GOLF MENTAL GAME TRAINING TIPS BY DR. RICK SESSINGHAUS
The Power of Trying Again in Golf: Joseph’s Story
For many of you high achievers out there it’s all about success, it’s all about achieving, right? However, how do you deal with failure? I remember a story. I was fortunate enough to teach Special Olympics Golf for 10 years and there was this one athlete, his name was Joseph, awesome, awesome guy. He had Cerebral Palsy and he was playing golf. I remember one day on the driving range, we’re out there and he has his 7 iron and he’s teeing the ball up and he’s getting there, and he misses. He looked back at me without skipping a beat and said, “Rick, Rick, Rick, can I try again?” I go, “Of course.”
The Power of Persistence: Joseph Keeps Trying
He got up there, swung at it, he missed again. Again, quickly, “Rick, Rick, can I try again?” I go, “Of course, Joseph. Go for it.” He got ready, and he got ready and he hit that and, “I hit it Rick. I did it. I did it. I knew I could.”
At that moment, I started to understand the difference between accepting failure and just being able to move on to actually make a change and go for what the intention was. For him, he just wanted to hit the golf ball. The first two repetitions didn’t phase him in the least and all he wanted was to try again.
As we look at life, as we look at success and achievement, so often we’re focusing just on that end result that anything below that is a failure. Sometimes that failure stops us in our tracks and we don’t want to try again and we don’t want to get back into what our intention was.I always remember Joseph because 1) his attitude was about learning, his attitude was about continuously improving, and 2) he had just one goal, just to hit the ball, and nothing was going to get in his way.
As we look at our daily lives and we look at things that they should be a certain way or we should achieve something, I want you to think about in terms of just trying it again and being so focused and so of what you want that a little miss doesn’t get in the way of you succeeding. Because success, as we all know, comes from failure. And I’m not afraid to use that word by the way because failure is just a word. It’s not the result you wanted.
However, how are you going to react to that word and how are you going to now associate that task or that lack of task to your life? That association of trying again and doing it again and making the adjustment is really the key to getting to that next level.
We have a lot of challenges in life. Sometimes they seem simple but through repetition, through an attitude, but through what I call the feedback loop is just let’s just try again. Let’s just try again. So Joseph has taught me a lot about that attitude that failure is just one repetition. It does not now define him as a golfer. It doesn’t define somebody just because they didn’t do it once or twice.
Go out there today and try again and see where that takes you with your success because remember every day we need to train our golf mental game, on and off the golf course.
