andrew scott jensen

On this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I have taken my first true day off since getting down here for my pre season “training camp”. Today is an Andrew day, a day all about me relaxing and taking it easy. This will be another routine I will be attempting to apply to my life on the road.

This routine birthed from a principle I already try to apply to my life; the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day to rest, relax, and ultimately produce nothing.

In our busy lives we are driven to produce, produce, produce. If we don’t, we feel that we are falling behind or being left behind by life moving along without us. For me as a touring pro, my day to day production looks something like this:

time on the range
time on the course
time in the gym
making phone calls
making travel plans
driving to a new city
booking hotels
answering emails

If I do not do this everyday, it is easy for me to feel that I will be jumped by somebody else that I’m competing against.

In the long run I believe taking these Sabbath’s will allow me to be the jumper as opposed to jumped. I will be refreshed week in and week out, and hopefully will never feel the consequences of burnout on my golf game. I will be anxious and excited to start the routine up again on monday, or tuesday(whatever the case may be) that my drive and work ethic will be at 100%, and not at an easy to maintain 75% because I’m trying to conserve myself.

This comes from a fear of mine. A fear that every day will be the same. Eat, Sleep, Repeat. I lived that life before, and it was not enjoyable at all. I never want that to happen again. There is absolutely no passion in making every day a copy of the one before. I always want to have passion in golf, and in everything I do. Taking a day off to restore that passion will help me avoid the trappings of the eat, sleep, repeat lifestyle.

Back to today…

Today is a day that I planned for. I worked hard all week long and took care of all that I needed to take care of. My emails are answered, my travel itinerary is set for tomorrow, my body is feeling great, my game is feeling solid. So today I will not feel guilty about not doing anything towards the goals for this year.

Tomorrow morning I will wake up so excited about going over to West Palm Beach and trying out for the Honda Classic. Even thinking about it right now, I am so much more excited than I was in the midst of the grinding on the range and in the gym over the past weeks. Taking today to relax is giving me time to put everything into perspective.

I can’t wait to play my first event as a professional golfer on Tuesday. THAT’S SO COOL!!! I’m a professional golfer and it all starts on Tuesday, I am so blessed, it’s hard to believe sometimes!! Writing this is solidifying in me how important this day is. I would have never had time to realize what is happening on Tuesday if I were just grinding away on the range trying to make everything perfect by Tuesday. I want to keep this childlike perspective on my career, I want to be so excited with every event I play. With every opportunity that comes my way, I want it to make me smile, and never make me feel like “here we we go again, some old same old, new tournament, new city”. I want to be going nuts while approaching each new city and each new event.

I am doing something that such a small percentage of people who play this game get to do. I should never take it for granted and always be thankful and excited that I get to play this game I love for a living.

I have the Sabbath to thank for this outlook. In not producing today, I have realized so much more about me and my passion for this game.

Can you take a day to do nothing? Can you put the pressures of life to the side? Can you turn off the Blackberry? Turn off the computer? Can you spend a day with the people you love and truly appreciate their company and not just treat it as a weekend duty? Can you take a day to reflect on the week that passed and the week to come?

Whatever it looks like to you, I encourage you to take a day a week, or every two weeks to produce nothing. It will feel awkward at first and even guilty, but I promise you it will do a great deal of good for your life, relationships, career, etc.

Here’s to doing nothing today…