Shame In Sports

Why is it when we hit a bad shot on the golf course that we have a hard time letting go? We willingly swan dive into the rabbit hole of self-loathing with no hesitation. Then we continue to make more unforced errors that compound until we finally crawl out of the pit of doom and then start playing a bit better but the damage to the scorecard has been done. Sound familiar?

Think about the last time this happened to you? What self-talk came about? Did you beat yourself up? Call yourself names? Did you blur the lines between hitting a ball in the trees to you being a terrible person? What if I told you there is a better way.

One important distinction we need to make is not to compound the difficulty of this game with shame. When shamed, we interpret ourselves as irreparably flawed and that little can be done to rectify it. Shame isolates us. So, we beat ourselves up quietly, bury it and it slowly eats us up.

You see, it’s the emotion we attach to the result that can lead us down these shame tunnels. For example, you hit a drive into the right trees, then you either internally or externally react by saying something negative (“you idiot”), then we attach a feeling to it like sadness. Then the kicker, we judge ourselves with statements like “why can’t I do this” and the shame follows.

So, what if we think of this texturally different. What if we met ourselves with acceptance. Acceptance means you're not going to let the past define who you are now. Could you just say instead THAT HAPPENED… (period). Don’t attach anything to it. No judgement, no shoulds… just a simple “well I just hit that into the trees” … period. You see, we are human and humans do things but it’s the judgement and resulting feelings and emotions that we place on these things that lead us down these rabbit holes. And these cesspools don’t let us learn the important things we need to learn.

So, the next time you hit the ball in the water, just say… “that happened” (period). Nothing more. Accept the result, hold your head high, drop your ball and hit the next shot.