A blueprint for fulfillment from the best in the world
They saying "winning solves everything" but that's far from the truth.
If striving to win golf tournaments [is] the only thing [I focus on], it’s going to lead to a lifetime of disappointment.
Scottie Scheffler (#1 golfer in the world)
Scottie Scheffler is on the most dominant run in professional golf since Tiger Woods. He has won the equivalent of four Super Bowls in the last three years by winning four of golf’s major championships.
In a press conference before he won his second major championship of the year, Scottie shared his conflicting thoughts about winning.
He said, “it feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for… a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling. Then it's like, okay, what are we going to eat for dinner? Life goes on.”
He then admitted that winning is “fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart”.
Scottie explains things in his press conference that take most of us a lifetime to learn, and even longer to implement. His unique mindset and unbelievable success at the young age of 29 have taught him lessons that we should all emulate in our own lives.
Winning is the target, but not the goal
In an interview after his most recent win, Scottie stated that focusing only on winning will set us up for disappointment. Not only is winning rare and difficult (Scottie loses 4/5 tournaments that he enters), but we don’t feel deep fulfillment from the fleeting euphoria of victory.
Even if we focus all of our time and effort into perfecting a craft or pursuit and reach the highest level of achievement in our field, we’ll still be left with a feeling of emptiness and immediately begin wondering what’s next.
To be great, we need to have a drive to win, but we shouldn’t focus on winning for winning’s sake.
Winning on its own is empty. It’s just a helpful goal along the way to our true objective in life: fulfillment.
Fulfillment doesn’t come from trophies and accolades. It comes from genuine enjoyment of what we’re doing and the pride of becoming a bit better each day. Scottie is the winningest golfer of the last three years, but he is a self-proclaimed “sicko” who loves “putting in the work” and “getting to practice”.
If he didn’t love the process, he would be miserable.
Winning on its own is a tremendous accomplishment, but it’s not worth all of the work and sacrifice it takes to get there. We should only engage in a pursuit if we truly love what we do or learn to love the process.
Diversifying pursuits
Despite being the best in the world at what he does, Scottie holds other pursuits in his life, like fatherhood, marriage, and faith, ahead of his pursuit of the game of golf.
He was quick to say that if golf ever inhibited his ability to be a great father, he would quit the game immediately.
Perhaps without even realizing it, Scottie shared a profoundly important piece of advice that we should all implement in our own lives: diversifying our pursuits.
If Scottie wins or loses, it’s not a big deal to him because he’s so focused on his faith and his marriage and being a great father. These things are all independent of his results as a golfer.
This makes him a more resilient person because his self-worth and fulfillment aren’t tied to a single pursuit.
We should architect our lives in the same way, so our results in one pursuit do not determine how we feel about our lives overall. If we’re only focused on one pursuit, a bad day at work will negatively impact everything else we care about.
If we purposefully choose to craft our lives around several key pursuits, a bad day in one area of life will not derail us because we have other sources of fulfillment and accomplishment to rely on when things inevitably don’t go our way.
If we learn anything from all the winning Scottie has done in the last three years, it should be that winning itself is not fulfilling. To lead a fulfilling life, we need to diversify our pursuits and learn to love the process within each of those endeavors.
If we learn to love the process and diversify our pursuits, we will become a bit better each day and insulate ourselves from the emptiness of winning and the volatility of a singular focus.
Prompts
What is the most important pursuit in your life?
What does winning look like? Do you enjoy the work required to become great?
How can you diversify your pursuits to minimize the highs and lows of your main pursuit?
Deep Dive
Scottie Scheffler’s Press Conference from the Open Championship
The full transcript of Scottie’s press conference shows the true struggle he deals with between wanting to win and wanting to live a well-rounded life.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin