to everyone that you’re a slicer so you’ll apologize up front for some time spent off to the right in search of your ball. Before each round and even throughout each round, you constantly lament and think about your dreaded slice.
Well, perhaps you’re more attached to your slice than it is to you.
Hit your 3-wood off the tee. Leave your driver in the parking lot. Between rounds learn to hook the ball. Then to draw the ball. It’s really not that difficult! And in the meantime, simply let it go. Stop thinking about it. You’ll be amazed at the results!
4) Focus on a solution.
“There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.” -Harold Stephen
To move out of worry it’s very helpful to just start moving and taking action to solve what you are concerned about.
GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS:
So, back to that first tee. You have water left and a forest right. You can already feel the tension throughout your arms, shoulders and chest. And you’re still putting your shoes on in the locker room!
Stop worrying and start focusing on a solution. Accept your reality for what it is. Those two hazards, left and right, have you frazzled. Fine. Accept that. And move on to devising your solution. What are you going to do about it?
You could consider hitting an iron off the tee. You could commit to reorienting your thoughts, your focus, and your intention towards the vast fairway. You could decide to hit a low-trajectory, hooded shot which is more likely avoid the dangers. You could commit to hitting a draw up the right side, or a fade up the left.
The point is, accept your reality, whatever it may be. Stop fighting it. And move on to a solution!
5) Tomorrow will come anyway. Live and fully enjoy here and now.
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.” -Leo F. Buscaglia
It may sometimes seem that by worrying we can less the sorrow of tomorrow. But it never works. It only sucks the life out of today and this moment.
To be able to live better today and to be able to take that action to prevent the possible sorrow it’s important to learn to live in the present moment. Because it’s there that you can do things in the best possible way with your focus fully on what you are doing.
GOLF RELATED THOUGHTS:
If you’re worrying about the outcome of a shot you’ve not yet hit, that means your attention is not focused on your current shot.
Even the very best golfers in the world focus all of their attention, all of their skills and abilities on the current shot. They do this because they realize that they’re not perfect, they’re not superhuman. They understand that the execution of the current shot demands ALL of their attention, no matter how good they may be.
So how is it that you feel you can execute the current shot with only a fraction of your attention? (Because the rest of your attention is focused on worrying about the unknown future.) Are you so much better than the world’s premiere golfers that you feel you can execute shots while your mind wanders elsewhere?
Focus on the here and now, on the current shot!
No comments:
Post a Comment