Deserving Good Golf: Entitled, Worthy, or Earned

In this heartfelt and thought-provoking Christmas Day episode, Kathy dives into the concept of "deserving" and its many interpretations on and off the golf course. Is deserving about entitlement, worthiness, or earning something? Kathy unpacks how our beliefs about what we "deserve" can influence not only our performance in golf but also our growth and mindset in life. With humor, relatable examples, and actionable insights, this episode will challenge you to rethink how you use and understand this powerful word.

Connect with Kathy at KathyHartWood.com

Transcript

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it.

Hello, my golf friend. Welcome back to Think Above Par. Hope you're having a beautiful December when this is getting released, enjoying your holiday season. This is actually going to be released on Christmas Day. So if you listen to this on Christmas Day, please send me a note and let me know. I hope you're enjoying the day. Maybe you took me on a walk with you or listened on a drive to some family and friend's house, but either way, what I want to talk to you about today is about deserving, about what you deserve and what you deserve in golf.

And it's a term, a word, a phrase that came up in one of the calls. And it really struck me on the different ways that we can interpret the word deserve relative to golf. And we're going to talk about how it applies to your life because we can say deserve and we can mean something different. We can say deserve and someone hears something different. This actually came up for me quite a few years ago when I was doing coach training and I was getting coached on a coaching call.

And the I used the word deserve and something that I was talking to relative to my life and the coach, their response, it actually blew me away because they said, what makes you think you deserve that? And they were almost re instilling this negative thought I had about myself at that time, that I didn't deserve it. And I was trying to convince myself I did deserve the thing.

And they were like, what makes you think you deserve it? So I think somewhere in there, the context got lost. The definition, the interpretation in each of our heads was not the same relative to the word deserve. And this came back full circle in a call with a client who talked about deserving to win. And so I want to talk to you about three definitions of deserve that I can perceive right now.

There may be more, but these are the way that I want to talk about it with you and share it with you, such that you can start looking at the way that you use that word in your life. So one of the definitions or interpretations that we can have of the word deserve if we use it in a sentence, is entitlement. So this Comes up in some of my coaching calls, I will have a client say, I think I deserve to win.

I'm entitled to win. I've put in the work, I care a lot. I want to win so badly, it's not happening for me. I deserve it. I'm entitled to winning, right? This is a really slippery slope in what we think we're entitled to. Now, you can think of many different people in your life while it's. Whether it's in the business world or in relationships or in your day to day life where people feel entitled, right?

Maybe they feel entitled without putting in the work. Maybe they feel entitled without really taking a hard look at what's going on. I know kids who have gotten out of college and deserve to be entitled to be up in the C suite within two years. And, you know, you're looking at him going, what is going on? Why do you think you deserve that? So in their head, they have a story.

They have a story and interpretation about how much work it takes and what results they should create because of that. So if this is you, if you find this happening, if you like, I wouldn't. I deserve to win the club championship. For the love of Pete, I've been going through this seven times, seven years in a row. I'm so close, I put in the work, I care so much, I try so hard.

I deserve to win. We want to be careful in those situations. If you're feeling like you're entitled to win, there is a reason you're not creating the results that you think you should be creating. Then what happens is we just stop growing. We stop looking, we stop getting curious, we stop checking in to see really what is holding us back. Because if we are entitled, if we're deserving of something, then we quit doing the work, then we're not paying attention to where else can I get better, why aren't I actually winning?

Right? There's a reason that you're not creating the results that you want to create. And if you think you're entitled to it, you're missing looking at it and growing. You're going to end up being consistently frustrated. So if you use the word I deserve to win, I deserve to win the club championship, I deserve to win matches. Maybe I deserve to have the first tea time on Saturday.

I don't know, wherever you might use it, check in with yourself and if you could exchange the word I'm entitled, chances are you've stopped looking at different ways to get better. Because if you thought you were entitled, like I Said you wouldn't start looking at different ways that you can work on your golf swing, your course management, your body, and for sure your mind. Something is happening that is creating the results for you.

And when we get stuck in the entitled mindset, right. When it comes to tournaments and events, we stall and we get stuck. Okay, so number two is if you can exchange the word worthy. And often this goes with I didn't deserve to win. I didn't deserve to win the match. Didn't. Didn't deserve to win the tournament. Didn't deserve to shoot that number. Meaning I'm not worthy of it.

Right. This is a self worth issue for sure. Right. That can come from that. You don't believe you deserve nice things. It could be a situation where you always finish second because you have this thought that you don't deserve to win. You're not worthy of winning. Bottom line is that you don't feel like you're enough right now. This might not even show up for you in Terminus. This could be I don't deserve to play with those people in that group.

I don't deserve to be on the team. I don't deserve to be in the last group. I don't deserve to be in this pairing. Right. If you can exchange I'm not worthy sometimes we can have some imposter syndrome in those situations. Now if on the other hand, you are saying you are deserving and you are worthy, you're right. You're 100% right. You are worthy for sure. There's no downside to thinking that you're not worthy.

As long as we don't go into entitled. Right. But most of the time we're using I don't deserve it, meaning I'm not worthy of the thing. And the third way that we can use deserve is in earned. I didn't deserve to win. I hit it crappy. I got lucky. I got some good breaks. I ended up beating Betty. She's a better player than me. I didn't deserve to win.

I didn't earn it. It could be she had the lead. She was going to beat me. She triple bogey the last hole. I made a 40 footer. I won. I really don't deserve to win. Right. This is where you're sucking your own joy and you're not really taking a big picture. Look at what it takes to win a tournament or what it takes to win. Think of it outside of golf.

There could be many football examples where there was a bad ruling and you might say the other team didn't deserve to win because of the ruling your quarterback could have gotten. Your quarterback, meaning the one on your favorite team could have gotten injured and got pulled out and the backup quarterback came in and you're saying we're a better team, they didn't deserve to win. I think about car racing.

If you watch car racing, which I do not, I've been to Indy 500 multiple times, but I do not really watch car racing. But I think about these guys who like make it to the last lap and then they blow a tire or their little hammer or whatever thing, okay, whatever the thing is to change their bolts on their, on their pit stop jams and the other guy passes them, did they deserve to win?

The other guy was ahead, somebody actually scored lower than you, signed an incorrect scorecard, got DQ'd, and then you won. Did you not deserve to win? Conversely, how many times have you played amazing and not won? So if you're using the word deserve, like I didn't deserve to win or they didn't deserve to win, meaning they didn't earn it, but you have a mindset or you have a belief based on what it takes to win.

Ultimately in golf, winning is the lowest score. If you're playing stroke play, right? It's ultimately the lowest score. It doesn't matter how you get it there or what happens. And the other part is part of sport. Getting disqualified, having an injury, getting a bad ruling, that's part of golf. So when you're saying you didn't earn it, you're tapping into your own self confidence and your own belief about yourself, right?

It doesn't feel very good. And when you're saying other people didn't earn it, I got a little bit of a poor sport in there, but also that doesn't feel good, right? So what is your belief about what it takes? What are your thoughts about what it takes for you to win or a person to win? Because I promise you that's going to show up in other areas of your life.

All of these. That is what I want you to do. I want you to take a look. If one of these resonates with you, whether you're thinking or using the term deserving, as in that you are entitled to getting something and you really aren't taking a look at how much work you're putting in or the reasons maybe why you're not achieving the thing, you're stunting your growth. And if you're doing it on the golf course, you're likely doing it somewhere else in your life.

If you're thinking that I don't deserve nice things, I don't deserve to win, I don't deserve to play with those people. I'm not worthy, I'm not enough. I promise you that's going to show up somewhere for you too, off of the golf course. Or if you have this concept about what it actually takes to win or achieve the things, maybe it's that you feel like people have to really, really work hard and sweat and bloody knuckles and bloody hands and all those things before you earn the win or the victory.

Or if you think maybe things come too easy for other people and they didn't earn it, that doesn't feel very good either. And it's worth taking a look at what your concept is of what it takes to get the thing, the win, play in the group, have the tee time, win the club championship, shoot the number, because that's where you might be stunting your growth. Maybe you're making things harder for yourself.

And where else off of the golf course are you also doing that? Because as I say, how we do one thing, we do another thing or everything, it's going to show up for you in other areas of your life. All right, my friends, so deserve, take a look at how you use it in your day to day life and how you use it on the golf course about yourself and about other people.

And when you listen to other people use the word with you, maybe you hear it from other people. It's really important to know that we don't actually understand which way they're using this, what context they're putting that in. And before we create a story around that, that sentence of them using the word deserve and we create a story in our head because it's what we do, it's worth knowing exactly what they meant.

Entitled, worthy, earned. Which one of those is a synonym for the way that you use the word deserve in your life? And this I know for sure on this Christmas Day, if you are listening to this, when you circle back, you definitely deserve to have a beautiful holiday. And that means you are worthy, you are enough. And I hope you have a great, great day. All right, my friends, I will talk to you next Wednesday.

Bye. And if I can support you at all, make sure you head to kathyheartwood.com and connect with me. I'd love to help you out.