IF YOU ARE IN THE SH*T, JUST GET OUT OF THE SH*T FIRST: Lessons from Golf

I was speaking with my dad over the weekend in the lead up to my brothers annual "Hilton Head Invitational Golf Tournament", where my brother, parents and brother's lifelong friends get together for a week of highly competitive golf, with the reward of yearly bragging rights and a plaque that gets passed around.

This morning my dad was reflecting on his golf game after one of our Yoga Therapy Stretching Sessions. He is officially in the era of playing "old man golf" which simply means playing wise and conservative and not just whacking the crap out of the ball as hard as you can with less consistency. I usually half listen when my family talks about golf but my ears perked up when I heard him say, "If you are in the shit, you just got to get out of the shit first. If you try to make up for your bad stroke by going for an impossible shot, you will likely end up in more shit."

I love to find connections between different sports and life, and this one was obvious to me. In hockey sometimes when we make a mistake, we feel like we have to make up for it. We tackle back and over run the play only to let the attacker cut infield; we miss a tackle in the circle and then cause a stroke on the next tackle; We are playing below our expectations, so instead of just doing our role and keeping it simple, we try to be spectacular, to hit the impossible ball, or take on 3 people ourself. Its an age old mental game we play called: HockEY-GO

Hockey- Ego ... get it?

My dad continued to explain it in golf terms, saying rather than shoot the impossible shot from a bad position, get yourself back into the fairway, and continue playing as if nothing had happened.

This is a perfect example of focusing on the PROCESS over the outcome. No matter what happened in the previous play, whether you are playing golf, hockey, pickle ball, or life, assess the current circumstances and make the next right choice, uninfluenced by the emotions and ego that want to prove you aren't a bad player or person.

Here are three steps to take to help get you out of the sh*t:

1. Don't take yourself so seriously. Everyone makes mistakes, everybody has those days (;

2. Accept the new circumstances. Goldfish mentality, forget the past and don't get caught worrying about the outcome: Stay in the present.

3. Focus on the process - What is the step that gets you OUT of the shit. Focus on doing the next right move.

Dad (Scott Hoffman)