What’s the skill that you most recently worked on? How long did it take for you to start improving? Were your results uniformly better, or did you still revert back to poor performance often?
There’s no doubt that I am a much better golfer than I was a few months ago. My swing is different, my short game has improved, and my decision making is better. My handicap is now trending below 6. I’m hitting more fairways and green and record fewer putts.
But as I improve, so do my expectations. And unfortunately, golf is a sport where some days it clicks, and some days it doesn’t. So even though I feel like I should par or birdie every hole and shoot in the 70s every round, I still play poorly pretty often.
Some rounds I can’t hit the ball straight, other rounds I can’t get up and down (when you miss the green with your approach shot, but get the ball in the hole with 1 chip and 1 putt), and then there are the rounds where I have a bunch of 3-putts.
So even though I’m 100% better, I still shot 85 or higher in 6 of my last 15 rounds. That’s super frustrating.
When I play and it all clicks, it’s incredible. I feel like I’ve finally figured it all out, only to card an 87 the next day. I still have not yet had back-to-back rounds in the 70s.
This whole experiment wouldn’t work if I was addicted to playing well. I would have already quit because I don’t play well often enough (yet). Fortunately, it’s the challenge, improvement, and game itself that I love and brings me back each day.
Focus on the challenge and the future
It’s not easy improving a skill as an adult. We don’t like being bad and the learning/improving process is easier done as a child. But we still CAN learn new things. Whether it’s a new language, card game, cooking, excel, networking, or golf, I’ve found it’s best to focus on the challenge and where you want to be in the future, rather than how well you perform on any given day.
With golf it’s easy and hard. Your handicap objectively measures your results over time, but you also see your rounds bounce up and down every day. AND your score doesn’t even always reflect how well you played. Some days I hit the ball great but shoot 84, and other days I feel like I’m playing poorly and end up with a 77. That’s golf.
No matter what you’re trying to improve, figure out a way to objectively measure your performance over time. But don’t be discouraged when your results don’t consistently exceed your expectations. Life isn’t that smooth or predictable, and it wouldn’t be fun if it was.
