I don’t often share life hacks, but I think this one is important. It’s a way to win more, not just on the golf course but in life.
Lower the bar.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating small victories, especially in golf. Mr. Ben Hogan claimed a good round of golf is when he hit 3 shots that turned out exactly as he envisioned them. For Hogan to only expect 3 shots per round to be “perfect” says something about the challenges of golf. For those of us who are pulled in 1,000 different directions on a daily basis, how many perfect shots can we expect in a season?
This is not a reminder to manage your expectations. That facet of golf is well . covered. What I am advocating for is more simple and more challenging. It is something I struggle with every time I play or practice. It is simply finding the good stuff from a round, acknowledging it and celebrating the little victories we have along the way.
Good does not have to be perfect, it simply has to be good. I’ve been working on my putting for a long time now. I finally started working with a coach, and I’ve seen improvements. My improvements have been slow, but constant. It’s easy to brush them off because I am not where I want to be yet with my putting.
On the other hand, for the first time in my life, I am feeling some level of confidence on the putting green. I am EXCITED about putting, and my continued improvement. I want to be on the putting green because I know I am trending in the right direction. These are all awesome things, and will help me continue to improve. That is worth celebrating. Am I a good putter? Not yet, but right now things are trending in the right direction.
To a certain extent, this is simply being process oriented. Finding the things we need to improve on and then slowly grinding our way to improvement. The problem with being process oriented is it becomes easy to get sidetracked. My brain always tries to find the quick wins and “big” breakthroughs. Hard work by definition is hard, and my brain tries to find shortcuts.
Celebrating wins helps me stay focused on the task at hand. Celebrating the one perfect putt I hit during my training. Finding little improvements and being proud of myself for them. My last Stack putting session featured a bad three putt, but my overall strokes gained was an improvement vs previous sessions with no 3 putts. I’m going to take that as a win. Even with a dumb 3 putt, I am currently putting above my old average.
It is easy to get bogged down in the negative. Things we could have done better, mistakes we made. One of my goals for this year is to celebrate the positive more. I have a habit of ignoring small wins, especially when I am focused on the process. These wins are a direct result of my process being good, and thus they need to be celebrated. I am putting marginally better because I have been working hard with a coach on my putting. If I celebrate those early, small wins, it will motivate me to keep working.
I am hoping in the long term that enjoying the small wins will help me get to more big wins. Maybe by the time I reach them, they will feel small. Just another step forward. That’s OK, too. I will still celebrate them… because they are wins, and I celebrate wins.