4 Essentials For Lasting Success, From The All-Time Greatest Pro Female Golfer

There's much we can learn from Annika Sörenstam, one of the best golfers in the history of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). And on this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast, it was difficult not to pepper her with rapid-fire questions like: How did you graduate from a "good" player to one of the "greats"? What are the most important fundamentals of golf? What was it like to earn a place in the World Golf Hall of Fame? (Don't worry; we do get to all those queries!)

"The longest distance in golf is between your ears," Sörenstam notes. It's advice you can translate to all facets of life, not just with sports—you can't expect to excel with a foggy, cluttered mind. 

According to Sörenstam, the way to truly achieve is to focus on what's in front of you: "The most important shot is the now shot—not the one you hit half an hour ago, not the one you're going to hit in 30 minutes," she says. "Being present in that moment is so important in golf." (And we'd argue the importance of presence spans across industries.) 

On a similar note, imagine what you want your success to look like—because then you'll make it happen. Really visualize it with all of your senses: What do you see? What do you hear? What does it feel like? In the context of golf, "I know what it's supposed to feel like to hit a good shot," Sörenstam says. "And I always tell people to just hear the claps, hear the ball go in. You're using all your senses to create that positive feeling and the atmosphere that you need." 

Yes, a portion of success is pure skill, but you can't expect to instantly reach the pinnacle without honing your craft.

For Sörenstam, preparation is crucial: "I was very cautious how to prepare for a tournament, [including] fitness, sleeping, eating right, and drinking the right things," she explains. "The preparation I think gave me a little bit of an edge, knowing that I had done everything I could. It's almost like when you study for a test and people [cram] 10 minutes before class—it doesn't work that way. You have to do the preparation." 

If there was an overarching theme to Sörenstam's success, it would be commitment. Dedication, determination, whatever you want to call it—according to Sörenstam, commitment on every level is downright essential. 

"It's the repetitiveness day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year that you really commit to yourself," she says. Grit, if you will. She continues: "I'm not six foot tall. I'm not the strongest out there...[but] I was very disciplined and scheduled, and for me to be able to do that so regularly helped me be successful for a long time."