Making room for life in pursuit of winning
Rickie Fowler’s win at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last weekend was a great story for the golf world. It was Fowler’s first win in four years. A hell of a comeback for an elite player that had fallen far from the top (and that most of the golf world thought might never make it back there). He’d dropped as low as no.185 in the official world golf rankings during 2022 and failed to qualify for the last two Masters. In addition to this long awaited win, Fowler has 8 top 10 finishes this season including a T5 at the US Open.
Despite all of that, I was struck by what Fowler said in his post round interview as he stood by his wife and held his young daughter Maya:
“Yeah, winning’s great, but there’s a lot more to life than that.”
Your average high achieving person makes lots of room for work, winning, and achievement. Rickie’s comments left me wondering: How much room do most of us make for life in pursuit of achievement? Not too long ago my honest answer would have been not very much.
As I pondered that question, I was intrigued by an announcement from former no.1 and 2018 Australian Open Champion, Caroline Wozniacki. She was returning to tennis after retiring in 2020. Back then she’d thought she was done for good. She’d done what she set out to do, was burnt out from keeping up with a grueling routine aimed at keeping her rheumatoid arthritis in check, and wanted to start a family with her husband. She’d traveled, become the mom of two children, relaxed, and spent a lot of time off the tennis court. Here was a perfect opportunity to learn from someone that had made the decision to make lots of room for life and was now trying to win again at the highest level.
In her announcement in Vogue, Wozniacki commented that she was having fun with the game and the people in her life noticed she was enjoying it more. She said this:
“Matches often come down to just a few crucial moments, and whether you win or lose depends entirely on how you react. Are you going to get tight and tentative, or are you going to go for it? I think when you have a different perspective—when you realize that you’ve been preparing for these moments almost every day of your life—you dare to go for those moments. So I’m not going to hold back. I’m going to have fun doing it.”
Maybe making room for all that life is the thing that finally allows us to play from possibility rather than from fear. We can dig deeper in the moments that matter precisely because everything is no longer staked on winning. As Wozniacki and Fowler’s stories show, it’s the room we make for life that allows us to no longer play scared and become fearless in pursuit of our goals.
You could argue that these athletes have been able to make room for life precisely because they don’t have much left to prove. They’ve already made enough money and won enough to ease the pressure. I don’t think that’s unfair. But I also think in this chapter where they are enjoying themselves more and coming at winning from a different perspective, they might win bigger than they ever imagined. More importantly, they are setting themselves up for a fulfilling life long after they’re done playing the game. And to me, that’s everything.
I’ll ask you this: What’s been taking a back seat to work that matters to you? Being more present with family, calling an old friend, taking a long walk in the morning, a date with your partner or spouse, going on a trip with your parents? I challenge you to make the space (and do so consistently) and see what happens. I’m willing to bet that some of the best work of your life just might be on the other side.
