What We Can Learn From Tiger and Rocco
June 17th, 2008The 108th US Open golf tournament in San Diego is now history, both as an event and in the sense of being a classic. Ending with a sudden-death match between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate, U.S. Open showed the best of the best.
Usually, we tend to focus on either the winner or the loser of a contest, to see what life lessons can be learned. But in this case, there is inspiration from both directions. Here are some thoughts:
-Perseverance pays off. Mediate was the 158th ranked player in the world. He came from being almost an unknown. Not only that, he is 45 years old, and was one putt away from being the oldest U.S. Open champion in history. It would have been easy for him to find something else to do with his time and talents, but he is an example of how sticking to something, doing it the hard way, and perseverance can cause magic. As a psychologist, I see this all the time in people. Those who have incredible personal miracles happen, often have a track record of staying with something, making incremental changes, and doing growth a bit at a time. The magic has a lot of work behind it, that no one will ever know about.
Pain is normal and expected. Tiger, two months after surgery on his left knee, was seen grimacing often and even seemed to use his club as a supportive cane. People speculated on how bad things would get for him, as a golfer uses his knee in such critical ways. In the end, however, Tiger continued through the pain and won. Pain is one of the obstacles to success that we all must persevere through (others being things like life crises, isolation, a need for instant gratification, boredom, and a lack of good boundaries). But the winners don’t avoid pain, they know it is normal. It is one of the pricetags for reaching goals. In fact, if you aren’t experiencing some sort of pain in your journey, it may be a sign of a problem.
Winners and losers can get along. The news reports are full of quotes from both Mediate and Woods about the strengths and competitiveness of their opponent. My favorite was from Tiger, that he is looking forward to 5 years from now when Mediate will no longer be on the same tour! Intense competition, but, in the end, no bad sportsmanship. That is how people who succeed in love, life and growth make it.
Best wishes in your own goals and dreams!
July 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Thank you for the encouragement, John.
I had done psychotherapy for four years, then had been happy and content for twelve years. I am 47 now, and had waned into a vague phase during the last tew years. I contacted my former psyc., and now we do telephone therapy (I am out of the area). I told him that I am writing to combine, whatever that means, but here I am again doing the work.
I will continue to persevere and do whatever pain there is to do.
I have big goals and dreams! Intense competition is fun! (my psyc is competitive, and he is fun)