They show up to work. It is to watch a great athlete or someone who has reached super status in business and diminish their accomplishments by saying, she or he was born with this greatness or skills better than everyone else. To those who have accomplished greatness, this is an insult to their hard work in training. It is true that some are born with a genetic advantage, but this alone does not make someone great. As Aristotle said, “excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have those because we have acted rightly, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Everyone has the ability to show up to work, it is a matter of choosing to do the hard work necessary to accomplish your goals.
I ask you, are you showing up to do the work? It is easy to go practice but are you showing up to actually push yourself with the work necessary for improvement to your skills and game? As you are transitioning into your golf “off” season, ask yourself, did you accomplish what you set out to do this past golf season? If your answer is yes or no, now what? If you had a great year, kudos, congratulations but now what, what are your updated goals for next season, how can you be better? If you did not have the year you were hoping for, why? What happened, where did you fall short? Did you practice or do the work necessary for the improvements you were looking for?
You see, this is what the greats do all the time. They review, assess, look for ways to improve all the time. Athletes to actors sweat the small details, they review film, feedback from peers and get to work on improvement strategies. Tiger to Annika, would spend hours and hours on doing slow motion swings, or basic set up drills to make sure they were feeling the right things or noticed that a slight hip position change at set up made a difference on how the club traveled on path. McIlroy and Speith talk all the time in interviews about how they are disciplined enough to follow their process, from basic physical preparation to how they work on their golf skills, working on fundamentals until they are automatic. This is not to say that there is no struggle, you can hear all the great players talk about struggling this week or that week in their preparation to find something to work on. But you see, this is what the best do, they seek to find the truth about how they can improve to master their skills. This is deep and hard work.
Next time you catch yourself watching great athletes or someone who makes something look easy, don’t say, they are born different than I am, they were born with such talents, but rather think of Aristotle’s quote above, tell yourself, greatness then is the act hard work in training and habit, discipline to do so will help you earn your greatness!
If you haven’t sat down with your coach or coaches to review your goals and your strategies for success, now is a great time to get started, call or email your coach today, do your player development assessment, find out what your player development index, know where you are so you can get to where you want to be!
Enjoy Your Journey!
