One of the biggest lessons to take from the game of bowling and apply to your life is that you give yourself the best chance for success if you have an end-result goal and, more importantly, an action-oriented process to get you there.
The action-oriented process of bowling at a championship level is to bowl one shot at a time and in life it is to live one day at a time.
Treat today with the importance of making the ultimate shot to win a tournament/event (like Simonsen during the 2022 Masters) and get the most out of the 86,400 seconds you have been given to play the game called life.
Lanny Basshman won a gold medal in rifle shooting in the 1976 Olympics. But he didn’t win that gold until AFTER he kinda fell apart in the 1972 Olympics where he took home a silver.
He used that disappointment to fuel his mental toughness training and bring home the gold in his next attempt. Since then, he’s been teaching people how to become the best versions of themselves.
Here’s one of my favorite things he teaches to his athletes. After any performance—ESPECIALLY the ones where you fell short of your goals—ask yourself these three questions:
1. What did I do well?
2. What did I learn?
3. How will I get better?
We win. Or, we learn.
Have you LEARNED anything awesome lately?
Think about a recent disappoint and let’s quickly run it through this process:
The greatest golfer of all time Jack Nicklaus once said that the real key to being a great golfer was “playing badly well.”
It’s one thing to play well when everything’s rolling. It’s an entirely different thing to be able to play well when things aren’t rolling smoothly.
Jim Afremow, one of the world’s leading mental toughness coaches and author of The Champion’s Mind calls it being “ugly but effective” and having “good bad days.” We need to master the art of having good bad days.
The trick?
Well, first, expect to have some rough days and to do silly things on occasion especially in bowling.
PGA Champion Dustin Johnson expected to have x bad shots in any given round so when he had the inevitable bad shot he didn’t lose it. He just said, “Yep. There’s one!” And then he moved on. The next time you throw a bad shot in league, a tournament, etc. have the same focal cue and mindset. We as bowlers need to do the same thing.
Expect mistakes. Rough patches when we’re not as connected as we’d like. That’s the first step. Then we don’t fall into a destructive cycle of wondering what’s wrong with us. Acknowledge that you are not at your best. That’s the first baby step in having GOOD BAD Days!
We as competitors, bowlers and pursuers of excellence are often first to be our biggest critics and last to be our own biggest fans.
I want you to make the commitment to start celebrating your own successes and being your biggest fan by doing two things.
1. At a consistent time each day, write down at least three wins you have had in the last 24 hours and give yourself a pat on the back for each. Becoming more aware of your wins will help you to strengthen your confidence.
2. Focus more on what you did well and less on what you did poorly.
Today, work to write down your three wins and replay the successful events of the day in your mind more than the negative ones.
Fear is nothing more than false evidence appearing real.
We often put unneeded pressure and stress on ourselves because we magnify the importance of the outcome and lose sight of the process we must take to get there.
First, recognize and admit what your fears may be and then ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen to me? I am sure that once you identify the worst thing that could happen you will find that you are placing too much emotional stress on the outcome and that you need to get on with it. Sitting around will get you nowhere. Get going.
There are two rules of peak performance cemented into my daily practice:
1. You must be in control of yourself before you can control your performance
2. You have very litle control of what goes on around you, but total control of how you choose to respond to it.
Maintaining control of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally under stress and pressure when everyone else is losing theirs is an essential part of your growth and maturity as a bowler and as a person.
The best way to gain and maintain self-control in any situation is to take a deep breath.
The deep breath pulls you into the present moment and brings oxygen into your system to help you relax, think more clearly and perform at your best.
