“There may be players with more talent than me but I promise you they will not out work me, they will not outthink me and this is why they will not beat me!” Michael Jordan
When trying to achieve extrodinary results you must have the right mindset. Well what is the right mindset?
The right mindset is Mastery. Mastery is something we do not hear very often any more. Our society has gotten too busy with doing things, being good enough. Having the ability to delve deeper into your passion or something you enjoy learning about is somewhat of a lost notion. We are too busy! In school, kids are overwhelmed with just preparing for a test, never really learning the information. Parents are too busy working to try and stay ahead, golfers are too busy looking for the next easy way to improve. What happened to the idea that being great at something takes time? The fact is, it takes hours of hard work on the right things, it takes patience and perseverance, it takes the right purpose to keep us in the right mindset to be great at something!
Natural talent is what typically sets us on the journey to explore our skills, purpose is why we keep going when natural talent hits the proverbial ceiling. As with most things, we as species move about doing things in an entrepreneurial way, which means when we have an idea about something we go with it! We will carry out an activity to its fullest until we hit our natural talent limits, sometimes this can be extremely good and may go beyond the average person, but it is still limiting and will not be our greatest work. It will only be good enough. An athlete that wants to be extraordinary or do extraordinary things must tap into their purposeful mindset.
What happens and why does your mindset have anything to do with your extraordinary results? As we walk around “doing” things in our natural entrepreneurial approach we will eventually hit our natural abilities’ ceiling. In doing so here is how the inner dialog that sounds; 1) this is disappointing! I can’t get better 2) I don’t think I will get any better at this, maybe I should move on 3) I will try something new, my talents are in something else 4) wait, this is hard too, maybe I made a mistake, wow this seems like the same cycle I was in before!
The point of the inner dialog is to help you understand that no matter how good you are at something when you initially try it, you will reach your natural ability ceiling of achievement. When this happens without a purposeful approach mindset you will continually be frustrated and eventually quit something you enjoy doing.
When you have a purposeful mindset to approaching extraordinary this is what your inner dialog may sound like; 1) I am so glad that I know why I am doing this, I love when I can focus on this one thing today to get better, I am not worried about what might happen, I am focused on what will happen with the work that is going on now 2) I understand that there have been people before me achieve extraordinary things, what did they do? I can model how they planned their work, if not I can seek out a coach that may understand my goals to help me 3) it is much easier for me to achieve success if I follow my system daily, it keeps me focused on the process and not the results 4) because I am not focused on results I can see breakthroughs beyond my natural ability, I can lift the ceiling of my talent limits! Good job, keep repeating the process…
How you approach your golf development and your life is up to you, but wouldn’t you like to give yourself your best chance to succeed? Check your mindset. Are you just relying on natural talent to get by ( I’ll practice and play and see what happens) or are you purposefully planning ( I’ll do whatever it takes to get better, follow a designed plan) your success. Focus on what you want your life to be, why you would like it to be that way and structure your activities to achieve it!
Enjoy your Journey!
