Unshackle Your Satchel - Dream Big!

You know that feeling you get when you want something really bad and you feel like its attainable, but your just not sure when or how it will come about? I’ve felt that a lot recently in many different aspects of my life and of course in my golf game. Potential. Hope. Opportunity. However you want to put it, but the gist here is what the heck can we do to gain a little momentum? How can we creep towards getting what we want out of life and golf without being impatient and unhappy in the process? Or without down grading our goals because we put our first hole tee shot thru someone’s kitchen window. Let’s dive in together and set some practical steps we can follow to make sure we stay on point.

Unshackle your Satchel- What do I mean? I mean, life can sometimes make us feel like a victim of circumstance. Working too much, family stress, health issues etc. Life is real ya’ll. It’s heavy and sometimes is hard, don’t get me wrong. But, the good news is no one can rob you of dreaming big! Do you dream of breaking 80? Maybe breaking par? Driving a Beemer? Making the tour? But the last round you played you lost six balls, took a divot the size of China, and three jacked 12 times. On rounds like this, and days like this in life, our walls come crashing down. Enter doubt and fear and delivery pizza in sweat pants. I’m guilty of this. But, we got to get up, unshackle our satchel, and get to work. We have to keep dreaming and realizing good things are possible. We aren’t shackled to our circumstance. Sometimes our circumstances can be brutal, but a lot of times it’s our perspective that holds us back. You fire an 87 in a tournament you’ve been prepping for and now you feel worthless. Do you let go of your dreams and what used to feel attainable? Or do you freaking grind harder and dig deeper? You gained 10lbs your first month of dieting (prob not a good thing). Do you just give up? Or do you make some big changes? Guys, we are blessed with the ability to make choices with what we do and how we live. We are not prisoners. So let’s not act like it. Unshackle yourselves and fill your satchels with big dreams.
Tell Your Friends- Fear holds us back too often from declaring what we actually believe about ourselves. In a great book, The Mindside Manifesto, Dr. Bhrett McCabe a prominent sports psychologist, tells us to write out our living manifestos. To make big statements about who we are and what we want out of our goals and dreams. To declare them publicly and chase them with wild abandon. When we feel shackled to our circumstance and iffy golf games, we hold back from telling other what we really want. We accept mediocrity because we aren’t sure if we can handle the letdown of not accomplishing our goals. So, talk to your friends. If you can’t dream with your friends and explore the unknown, then try meeting some new people. I’m available and I like beer, coffee and eating pizza in sweatpants.
Daily Choices- Forgiveness is a choice, it’s not a destination. If you’ve been hurt by someone, but you’ve chosen to forgive them you know it’s not as simple as one, two three. Not if you were deeply hurt. It’s a choice and it’s a process. So is what we are talking about here. Dreaming Big isn’t easy. It can sound simple, but there is actually a lot of fear and doubt to work through. So when you have an off day, do you let your big dream float away? Or do you hold on to it? Do you tell your friends of this new idea, or do you throw it away with your pizza box?
Grace and Space- If you can’t tell, I like dreaming big and motivating people. But I get stuck too. I get impatient when I’m not feeling momentum. Fortunately, I have awesome family and friends to remind me it’s not a race. To give myself a little grace and give my ideas a little space. We are in a NOW generation and we want things immediately. Dreams, as you know, don’t come true immediately. Sometimes they don’t come true at all or sometimes new dreams are born at the expense of others. But we have to remind each other to breathe, to unshackle our satchels, share our dreams and to make the daily choice to pursue what we believe in.

I’d love to hear about your dreams. I’ll keep it confidential if you care to share. I want to be someone to help push you towards what you want out of life. My dream is to be one of the best golf coaches on the planet, so if your dreams include golf there is a good chance I can help you with that too!

Good luck dreaming big, friends!

Leighton Smith, PGA