Writing Boosts Your Game

Real Life Resilience

Journaling about his everyday golf game turned into a book opportunity for former professional golfer Tom O’Stasik. Along the way, he discovered that writing helped him get through the emotional challenges of life and process his thoughts.

Golf Journal Turned Into Books

O’Stasik was a professional golfer for 6 years. He started writing in a journal at the age of 17, due to his love for golf. A coach recommended journaling as a way to help him figure out how to improve, how to have more self-awareness and how to process things both good and bad. He soon realized that his writing reflected his personal life, especially when he was going through emotional challenges in different relationships. He went on to write two books, the Putting Assassin and The Men’s Divorce Playbook and he’s in the process of writing two more. Journaling helped him cope through his struggles and ultimately he was able to find himself and become the person he is today.

• The Men’s Divorce Playbook is about helping men cope with divorce
• Tom helped many other men deal with divorce and relationships as they turned to him for advice.
• He then realized there was value in some of the things he was sharing with them.
• He was inspired to turn his journal into a book after reading a book about somebody who did the same.
• The only person who initially knew about his journal was dad, this was because of the unique relationship they had.
• He is now coaching students to journal their thoughts, which will help them to achieve their dreams.
• O’Stasik journaled through his divorce, knowing that he could get through it because he had been through worse situations and came through on the other side.
• He uses journaling as a way to quiet his mind, by writing down his thoughts on paper, which makes it easier for him to organize them and get clarity.
• Journaling has increased his self-awareness by helping him work through issues and figure things out.
• Part of what Tom wrote were his goals and dreams. He soon realized there was power in writing with your own hand writing.

Take Home Message

• When writing about your life, tell yourself no one is going to read this. I can write whatever I want and just get started writing.
• Commit to your writing for a certain amount of time.
• When starting don’t worry about grammar and spelling, all that matters is getting out these thoughts, these feelings, whatever it is you’re trying to express, without judgement and without critique.
• Don’t be critical of what you’re doing, just commit to it and commit to the time and just write.

Lifestory Toolkit: Keep Writing

(Brought to you by Lifestorytelling.com – Discover YOUR life stories!)

This episode’s Lifestory Toolkit features a software tool called Keep Writing. This software is at keepwriting.boxjar.com. It is a word processor that works like an old school typewriter: it doesn’t let you delete. If you really, really have to, you can type over mistakes just like with a real typewriter. The idea is that this will let you focus on productivity (instead of endless polishing) and on reaching your word count goals. It simply encourages you to Keep Writing!

Free Download: You Don’t Have to be a Writer to Write Your Stories!

You Don’t Have to be a Writer to Write Your Stories!

About: Tom O’Stasik

Tom O’Stasik, is a podcast host, a writer, and a former professional golfer. The author of two books, The Putting Assassin and The Men’s Divorce Playbook, Tom credits the journaling process he learned while trying to improve his golf game with helping refine his writing skills to complete two books and have two more in process toward completion.

Links:

Website: MensDivorcePlaybook.com

Facebook Page: Mens Divorce Playbook, Clari-Tee Coaching

Twitter: TomOstasik

Instagram: @tomostasik