Shooting Your Shot
Shooting Your Shot
Friday, I found myself walking the fairways at the America’s Cup tournament we host here in Victoria BC every year. My friend was billeting a golfer from Argentina so I got to get out and follow his group. Tee time was 7:50 a.m., and it was me, my buddy, the scorekeeper, and one player’s girlfriend. That was it. No crowds. No noise. No distractions. Just four of us following a small group of professional golfers grinding their way through a tough, slick Friday morning.
Here’s what hit me: this wasn’t the glamorous version of pro sports people picture when they talk about “living the dream.”
One guy was carrying his own bag. Forty pounds, sun coming up, five miles ahead. This wasn’t about big paycheques or fancy sponsorships. This was about making the cut. Surviving. Giving yourself a chance to play the weekend, to cash a cheque, to stay on tour.
And as I watched, I saw the two versions of how players handle pressure:
The cautious ones, playing safe, keeping the ball in the middle of the green.
The aggressive ones, firing at flags, taking risks, trusting themselves.
It was chess with golf clubs. Because here’s the thing about taking your shot: one bad swing doesn’t just cost you a stroke. It can ruin the next three holes. Mentally. Emotionally. That spiral? It’s real. Ask any golfer who’s lived through it.
But the players who stay aggressive, who know when and how to take their shot, those are the ones you see on TV Sunday afternoon.
The Myth of “Just Take the Shot”
We love the phrase “shoot your shot.” It sounds brave. Inspiring. Like courage alone will get you there.
But courage without preparation is just gambling.
The guys I watched Friday weren’t guessing. They’ve hit that shot a thousand times on the range, in the rain, in the wind, when nobody was watching. They know what they can and can’t do.
Here’s what people don’t see when the cameras show the Sunday leaderboard:
The Hours: Range work. Putting greens. Chipping until your hands bleed. Taking shots opposite-handed just in-case.
The Body: Gym sessions. Mobility work. Diet dialled in. Sleep treated like a weapon. Because tired bodies make scared decisions.
The Mind: Learning the greens. Knowing the wind. Visualizing the shot before you swing. Talking to yourself like a world-class coach, not a critic.
Behavioural science backs this up. Your brain can’t tell the difference between a well-visualized rep and a real one. The pros run through their shots mentally over and over until it feels like they’ve already succeeded.
And here’s the big one: emotional regulation.
Miss two putts in a row? Average players panic. They start playing small. Playing safe. Pros? They breathe. Reset. Talk to themselves calmly. They know one bad moment doesn’t define them.
This is why Scotty Scheffler is always hanging around the top ten. All week he’s patient. Calculated. Then, when it matters on Sunday? He goes for the throat. That isn’t luck. That’s training a nervous system to stay aggressive under pressure.
The Meltdown Problem in Sports
Here’s where it gets ugly.
Every sport has the same story:
A pitcher misses his spot and the next one sails 12 feet high because he’s “trying harder.”
A golfer three-putts from six feet and tries to nuke the next drive 420 to “make up for it.”
A hockey player gives up a turnover and tries to go end-to-end hero mode the next shift.
That’s the “I’ll fix it by doing more” mentality.
Here’s the science: when you make a mistake, your brain interprets it as a threat. Your fight-or-flight system lights up. Adrenaline spikes. Your fine motor skills tank. Heart rate skyrockets. Thinking becomes frantic instead of calm.
And because the ego hates being wrong, it whispers: Try harder. Prove yourself. Fix it now.
This is how the meltdown starts. One bad moment turns into a chain reaction of worse ones because the athlete starts playing emotional instead of playing trained.
The tools to fix this?
Breathing to lower the heart rate and bring the nervous system back to baseline.
Pre-shot routines that anchor the body and mind in the same rhythm every time.
Self-talk scripts so the first voice in your head after a mistake isn’t the critic, it’s the coach.
The best in the world don’t avoid mistakes. They just don’t chain them together.
What I Watch as a Coach
This is where my eyes go every time I’m on a course or a field: the pre-shot routine.
Because you can see when the heart rate is up. You can see it when a golfer makes bogey on the last hole and suddenly starts stepping off shots two or three times. When they stand over the ball looking longer than they need to. When they hesitate, fidget, or start playing slower, “more careful.”
