Get Out of Your Way

I recently posted one of the best golf scores in 17 years of playing the game. No, I am not blogging (or bragging) about the game, but rather about something I discovered as it was happening.

It's a funny thing how our minds work. We don't intentionally seek out complexity, but we often find ourselves mired in it. We tend to over-think and over-analyze things that should be straight-forward and obvious. There are times when we fumble the simplest and most basic of tasks. Things that we do every day, but for whatever reason, at any given moment, are handled with the physical and mental aplomb of the Three Stooges.

Get back to the basics.

We've often heard professional athletes and coaches reference this phrase. Simplify. Do the little things right. Not only is this notion cliché it is also exceedingly difficult to perform on command.

One of the most common and curious iterations of this concept is the suggestion that the key to success is for the athlete to get out of her or his own way. I've always found that particular expression both profound and confusing.

The idea that the limit to our successes comes from within is a powerful one, but how exactly does one get in one's own way?

During my recent experience on the golf course, I was of two minds. On the one hand I felt confidence in my abilities, while at the same time I had no expectations of the outcome. I was able to plan, visualize and execute shots, but could not explain how I was able to do so. The best description of the experience was an overall sense of calm.

In the days that followed I found myself already resigned to the fact that duplicating this performance was likely impossible, and that's when the light bulb flickered to life.

There are times in our lives we find ourselves ensnared either by self-doubt or our ego. In the one hand we don't allow ourselves to believe we are capable of extraordinary things while on the other hand we think our gifts, talents and hard work deserve just reward. How often do we write off the potential for success by assuming we are not good enough? How often do we squander success because we think we ought to be getting something better?

When we extract those two notions from our thought processes we eliminate two significant obstacles to success. I other words, we get out of our own way.

Of course, there is no accounting for life's good bounces and lucky breaks, sometimes we get them, sometimes we don't. There is much about life that is beyond our control, but once again, how we respond to these things depends largely on our mindset. If viewed through the eyes of self-doubt or our egos, it is easy to trap ourselves by thinking that bad breaks only happen to us, or the lucky breaks are somehow deserved. In truth, neither is the case.

Changing our mindset is not easy. As beings who are extraordinarily self-aware, discarding the propensity for self-analysis goes against our nature. We are constantly measuring ourselves against others and often against our own previous successes or failures. There is no off switch for this, nonetheless, it is an eye opener.

In some ways its a bit like managing expectations, but in a much different way. It's not about high or low expectations, I think its about having none at all.

We seldom let life happen to us. We always feel the need to intervene, to measure, to analyse and to take ownership. If we could just let go of our need to reshape life to suit ourselves and experience life as it comes, good or bad, who knows what we might discover.

Maybe ourselves.