Your Vision
“In order to be successful you have to develop your inner vision. If you have no vision for the future, you are destined to fail in the long run.” – Greg Norman
Why have a vision?
Before starting any journey, you need to have a destination in mind. We only get one life, and our time is limited. Every day is precious and gives us the opportunity to create a better life and bring our goals and dreams towards us. But without knowing where you want to go and what you value most, you can easily become stagnant and lose the opportunity. With a long-term goal in mind, it makes you focus your limited energy on each step towards it each day.
What does your future look like? Let’s think about what is possible for you and create a vision of it. Make this a “dream goal”. That way, if you fall short, you’ll still achieve more than if you had set goals for something that is probable, or likely. The most successful people in any field didn’t get there by setting goals that were realistic or expected. Instead, they aimed to do something extraordinary!
Avoid making your vision about a single event would represent your success. You don’t want to build up pressure on one tournament (the mental approach to every tournament should be the same). I like to instill in my students that there’s no such thing as a “big tournament” or round, they are all big. Thinking that way helps you develop high performance habits for every moment, not just ones you consider “big”.
Visualize yourself winning many tournaments and see the player that you will have become and skills that you will have developed to achieve it.
Write down your short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (5-10 years) vision and create a picture for it in your mind. Make it a goal to visualize your “vision” a few times per week. When you see it over and over again in your mind, it will lead to greater self-belief and less self-doubt which makes you do everything with more effort and determination.
Next, think about what it could be that could get in the way of that goal? How will you overcome this? By doing this, you start to figure out solutions to the challenges that could arise along the way.
Purpose and Motivation
When I was a young player, I had no visions in my head of fans and trophies. I basically sought 3 things from the game: To improve at it, to compete at it and to win at it.” – Jack Nicklaus
I’ve put purpose and motivation together because they are closely linked. Although it’s a positive step to create a vision for your future, you need to know why it is that you want that life for yourself. Your vision can give you a look at your future life so you can decide if you really want it. With time being the most valuable thing, we need to think very carefully about how we will spend it. What it is that truly motivates you to put effort into achieving it. How will becoming a champion golfer give your life more meaning? What will it represent?
Your motivation towards your goals will help you give it everything you’ve got and get you through the inevitable setbacks and struggles ahead.
I’d like you to ask yourself:
“Why this vision for my future and not something else?”
“Why will I spend my limited time working hard to pursue this particular endeavor?”
“What is it about this vision/goal that is going to add meaning and purpose to my life?”
Keeping peeling back the layers with further “why?” questions until you get to the root of why it is that you are pursuing it.
Your long-term success is the accumulation of all the focused effort during each day along the way. What it is that motivates you to put in that effort you will have a big effect on whether you achieve your goals and how happy your pursuit of them will make you.
Your vision is your destination, whereas your goals are the steps that take you to there. We will discuss the Goal Setting Process in Module 7.
Personal Philosophy and Values
Next, I’d like you think about the values that you’d like to instill and uphold, no matter where your journey takes you. What will be at the core of the person that you want to become?
Your values are the guiding principles that are behind your thoughts, decisions, actions, and behaviors. What is it that you stand for and the values that you hold highest? I’d like you to create a “Personal Philosophy Statement” which encapsulates these values. You should be able to clearly articulate this, so it will require some thought.
- Start by writing a list of all the values that you would like to bring to your practice and play. Examples of these are:
- Discipline
- Strong Character
- Effort
- Commitment
- Positive Attitude
- Courage
- Adaptability
- Humility
- Competing Relentlessly
- Gratitude
- Poise (Controlling Emotions)
- Self-compassion
- Being present
- Patience
- Acceptance
- Honesty
- Think about highest priority values and use them create a “Motto”, which will speak to who you are and how you want to be in each practice session and round. An example of this could be “Compete for every shot”, “Every Shot Counts”, “Never Give Up” or “Nothing can affect the confidence that I have in myself”. These statements can remind you of your values behind them, such as being present to every moment, focus, mental toughness, confidence, competing relentlessly no matter where you stand. Before and during each round you’ll can use your motto to make sure you are upholding your values.