The science here is clear: after a mistake, the nervous system triggers a threat response. Heart rate goes up. Blood flow shifts away from the prefrontal cortex... the part of the brain responsible for decision-making and into the motor cortex to prepare for action. Translation? You literally think less clearly.
That’s why the routine changes. Instead of the smooth, confident rhythm you see when they’re playing well, you get over-checking, over-thinking, and over-correcting. It’s not conscious. It’s the nervous system screaming, Don’t screw this up again.
This is the behavioural pattern of a mind moving from flow to fear.
The pros who can keep their routines identical after a double bogey? That’s emotional regulation. That’s nervous system control. That’s training.
Why the Shot Reflects Your Whole Life
Here’s the part most people miss: that shot you want to take? It reflects every aspect of your life.
If your habits off the field are chaotic, emotional, and inconsistent, you’ll carry that into your performance whether you like it or not.
The science is clear: your nervous system doesn’t compartmentalize. The same brain and body that handle your sleep, nutrition, relationships, and stress responses also show up on the mound, the tee box, or the free-throw line.
This is why:
Poor sleep equals slower reaction times and worse decision-making.
Chronic stress equals tighter muscles and impulsive choices.
Negative self-talk off the field bleeds into how you handle big moments on it.
You don’t magically become a calmer, sharper, more confident person when the lights come on. You become the most honest version of whatever you’ve trained in your daily life.
Growth happens when you align everything... your habits, routines, emotional regulation, physical prep, even your self-identity... so the shot you take reflects a system that is built to handle it.
Because you don’t rise to your goals. You fall to your systems.
The Big Moment Lie
Here’s another trap: the belief that in big moments you need to “focus harder.”
Wrong.
From the range to the 18th at Augusta… from your high school field to Fenway… sure, the stage is bigger, the crowd is louder, and the stakes feel heavier.
But the physical act? The mental process? It doesn’t change.
You don’t need to swing harder, breathe deeper, or try more just because it’s the ninth inning instead of the first.
You need the same systems you’ve built through thousands of reps to run on autopilot... because you don’t rise to your goals; you fall to your systems.
If you don’t have those systems? The stage will eat you alive
How to Become the Person Who Can Actually Take the Shot
This is the part everyone wants to skip... the boring, daily, unsexy work that makes the highlight possible.
And this is exactly what we do in Mindset U. Especially with our youth programs.
Here’s what surprises most parents: the majority of kids have a hard time getting through my programs. Why? Because it’s slow. It’s intentional. It’s repetitive.
It doesn’t ask for a lot in one day… but it asks for a little bit, every day. It asks for awareness. It asks for intentionality.
And here’s the truth: that sounds easy in theory, but it’s uncomfortable in real life because real change takes time. Everyone wants the big leap, the instant transformation, the highlight reel moment. But the athletes who want to see big change when it matters down the road? They learn to make lots of small, micro changes every single day.
It won’t be perfect. Some days it will feel like nothing is happening. But those tiny adjustments? They reshape you. They hardwire new habits. They build a new baseline so when the moment comes, you don’t crumble.
This is what I coach people through every day:
Mental Reps: Visualization training so your brain believes you’ve been there before. It stops feeling new.
Self-Talk Rewiring: Learning to kill the negative loops before they spiral. Talking to yourself like a surgeon, not a critic.
Behavioural Systems: Sleep, diet, strength, conditioning, because a tired, hungry, scattered human makes scared decisions.
Emotional Regulation: Training the nervous system to stay calm in chaos so you can stay aggressive under pressure.
Life Alignment: Building habits and routines off the field so the shot you take on the field reflects a life built for performance, not chaos.
Because here’s the secret:
Shooting your shot isn’t about ego. It’s about preparation so deep that when the moment comes, there’s no panic, no second-guessing, no hesitation. Just trust in the work you’ve already done.
Here’s the Call-Out
If you’ve read this far, you already know what I’m about to say:
It’s time to stop waiting for the big shot and start training for it.
The athletes, executives, and parents I work with don’t just learn how to perform when it matters, they learn how to live in a way where the big moment doesn’t scare them anymore.
Because confidence isn’t magic. It’s built.
If you want to become the person who doesn’t just dream about shooting their shot , but actually hits it when it matters.. let’s talk.
The worst thing you can do is swing unprepared. The best thing you can do is build the kind of life, habits, and mindset that make the shot inevitable.
Let’s get to work.
