Having a short memory is helpful in sports. If you don’t, mistakes can linger and influence future performance. Golf is a great example. It’s very much a mental game, and if we focus on a mistake we made on the last hole, we’re likely to repeat it. But if you can put the past behind you, even the immediate past, and just move on, you can recover and turn it around. The same is true of life. If we focus on our mistakes, we’re likely to mess up again. But if we simply realize that mistakes will happen, that they’re part of the process, we can put them behind us and quickly move on.