Building new habits takes discipline and time, breaking old habits is even more demanding. Discipline is about being consistent and patient when working on building or breaking habits. In contrast, it is relatively easy to chase quick results, especially in a high performance environment where time can be perceived an unaffordable luxury. Chasing quick results when trying to build new habits is like opening the fridge every 5 minutes expecting to find something different to eat. Those results definitely won't come in 5 minutes... if you're lucky, maybe in 5 months. Even after you see results, the habits you have built need to become lifelong commitments, part of your personality, your self-image.
Regardless of what you are trying to achieve, the same idea stands, the idea of being consistent in your effort and embracing the journey that you are on. Your focus needs to be the next step of your journey which in turn, secures its eventual completion. Keeping that focus on the next step is a skill of its own. Shutting out past memories or future possibilities from your thought processes can be a challenge and like any challenge you will need methods of coping. One powerful method I have found is to celebrate the small victories. Putting energy into congratulating yourself more often when you succeed. I have found that most high performers struggle to make progress towards their goals when they expend so much emotional energy beating themselves up. The human brain does not differentiate between negative or positive, it simply takes the neural signals and uses them to predict future outcomes. Now as you can imagine, the more time, value and energy we give every perceived negative event or outcome, the easier it becomes in the future to find more events and outcomes to be negative. The cycle of teaching your brain these habits won't stop and like with any habit, the more you do it, the easier it occurs in the future. Alternatively we could use all this energy on celebrating our victories and in the same way, our brains will start to predict future victories and therefore help us build the habits that we have acknowledged need building.
I recently played my first professional golf event and, in truth, my first competitive event in a few years. The tournament was a big step in my personal journey of self-improvement and gave me context and perspective which I can share in this blog.
My stated goal going into the event was to enjoy the opportunity each shot offered me, without focus on score or position. I knew that if I did this well, I would most likely stay present in my thought processes and be able to give each moment its deserved amount of attention. My main hurdle was always going to be myself, my expectations and some demons on my shoulder reminding me of past events and future likelihoods. I have learned over the years that the best way to deal with that voice in your head is to befriend it, not be scared of it. In this way you take away its validity and can begin to use it to fuel a higher level of performance.
My physical performance over the two days was always going to be limited. Before you call me negative and contradictory, let me explain. I went into this event having come off a busy start to my work year and had not managed my time effectively enough to practice my own game, let alone play a round of golf! Now I advocate being positive and hyping yourself up as much as possible whenever you can, but there is a fine line. Lets call that line: delusion. If you know that you haven't trained hard enough or put the time in to prepare, then expecting a high level of performance is simply delusional. An athlete that is confident and knows they have worked harder, smarter and longer than most, will always be the more effective competitor. I personally knew deep down that I was not physically prepared for this event, so managing my expectations and being positive in what I had prepared for, was key. What I had prepared for was the challenge of staying present in each moment and enjoying the uncomfortable feelings and pressure of a competitive environment. This, I did well because, Wow!… I was uncomfortable almost all the time, yet I managed my expectations and most importantly enjoyed those foreign feelings.
Going forward my goal is to embrace the journey of improvement that I am on whilst realising that improvement can only occur outside of my comfort zone. Playing more professional events more often, while preparing appropriately is how I will do it. Regardless of outcome, each day we have to wake up and proceed on the journey … so lets be present while doing it and celebrate our successes... there are more of them than you think!
