Two Day Magazine

No matter what you do...is it EVER good enough?

When I got home from the U.S. Open, I had several people come up to me and ask, “Hey, what happened in the third round. Why did you play so bad?”

I would quickly reply, “Well, I came back the last day! And, I made the cut in my first major.”

People didn’t care though. I thought after I returned from my first major and second pro event of my career, people would be amazed and think more highly of me.

In fact, the response I received was quite different. It was more along the lines that they expected more of me and making the cut wasn’t good enough: it was like they expected I should win.

I was trying to enjoy my moment, but the joy I had from the Open began to vanish quickly. I kept replaying the comments made by others, how I should have done this or done that. I kept pushing aside swing tips people gave me and advice on my putting.

However, I couldn’t shake it.

All I could hear in the back of my mind was, “I’m not good enough. I won’t be good enough until I win.”

And even then, if and when I do win on tour, will expectations be set higher? The simple answer: yes, because people always expect more.

Often, many of us will find ourselves in this particular scenario. We are working hard and doing our best. And, while we know we could do better, others are chiming in, reminding us that what we’ve accomplished isn’t good enough.

How many of you have received a promotion, only to hear from your parents that had you worked harder you could have gotten that promotion long ago? Or perhaps you got into the law school of your dreams and others aren’t too impressed because it isn’t Harvard.

Whatever the scenario, enjoying our personal success becomes more difficult.

I returned from another golf tournament after the US Open, and played well, despite a hiccup on the last day.

As usual, the first thing I heard from people was, “What happened the last day? What went wrong? Was it your putting, again?”

I would sit there, biting my lip, trying not to get defensive. I wanted so badly to scream at them, saying they had no idea what it is like to go out there, stressed out over every shot, because, guess what? On the golf course each shot counts.

Each shot could mean a bigger paycheck or not making the cut at all.

I wanted to tell these people that, “Yeah, I had a bad day. But, the good days seems to outnumber the bad ones, so I am just going to keep moving forward and work towards more good days.”

Even when I did try to explain to people nicely that one bad day of golf didn’t define my entire career, most didn’t get it and just told me to get my act together on the course.

I began to realize that I wasn’t going to make others happy for me. So, if I couldn’t make others happy for me, then I suppose I just had to learn to be happy for myself.

Of course, I would love nothing more than to say, “I don’t care what anybody thinks! Only my opinion of myself matters!”

However, that is just plain bogus. I do care. In fact, most of us care about the opinions of others. It’s almost impossible not to. The bigger task at hand is learning how to care and not care at the same time.

What I decided to do was to take the opinions and comments from others that at first seemed negative and decided to turn them into positives.

For instance, when someone said, “You need to play better to win,” I would rephrase it in my mind as, “I know you can play well enough to win.”

I stopped looking at these comments as personal attacks and more as motivators. If others thought I could perform better, why not practice harder to see if they were right?

And, what if in that practice I learned something new? Well, I did.

Someone told me, “Anya, make more putts and you’ll score better.”

While this is an obvious truth for most golfers, putting is the one part of my game that I hate working on.

So, instead of getting defensive, I headed towards the putting green and putted until my back went out. I spent more time on the putting green tinkering with my stroke, trying to find something that felt better than my current one.

After three days of doing this, I finally found something that clicked. I went out and played and putted the best I had in months. I believe had I brushed aside this person’s advice, I probably would still be fighting with my putter.

In our lives, we will hear many outside voices. We might wonder if anyone will appreciate how much hard work we have put into our lives to achieve goals. We may wonder if people will ever see the sacrifices we have made in order to fulfill our dreams.

A lot of my defensiveness when it comes to my golf game stems from that most people don’t know the hours I have put into getting better every single day. They don’t know that I’ve missed family birthdays or friends’ weddings, or the weeks spent away from my boyfriend because to be successful in this sport requires sacrifice.

But, it is possible to acknowledge the comments made by others without internalizing them. Instead of the unrealistic tendency to “just not care what others think”, I believe it’s important to recognize the people making those comments probably don’t really care about your personal success.

Trust me, people aren't sitting in bed thinking about how short you may fall of their standards. This may sound harsh, but given that thought, it makes it a lot easier to not feel tied down by the fear of not being worthy or good enough.

Beginning to learn how to stay true to ourselves and take other’s opinions with a grain of salt will free us. What often happens is that we begin trying so hard to please others, to live up to their expectations, that it no longer feels like our truth.

We write our own stories and each of us has a pen that narrates the course of it.

Enjoy your life’s success, whether or not others decide to enjoy it with you.

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Find Anya on Facebook and let her know how you build up your own confidence when people try stomping on your dreams.

Follow Anya on Twitter: @anyaalvarez