As a kid and in my career as a golfer, I would set really specific goals, and I set those very high. I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve. I had short and long-term goals written down and up on the wall. Having goals like that did a couple of things for me; my expectations were extremely high, and my acceptance of failure was really low. I overemphasized what I wanted to achieve and underemphasized the journey that I was on. I valued the future over the present.

The problem I see with goal-setting, especially for highly motivated and ambitious people, is that the process becomes a medium to get what we want (or what we think we want- but that’s a whole different topic that I won’t get into right now). The process becomes secondary, and the goal is primary. The goal is the driver, the goal is why we do it. So we tie our satisfaction, contentment, joy, and happiness to a particular outcome. And that, I believe, is setting yourself up for failure; whether you reach your goals or not.

Take a close look at people that have achieved their goals. Are they happier? I don’t think so; many people who reach their biggest goals and dreams feel a big emptiness after because it doesn’t give them the happiness and satisfaction they believed it would. And usually, they are even more unhappy because the person that is still chasing the goal still has that illusion in his mind that the goal will give him happiness. The person that has reached it knows it doesn’t.

If we tie our happiness to our goals, we will drown in disappointment. Because if you don’t reach your goals, you will be disappointed and frustrated. But if you do, you will also be disappointed because it will never give you as much satisfaction, joy, or happiness as you think.

Instead of focusing on a goal to give you satisfaction, what if we created a process, created a system, that inspires you to show up daily, works on the right things, takes care of all aspects of you, and one that you enjoy doing. Let’s assume you didn’t set any goals, none whatsoever, and you focused all your attention on the process, the present, the task at hand, and “just” take it day by day, moment by moment. Would you improve? Would you succeed? Oh my, yes, you would.

Because doing something you love and getting so caught up in it, will take you further than any amount of goal-setting ever could. Being so into the process, so in love with the process that the goal becomes powerless. Powerless because you are not affected by achieving it or not achieving it. And when the outcome becomes powerless, you have created freedom in your performance.

Goals can serve as inspiration and motivation. But in many cases, inspiration and motivation are not the reason why people are not performing at their best. We perform at our best when we have little to no expectations and total acceptance. No expectations and total acceptance again create freedom, and on a subconscious level, they create deep trust.

Goal-setting is something we have adopted from our elders, our society, and modern-day hustle culture. It’s something we have been taught to do, something we believe we need to do in order to be successful, in order to achieve. But again, let’s take someone who shows up daily with joy in the process, inspired to see how good they can be, and no goals. Will they be successful? Oh my, yes, they will.

Goals are basically just fancy desires that come from our current way of thinking and our current state of being. Often, they come from a feeling of inadequacy, a sense of lack, and a void we are trying to fill.

I believe we can forget about setting goals. And instead, open ourselves up to see what naturally arises from putting in the work and trusting the process. If you have truly found a system that takes care of your entire being, you don’t need a goal because every goal you set would just be a limit.

The post I don’t believe in goals anymore. Here is why. appeared first on Antidote Life.

Cementing some morning habits into your life will have a huge impact on your physical and mental health. You don’t want to rely on motivation to get your day started right, taking care of your body and mind upon waking should be a non-negotiable just like brushing teeth. As soon as you wake up, you are faced with countless decisions which do not make it easier. Try to automate this morning routine process as much as you can. Find something that doesn’t take a crazy amount of effort to get started and get going. How we spend the first couple of hours upon waking will set the tone for the rest of the day. But don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. With a little bit of discipline and consistency, your morning will have you feeling reallll good.

Here are my top suggestions:

1) Lemon water.

Start your day with lukewarm lemon water. It helps the immune system by hydrating and replacing lost fluids from overnight. It kickstarts your metabolism while balancing ph levels. Its high in vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, and potassium and serves as an antibacterial, antiviral, immune boosting, and energizing start to the day. In short, it’s very good for you.

2) Write. (Brain Dump / Gratitude)

Writing helps to clear the mind and organize our thoughts. Sit down with a piece of paper and write down anything that comes into your mind. Write down each thought as you are having it without worrying about whether it makes sense or not. From mind onto paper, free from internal judgment or control. Try to fill one page.

Write down one thing you are truly grateful for or that you are looking forward to on that day. It can be a big thing, it can be as small as a cup of coffee. Just put it on paper and take a moment to feel gratitude for it. Our mind likes to focus on the negative which is why starting the day by finding the good things is a very powerful thing to do.

3) Exercise

Go for a walk, jog, stretch, lift or do yoga. One reason we feel good after some exercise is that it helps remove excess cortisol and adrenaline from the bloodstream. Any exercise will do this. Yoga has the added benefit of allowing us to access our nervous system through breathing and allows us to find calmness, steadiness, and balance.

