a new way to keep score

Jeff Pain, the two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist in skeleton, said in his book, "Marriage and Medals", that whenever he pictured the finish line at any time during a run, he'd not do that well. That mental picture of "victory", while intuitively something that might seem helpful, only took him out of the present moment. He was then just off focus enough to make the subtle mistakes that account for the fractions of seconds that are the difference between actual victory and failure.

I've been relearning golf this year and have discovered a similar pattern. I start relaxed, hit a couple of great tee shots, some lucky approach shots, a few great pitches and putts, have a few fortunate bogies and an encouraging par and then start getting cocky. Then, while I'm setting my stance, taking my back swing and striking the ball, I start imagining a great score at the end of the game. I'm then not very relaxed, hit some duffs and skulls, start losing balls and then start getting frustrated for about 12 holes. I start relaxing again once I'm certain I'm not going to have a great score and then usually par the last hole. Weird.

It doesn't quite seem right to me to completely disregard the score–every game including business has a score–but I needed a different way to measure my my performance.

I invented a new way to think about golf and came up with a different way to keep score most of the time.

Now, I just keep track of the number of times I hit the green in regulation (landing on the green 2 shots less than the par of the hole) and the number of times I do two or less putts. In my last round I either two putted or landed in regulation on all but three holes and did both on one hole to get my par of the day. Most of the time I did not hit in regulation and two-putt on the same hole and I have no idea what my final score was, but I was way less stressed out and was in a much better headspace to master the shots I'm struggling with (everything other than my putter, driver and wedges).

Paying attention to an appropriate metric will, in time, lead me to an excellent final result.

This thinking applies to any game, especially business.

For help with devising an intelligent metrics contact us at http://www.stepup.net/.

Got to http://www.marriageandmedals.com/ for information on ordering Jeff's book.