Recovery-Key denominator in all success stories
The recent
astounding victory of Phil Mickelson in a PGA Golf Tour major championship in
South Carolina at the age of 50 is a testimony to his never say die approach,
self-belief, determination, skills, passion and art to recover. Having remained
in top 50 players in the world for 26 consecutive years till 2019, he had lost
out in the race and was ranked 115 at the start of the championship on 21may
2021, with an odd of 1:2000 by the bookies, competed with most of the golfers
half his age to win the 6th Major title of his career to create a
PGA tour legacy.
His recovery shot
on 5th hole in the final round where he holed from a sand bunker to
make a birdie and increase the lead over the competitor must have not only
boosted his own confidence but also demoralized to an extent Bruce Koepka – the
title contender. Earlier in 2019, the legendary Tiger Woods, an all-time
greatest player had also won his 15th major title after a long gap of 11 years
at the age of 43 overcoming injuries and personal setbacks. In their decade long
fierce rivalry, most of the time Tiger won because of his better recovery shot
skills.
Quite often while
playing golf you land up either in a hazard, water body, sand bunker, behind
trees, difficult lies and or on the wrong end of the greens and those who win
are the ones who recover from these spots better than others in the
competition. In tournaments which are played over 4 days with a round of golf
each day, any player is bound to go through phases of anxiety, emotional
stress, crowd pressures, loss of focus due to periods of inactivity in between
and either momentary or long lapses of concentration. Phil and Tiger had learnt
the art of recovering from these bouts quite well apart from their hunger to
remain in the hunt.
In short, they took
the responsibility on themselves to keep their fitness levels up to recover
from any given situation, assessed the options, had the belief in themselves
and the skills which were developed over a period with hard work, continuous
practice and determination to excel in their chosen field of passion viz golf,
mastered it to the extent that any match situation might have been etched
already in their minds and execute it to perfection in times of those recovery
shots to remain in the fray and progress in pursuit of their dreams and
successes.
Phil had to undergo
personal trauma in 2009 due to the health of his wife Amy and even stayed away
from the game and then returned to win, while Tiger is now a legendary folklore
in Golf with his multiple injuries, personal setbacks, umpteen surgeries and comebacks
to recover the lost grounds and be a winner. Similarly in life we all face
setbacks and failures and only those guys who master the art of recovery do
succeed and even go on to make history. Going further it also applies to
health, wealth, business, nations and economies where failures and difficult
times are deemed to occur and those who recover are the winners.
All of us are bound
to face difficulties and or fail in our endeavors at some point or the other
and the option is either to recover and grow or bog down and sulk. Accept and duly
respect that setback/fall with grace, adjust to the new equation, focus on
recovery plan with a proper understanding to execute the plan with acquired
skills fearlessly, positively and with oneness to invoke the lady luck smile at
you and extricate from the dire straits to evolve victorious.
Simply shift from
why me? to I Can mode, make peace with emotions of anger, fear and frustration,
trust your abilities, muster courage, deal with the situation understandingly, focus
on the action wholly to recover and leave the rest to the divine willpower for
a bounce back. Eternal principles of Respect, understand, love and evolve (RULE)are
essential Sutras as well as the surefire mantra to keep our internal recovery
mode always on and live life effectively.
Satish Shitut
Author
Effective R.U.L.E.
