Define yourself by your next shot, not your last shot.

In this article, Colter Reed (n.d.) writes about a topic known to psychologist as, emotional refractory period, which he explains is “the amount of time it takes you to process the emotion of an event.” In his article, Reed highlights how Tiger Woods – the winner of no less than 82 all-time PGA TOUR victories (“82 PGA Tour Career Victories,” n.d.) – is a master of the emotional refractory period.

I highlight Tiger Wood’s skill with emotional refractory period because sometimes we get stuck with low expectations when trying to improve our social connectedness. No matter how many times we may fail to garner social connectedness (ignore all sense of persistence), we should all rise to Tiger Wood’s command of his emotions and simply dispense with any negative expectations on the potential of future fails.

On many occasions (Gallo, 2021; MacKenzie, 2019; Williams, 2008), authors have written about Tiger Wood’s incredible command of his emotions, leaving poor showings behind him, starting each new hole afresh. Colter Read (n.d.,) recounts one such miraculous event.

On his 12th hole at Augusta National Golf Club during the final round of the 2020 Masters, Tiger Woods scored his worst ever hole in his lifetime. Yet, leaving his 12th hold behind him, Tiger Woods birdied five out of his last remaining six holes.

According to Colter Reed (n.d.), what is most amazing about Tiger Wood’s performance after his 12 hole at Augusta, is not his five birdees that followed, but the fact that those five birdees followed his worst shot of a lifetime. It’s hard to come back from a failed moment in life (or the 12th hole at Augusta under the lights). The emotions mess with our head. As Reed (n.d.) notes, “we focus on our mistakes and discount our successes,” which is to say one failure leads to the next, as does one happy moment leads to the next.

Granted managing our emotions from one moment to the next is not exactly likely flipping a coin. Just because you flip a coin nine times in a row garnering a head does not mean you are more likely to come up heads again on the tenth flip. No, classical probability warns again drawing such conclusions with a fair coin. Having this expectation with a fair-coin is called the Gambler’s Fallacy, where one believes that the probability of a [future coin toss] is influenced by previous instances of [prior coin tosses] (The Decision Lab, n.d.)."

In classical probability, the probability of flipping heads or tails from one occurrence to the next has no bearing on the past. However, when it comes to our emotions, unfortunately, most of us – Tiger Woods excepted – carry our emotions forward from one moment to the next.

Our ability to move beyond our past emotions is called

timelike who we are at our worst is somehow a more accurate indication of who we really are.

Tiger Wood’s ability to leave his emotions at one hole, and then move emotion-free to the next is his hallmark skill and level of play.

References

82 PGA Tour Career Victories. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://tigerwoods.com/records/ –>

The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Why do we think a random event is more or less likely to occur if it happened several times in the past? Gambler’s Fallacy, explained. Retrieved from https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/gamblers-fallacy

Gallo, C. (2021, December 15). Tiger Woods Gave His Son This Mental Tip You Should Use to Raise Your Public Speaking Game. Inc.com. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/tiger-woods-gave-his-son-this-mental-tip-you-should-use-to-raise-your-public-speaking-game.html

Johnson, M. (2022, March 25). How to Combat Emotional Triggers: 7 ways to empower yourself against stressors. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-savvy-psychologist/202203/how-combat-emotional-triggers

MacKenzie, D. (2019, April 14). The Power of Tiger Woods’ Mental Game. Golf State of Mind. Retrieved from https://golfstateofmind.com/tiger-woods-mental-game-power/

Reed, C. (n.d.). Like a Tiger: Leave the Bad Behind You. colterreed.com. Retrieved from https://colterreed.com/like-a-tiger-leave-the-bad-behind-you/

Williams, J. (2008, June 27). The Mind of the Tiger. Cigar Aficionado. Retrieved from https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/the-mind-of-the-tiger-6227