Grinding

Those that know me know that the Masters is my favorite event of the year. It’s hard to beat Augusta National with the greatest golfers in the world all competing for the coveted Green Jacket. As we write this, the last few groups are making their way to the back nine, with six players within striking distance of the leader. Honestly, it’s anyone’s ballgame at this point. Which leads us to this week’s Monday Huddle Up theme…..

Every player on the leaderboard has made some mistakes during the tournament. Rory McIlroy three putted from 5-feet today. Scottie Scheffler made a double bogey (for our non-golfing readers, that is bad). Justin Rose made a bogey on one of the easiest holes on the course. Cameron Young had a horrific start to the tournament on Thursday. In each of these cases, the players just kept grinding it out. They never gave up.

Major golf championships like the Masters are a marathon not a sprint. You play 72 holes over four days and you never know what is going to happen. The best in the World can fall down the leaderboard at a moment’s notice, so you just have to keep playing. You have to try and string together a bunch of good holes and hope those ahead of you open the door for you to snatch the title. It’s the same in whatever industry you are in.

If things aren’t going your way, you have to bear down and keep working (grinding) towards the end goal. Bit by bit, one action (or hole) at a time. If you do everything you can, and the result isn’t what you want, you can’t really blame the focus or the effort. We will try to get it right next time.

One of my goals when playing a round of golf is to never hit an indifferent shot. That sounds simple, however I can assure you it’s not. If I can do that over 18 holes, I can look at my score and know that is the best number that could be had that day. No regrets.

Same goes for leading our organizations. If we can give it our best, even when things are not going well, we can look back and know that the result was the best it could have been. Then retool and go at it again next time.

Grind it out. Be intentional over indifferent. Do those things and the result is the result. If we don’t like it, we can try again tomorrow.