“I don’t know if I even have an aura, man. I just try to win.” – Tiger Woods
Even though I have never played any golf – except virtually, I always had a particular interest in it. And because of that, lately I’ve started to notice connections between various golfing tips and self improvement.
The winning position
What separates winning from finishing behind the winner? Well, first of all, in order to win you must put yourself in a winning position. How to get there? It’s simple, just follow some common sense (often ignored) rules.
The first rule: play within yourself
In golf, this means that you shouldn’t attempt any shots that you have not practiced many times beforehand. In both life and golf, it means playing with your strength and not your weakness.
As an example, if you are a chef who is very good as cooking deserts but weak at main dishes, don’t try to win a contest on main dishes – at least not until you have exercised the required skill plenty of times.
The second rule: play the game, not the opponent
This is where many get caught up in the moment and lose all their winning chances. Golfers who play their opponents try to keep up with them in driving distance, hitting clubs that they cannot get to the green, trying to shoot shapes that don’t fit their stroke pattern and a host of other things.
If you want to be a winner in life, focus on the challenges at hand and ignore the pace at which the others advance. You want to achieve success for you, not for them.
The third rule: prepare yourself every time, not just once
For a golfer, this means charting the course and developing a strategy even if he has played it many times before.
In life – and in golf, the best solution to avoid the winning spot is to get lazy. Lazy people tend to face challenges unprepared just because they’ve been through them before. The results that follow this strategy are not going to get anyone too close to the winning position.
As a winner, you must always walk the extra mile and prepare a fresh strategy for every situation that appears, even if you’ve faced it before.
The fourth rule: winners see things happening in a positive manner
Players that don’t win see negative images instead. The ones who rarely – if ever, win, tend to look at a situation from this angle: “don’t hit it to the right, there’s water over there.” Winners simply recognize that there is a problem down the right side and say “ok, let’s keep it down the left side.”
Pay attention to the solution, not to the problem itself.
In the end, like the picture below beautifully suggests, it doesn’t matter what you did in the past. What matters is what you choose to do next.
Choose to be better, choose to be a winner!
