Have Some Fun

 Good day Natural Health Family. What a great weekend. I was able to play some golf last Sunday. Although I haven’t played in a long while, I was able to hit some good shots. However, of course I realized I need more practice. Golf is an interesting sport which helps you learn about how you are reacting to different things. Many times it is the so-called mistakes or bad shots that help you learn more or see things more clearly. 

Have you ever had a day when it started with one thing going wrong and then it seemed like one thing after the other happened that way so you chalked it up as a bad day. Or have you watched a game where a team had one bad play then another and then another. This is a pattern that everyone knows about. Golf helped me to see how this pattern comes to be. It can happen to anyone and if we don’t become aware of it then it can happen more than we like. 

When you think of professional athletes, what do you think they think as they are about to get on the field or onto the court. Do you think they are worried that they will have a bad play or that they are more focused on what they can do to make a great one. Since those athletes practiced enough to know the fundamentals very well,  they won’t have to think about all the finer details. They start to just do what needs to be done without thinking. After they become skilled at the art, that is when an athlete will start to enjoy the game. 

We can also think of it in a different way. When we are growing up learning a new skill, is it easier to learn the skill if we enjoy it and have fun or if we just grind it out? Of course many things that we have fun with are easier to do. As a kid learns something new he or she has a curiosity and a way of having fun with it. As adults we tend to have fun with the new skill after we learn it enough to be good. This is most likely due to feeling that we need not to make mistakes or take bad shots. However, we are going to make errors and fail along the way anyway, so are we able to do that while still having fun? 

Many people have a difficult time not making mistakes or are afraid to fail. We all have this fear, even the best athletes, speakers, inventors, scientists, etc. This is a pattern that the brain uses so that we are able to survive dangers that could harm us or even are life

threatening. So this actually was helpful for us. However, it can work against us if not put in check. The fear now is perhaps not a predator that could eat us but more of other things like how others think of us. This is due in part with how our brain works to help us survive rather than having fun or enjoying what we are doing. Like kids learning fast and having fun, when we are able to move from our head to our heart we can start having fun more of the time. 

Golf can teach us a lot. We have heard that when we are overly thinking or in our heads too much that we start making mistakes. The funny thing is when we let go of overthinking due to fear of mistakes and start to have fun and enjoy what we are doing, that is the time that we do our best. We win some and we learn some. With every game there will always be another. It is up to us to be able to move through the fear and have fun with it.

Enjoy your week.

Dr. Chip