5 principles for mastering your golf game (and your career and life)

Famed golfer Bobby Jones once said, “Golf is the closest game to the game we call life.” 

The traits that will make you successful at golf are ones that will serve you well in business and in life — confidence, patience, focus, balance, control, and emotional strength.

Similarly, in “Teeing Up for Success,” a new book published by the Executive Women’s Golf Association Foundation, career coach Carol Malysz shares how golf is much like her work with executives and professionals. She notes that the most successful follow these five principles:

1. Begin with your vision

Stay focused on what needs to be accomplished in the short term, and that will build your longer-term plans. As in golf, when you hit in the rough or are deep in a bunker, it is time to adjust, think creatively, and choose the best way to recover quickly.


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2. Master adversity

High expectations combined with passion can yield immense frustration. In golf, business, and in life, what you planned is never guaranteed. Your passion and commitment are what drive you forward.

3. Develop resilience

You execute flawlessly and still miss the target. The ability to shake it off, reassess, and get back in the game develops resilience in the face of adversity.

4. Act confident

Confidence is built in layers, through repeated practice and sustained efforts toward developing excellence. Each test is an opportunity to reach new levels of self-assurance and steadiness.

5. Finish strong

Don’t look back. Instead, look at what lies ahead. Each new challenge on the golf course, in business, and in life is a new opportunity and another chance to be teeing up for success.

As a certified executive coach and vice president of New Directions in Boston, Malysz has uncovered new business opportunities and built networks and relationships with leaders at local and Fortune 500 companies to secure career and life-transition services for their executives. I encourage you to keep her principles in mind to stay on course in golf, business, and life.

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