4) Breathwork / Meditation

Meditate. Observe your thoughts. See what’s going on. The point of meditation is not to control or silence the mind, it is to observe the mind. Silence is a by-product.

Focus on and control your breathing. How we breathe indicates how we feel. Our breath can be used as a tool. Use breathwork techniques to start the day feeling calm, centered, and energized.

5) No phone!!!

Do not use your phone first thing after waking. Protect yourself from information overload as you wake up. Everything we read and consume leaves a mental and emotional footprint. By employing a simple strategy of only getting onto your phone after you’ve done certain “non-negotiables”, you are allowing yourself a clear start to the day.

I think we owe ourselves at least one hour of self-maintenance every single day and the first hour of waking is the best time to do it. I have a Morning Routine tracker that can help you track your progress and keep you motivated as you try to implement some of these things into your morning.

One thing is for sure, you will only feel better.

The post Solid-a** Morning Routine appeared first on Antidote Life.

I doubted my natural ability so much that I always had a voice in my head telling me what to do and how to swing. I fed that narrative of my swing not being good enough, the narrative of having to constantly work on or fix my swing for my entire career. And it became the truth.

With time away and more clarity, I don’t believe my swing did not need improvement. But, more than improvement, it needed a commitment to a technical structure, consistency in the structure, and a whole lot of freedom within that technical structure.

I was always looking for new and better ways to swing, always working on something, and always trying to take things apart in order to better understand. But, the whole can’t always be better understood by taking it apart.

That thing I was working on (or that swing thought) was where I put all my hopes and tried to get all my confidence from. I believed that the swing thoughts or the pieces of instruction I was giving my body would produce the shots I was looking for.

I put all my confidence solely on thoughts, none into my body. None into the fact that I’ve played this game since I could walk, none into the fact that I had spent thousands of hours practicing, and none into the fact that my body knows how to move and produce shots.

That notion of dissecting everything and trying to understand all the processes is sometimes more harmful than beneficial. In a world full of “experts” that can dissect, understand, and explain everything, I think it’s important to remember that there is an intelligence at work within us that is yet to be fully understood. And it doesn’t need to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a solid technique is not negotiable, but just like anything else, one needs to find a middle path. A middle path between technical impulses for the body and trust in the body, between working on technique and allowing the body to move the way it wants to, between effort and ease. A middle path between structure and freedom.

If I had to start over, I would trust my body more; my mind less.

The post My swing and I will be vibing appeared first on Antidote Life.

I was a super successful junior golfer, and my goal was to become the best player in the world. I’ve tried to think back and understand where that goal came from, and the truth is, I don’t know. I loved golf and knew I wanted to play this game professionally for the rest of my life, but I don’t know why I wanted to be the best. I could have said I want to be a really good professional, but I always said I want to be number one.

Now, you can imagine what happens when someone who wants to be the best sees someone else who is just as good or even better. You become extra motivated to get better, better than the other person. That is external motivation. My goal was an external goal; becoming number one meant I needed to be better than everybody else.

Today, I try to stop comparing myself to other people. My life, just like yours, doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s. There are many ways to do it and many paths to take. I really can’t think of a better way to disrespect yourself than by comparing yourself to others. It’s no surprise to me that wherever we find high levels of comparison and competition, we find sickness, stress, injury, burnout, and, a lot of times, corruption. Many of us suffer from the same disease; we don’t believe we are good enough as we are. Therefore, we are always trying to do better, which in our culture means acquiring and doing more. More of everything. This never seems to work; at least, that is my experience.

When we think about who we are, it becomes a list of roles that we have played. However, that is only part of our story and merely an expression of what we do. When we aren’t connected to ourselves, we want to constantly achieve and be somebody. Our culture is obsessed with what we do and is driven by results and achievement. Results and achievements are great but they should come from intrinsic and healthy motivation to achieve and become.

We live in “When.., then… “, do and achieve first, then you’ll be good enough, find happiness and be content. I have stopped feeding that old unconscious habit of “when, then ” and I feel like sometimes the best way to judge yourself and your progress is by how little you judge yourself and your progress. There is a way to be both, content and still ambitious.

Our world is a competitive place, and as a professional golfer, I love competing and am very accustomed to competition. However, I believe we all need to have a switch for competition; we need to know when and how to turn it on. I see a lot of people, including myself, who constantly have this switch on. It can be toxic for both the relationships you have with others and your relationship to yourself.

Part of the reason I love Yoga so much is that in the practice of yoga you’re not competing with anybody; not even yourself. In a world where tough competitors are praised and looked up to, there is a lot to be said about those who don’t feel the need to compete at all — not even with themselves.

I believe we can be both content and ambitious.

The post The downsides of being highly competitive appeared first on Antidote Life.