Letting Go and Setting Goals

If you’re competing to have a very open look at who you are and your abilities, then you have to admit to yourself that when you go to a competition you have to let go of caring about how you shoot. You’ve got to let go of caring about what your score is.

You have to do your best on every shot regardless of results. At the end of it, let the people you’ve been paying to keep score keep the score. If you win, fine. If you don’t, fine. But the important thing is not who won or lost. The important thing is “What did you learn?”

Ultimately, you’ve got to look at what you’re trying to get out of competition.

Why do you want to compete? Why are you there? Are you there to be the best you can be? Maybe you’re starting to understand a little bit more about it now. But are you there to be the best you can be; or are you there to beat somebody? Are you there to win?

If your goal is to win, if you’re trying to win, you can’t lie to me because I thought the same. You run the very first five stations. “This may be the day I run a hundred straight.” You’ve all thought about it. You’ve all dreamed of it. If you hadn’t, you’re lying to yourself. I know you have. I have. But you got to understand that those are the kinds of thoughts that make you tighten up.

If you’re happy with the way you shoot competition, then don’t change anything. Keep doing it, and keep learning from it. But if you’re not, you’ve got to determine what benefits you’d like to get from competition and determine what commitments you must make to bring those about.

This is an excerpt from the May 2011 Coaching Hour podcastYou can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.