The Law of Detachment: A Golf Tip and Strategy for Success

 

One of the most important aspects about living a life of quality and greatness lies in a great lesson that we learn in the game of golf. It is called the Law of Detachment.

 

Most golfers are duffers and amateurs, they put their best swing on the ball and if it goes in the rough, or has a bad outcome, they get upset. If they hit it in the fairway, they’re happy. And even if they hit a bad shot and it rattles around in the trees and bounces in the fairway, they are happy. If the wind is blowing left to right and they hit a perfect shot down the left of the fairway, and the wind dies down and it goes into a hazard, they get upset because they didn’t have a good outcome.

 

Here is what professional golfers know: when they hit a shot, they stop caring about where the ball goes the second it comes off the club face. Golf, like life, is a game that is designed to mess with you. You know there are going to be mistakes in a golf game. There is nobody that gets through a whole round hitting every shot perfectly. Because the wind changes direction, and the hazards are difficult, and you can hit a perfect shot that hits a sprinkler head and skips out of bounds. At the same time, you can hit a really terrible shot and it rattles around in the trees and ends up in the fairway. Duffers are happy with that, pros are not.

 

Pros know that in order to achieve and create their greatness, the only thing they can focus on is their swing. That’s what they control. As long as you lay a perfect swing and do the best you can with the swing, whether the wind dies down or you hit a sprinkler head or not, it doesn’t matter. You are going to win more than you lose, and you will be a great golfer.

 

In the game of life, you have to put a great swing on things. Do the right things, say the right things, think the right thoughts, and focus on what you should be feeling to create this internal state of greatness. Despite the storms and what the challenges and difficulties are, that’s what great men and women do. They don’t worry, they are not attached to the outcome. They are attached to how they are playing the game.

 

When you can detach from the results and focus on how you are playing the game, your ability to weather the storms and the unfair moments, and to really deal with challenges as they come to you, will be far more easy and exciting. You will have so many moments of greatness along with those moments when the wind dies or you hit something unfairly. Just like when you hit a bad shot and it rattles around in the trees and ends up exactly where you want it, life will produce those moments for you.

 

What is vital is what you are producing inside and what you are mapping as the cause of your success. What are you attached to, and what are you detached to?