Every Reason To Give Up

This week a 24 year old became only Australia's fifth ever women's major golf champion. I remember seeing her for the first time about five or six years ago playing the Aussie circuit before she graduated to the big leagues of the LPGA in 2023. Grace Kim is petite, but back then you felt the wind could blow her over. Yet, she had an ability to contend at the top of the leaderboard whenever I saw her.

As expected, she didn't win her first or second tournament when she joined the world's top tour. No, Kim won in her third start - ridiculous. Then it only took her two years to win her first major championship. In a league where it is estimated only 5-7% of tour players ever win a major this is, once again - ridiculous!

Yet, it nearly didn't happen. Kim almost gave up on numerous occasions. Born to immigrant Korean parents her family had little resources. Her only chance of progress was to win her way into a Karrie Webb Scholarship (four times) to gain the funds required to cover coaching, travel, and tournament costs. How easy it would have been to give up and save her parents all that time and effort supporting her pursuit. To be the 'nice one', the 'polite one', the 'conforming one'. But she didn't.

After dominating on youth and amateur programs she turned pro in 2021 and won back-to-back TPS Sydney tournaments. The ascent was quick and it didn't take long until she won her way onto the LPGA - the biggest stage of the sport. It sounds wonderful but the reality is anything but. The pressure to perform is immense, the travel schedule is unrelenting and financial rewards are meagre unless you win (often). Now based in the US, it would have been understandable to get home sick and miss the close knit support she had experienced growing up in Australia. But, she didn't.

An early win can be the best medicine for all those worries. But this too comes with a cost. Higher expectation and a feeling of being stuck riddled Kim. So much so, within the next 18 months she was feeling so unmotivated and stripped of self-belief she came close to chucking it all in. It was only a few months ago she said, "So much doubt has gone through my mind and it kind of snowballed very quickly. I guess it was a bit of a burnout at the start of this year."

We can all empathise with this feeling. Its all too much, its not worth it, and I'm done. But, still she didn't give up.

Instead she had a series of hard conversations with her team, mentors, and family and woke up to idea a mindset shift was required. She found a way to channel her energy into a positive frame-of-mind taking a more grounded and fearless attitude into her work. She freed herself of expectations and reignited why she enjoyed playing in the first place. She moved past any thought of giving up.

Then, in the French spa district of Evian Kim found herself three shots back with only four holes to play in the final round. Her idol Minjee Lee was more likely to chase down the leader at that point and an honourable top-10 finish would have been expected. But, Kim wasn't done. By the time those last four holes were played Kim somehow found herself equal top and in a sudden death playoff against one of hottest talents in world golf - Thailands Jeeno Thitikul, the world number two.

On the first playoff hole Kim put her ball in the water and it was all but over. Yet, once again the impossible became possible as Kim chipped in, forced a second play off hole and beat her Thai adversary. Even in the highest pressure moment, Kim could have easily given up on what seemed to be a lost cause. Now, she has made history with a life-changing win.

It fills you with joy to see such a human story. We all have our own version. The ability to just stay in the game is proven time and again to be one of the most influential elements of any success story. So, what can we learn from Grace Kim's story of perseverance and resilience?

Belief is External - in the early days her dad showed and spoke of his belief in her. She admits that he always believed in her more than she did of herself. When her confidence and motivation dipped it was her team and mentors that reminder her of what she had achieved and what she could achieve. Surrounding yourself with believers is one of the cleverest strategies you can make. Additionally, limiting your investment in non-believers may even be cleverer.

Belief needs Purpose - when Kim felt lost at sea she had become confused and jaded on why she was putting herself through all of this. It isn't easy to constantly feel like you are failing in public with media scrutiny in a results-at-all-costs high performance environment. Questions such as, is it worth it, do you want to keep doing this, and why should you keep going are inevitable. But, these questions haunt every person in every profession. Coming back to what makes it meaningful fuels belief and the energy to persevere.

Belief is Pragmatic - the self help gurus will carry on about identity, values alignment, and body posture when it comes to building confidence. But, what Grace Kim has taught us here is that a stoic objective approach is a good place to start. She recognised she had put in the work, she had proven she was good enough, she had good people around her, and that she was limiting herself by obsessing about results. She knew a shift of focus onto her process and being present rather than results was the more sensible way to move forward. A pragmatic decision with little to no emotion.

In my corporate life back in the terrible times after the Global Financial Crisis my boss and mentor Mette Haxthausen taught me about striving towards goals no matter how dark, late, or impossible the scenario was. No excuses, no outs, no surrender. And, I see this every day where people give up before they have started. The timeline is too tight, the budget is too tough, the people can't do it.

With a mindset shift we can energise our pursuit, and make the seemingly impossible possible. This is a non-negotiable when leading anything. Observe your mind today how many times your inner voice says things like "no chance", "you're having a laugh", "there's no way"... It happens more than we think.

Even if you hit it in the water, you can recover and come out on top. A healthy dose of belief truly does go a long way.