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You gave this Baby Boomer Brotherhood a huge dose of hope, Phil Mickelson. You proved you’re not done when many said you were. Now we can prove, like you have, that we’re not done either.
You won the PGA yesterday – becoming the oldest man to ever win a major – by changing your routines. One of those was playing 36 holes of golf constantly heading into the tournament making sure you kept, as you described it, your “elongated focus” on every shot. Why? So when you had to play 18 a day this past week, it wouldn’t tax your mind so much and cause you to lose focus and play under your potential.
You won this tournament mostly with your mind and preparation. Your talent has been there, but your ability to keep concentrating and visualizing every shot before you hit it had been getting tougher as you have grown older. Those were your words.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result. In your case, it would have been insane to have not changed your practice routines given you had not won a Major since 2013 and were not ranked in the top 100 in the world entering the PGA.
But you did change. You did something different. You made practice conditions harder than actual Major tournament situations – and it paid off.
There are gems of wisdom in what you’ve accomplished that all of us can learn and benefit from as we ascend towards ever-more-important Baby Boomer greatness.
It all starts with changing our routines. If we’re feeling we can’t concentrate on our jobs like we used to, what are we going to do about that? You can be sure if our performance is slipping someone is noticing or will soon and we all know where that leads.
So if we’re struggling to concentrate we need to take a page out of your book and figure out how we can sustain our levels of concentration at peak levels while working at our crafts. How do we do that?
A few ideas make sense:
One: Ditch distractions. Shut out all distractions including text messages, phone calls, and Instagrams during the workday. None of that helps us concentrate better. Save all that noise for when you’re on work breaks or after work.
Two: Practice long-term concentration. We can practice once a week at night concentrating on something work-related for three hours straight. Do it at night when your mind is weary. That way during the workday we’ll have a better chance of sustaining our deep concentration.
Three: Visualization. Before work we can see ourselves performing well, executing our crafts effectively and in a great creative flow. As a writer, for instance, I can see myself dialed in totally to the writing craft as I am now releasing valuable thoughts and insights pouring out of my mind onto this page. I see this happening and I envision readers taking in this advice and using it to better their lives because it will work for them too. Just quiet your minds, think hard about one thing, and let it all fly full throttle with no inhibitions and authentic joy and confidence.
Four: Inspiration. Phil says he’s been inspired by the career longevity of Tom Brady and that’s helped give him the belief that he could accomplish great things late in his career just as Brady has. Phil has been smart to have someone like Brady give him hope and belief that he still had something left to show in his career, and he put that on display this past weekend. Anyone who inspires us we should focus on and try to emulate.
Five: Hard work. There’s no substitute for this. You’ve probably been reading lots of articles about how and why Phil won the PGA at his age. You can be sure that the biggest reason has been his hard work, simply playing massive amounts of golf these past few months leading into the PGA. Practicing his craft, he’s believed it would pay off. There is nothing that will get any one of us to our highest mountains more certainly than if we do what we do over and over and over.
Yes, change, fine-tune and strive for improvements. But put in huge chunks of time. Build mountains of sweat equity. Immerse your entire body, mind, and soul into your craft.
I learned from the greatest high school basketball coach who ever lived, Morgan Wootten, that repetition is a great teacher. He’s so right and I know this because of how my life has played out. You can talk all day and night about wanting to be great at golf or writing or selling commercial real estate or whatever you do. But you’ll never be great if you don’t embrace completely the notion that you must – you must – repeat the execution of a skill hundreds and even thousands of times and then a few thousand more times. That’s the only way to get really good at it.
If you’ve played basketball, this may resonate. You can’t expect to make two clutch free throws in the final seconds in the jam-packed gym with huge win/loss ramifications if you haven’t practiced those free throws thousands of times before the actual moment comes. If you don’t put in the practice reps, you’re very likely going to miss the big moment.
Phil knew he couldn’t expect to win another Major if he didn’t put in the time perspiring on the course, hitting balls when he didn’t feel like it anymore when he wanted to go home and watch TV or just hang out and relax. Had he not toughed it out, played golf when he was super tired of playing golf, we would not be saluting him today for his massive victory yesterday.
Instead, we are.
He won the tournament weeks and months ago out on the golf course playing 36 holes a day after day after day when there weren’t crowds of people around shouting his name. That’s when it all came together when the muscle memory started to really kick in when his mind sharpened for every shot so when the big weekend came all he had to do was go out and execute.
He is who he is today – a revered and celebrated American hero – not so much because he won but because he faced up to his weaknesses, adjusted how he prepared, and practiced to get better.
Like Phil, you’ve got all the moxie and discipline in you to accomplish more great things in your lives.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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