Going Through the Motions
Before I had children, I loved to golf. After I had children, it fell to the wayside…for 13 years. This year, I was asking the Universe for an activity that would move my body and be enjoyable to me. Golf came to mind and I realized it was time to dust off the clubs and begin again.
Because it had been so long since swinging a club, I purchased some golf lessons from a pro, just to remind me of what to do and give me a boost in starting this up again. My first lesson got me back into the swing of things. I realized my swing was exactly as it had been 13 years previously. I made the same mistakes. I still sliced the ball to the right the same way.
After my second lesson, I decided that if I really wanted to have any improvement, I needed to practice. I took out my clubs and began doing some of the drills the pro had recommended for me. This time, I just didn’t hit each ball and see if I improved. Instead, I really focused on my club position and my posture. It was awkward at first, but then I began improving. Before long, my swing was much better. I was connecting the ball much easier and I was getting a lot more distance as my balls were now going consistently straight instead of to the right.
At first I attributed my improvement to the golf pro being a good teacher (which he is). I had taken golf lessons before with a couple other pros and while they told me the same things, my swing never improved. Then I realized, what was different this time around was that I actually consciously chose for my swing to be better and to improve. I made a demand that I no longer do the same things I always did, but actually change the things I habitually did. This made all the difference.
Before, I had said I wanted to get better. I did all the things you are supposed to do to get better. I went to the driving range. I took lessons. I went out on the course. But I actually didn’t improve much until I mentally chose for things to improve and actually was willing to do something differently than what I habitually did. This is a HUGE key that has opened up my world.
Going through the motions is not choosing change. Doing what is expected is not choosing change. Doing what you is supposed to create change without actually changing is not choosing change. I went through the motions of getting lessons and golfing regularly. My score never changed. It is only now, with me consciously choosing to improve and learn a new way, that I am improving…and I am improving drastically. I have never golfed this well before. I am choosing to focus on changing what I usually did to get a different result, instead of hoping I will get a different result while still swinging the same way.
I can apply this to so many areas of my life. Maybe you can too. Where are you just going through the motions and pretending you are doing everything to change but things aren’t changing because you are not actually willing to be different than you normally be or do different than you normally do? Hoping it will miraculously change is not going to do it for you. Going through the motions is not going to do it for you. Or me. In order to change, we have to choose to change. We have to give up our old ways and open to something new.
Take the risk. I did, and I have never had so much fun.
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