What I should do is quickly re-focus my attention or reconsider the risks I take. Instead, I often yell at myself. Occasionally I'll slam the ball against the fence or toss my racket. Does this self-critical "punishment" ever help? Of course not. It only makes matters worse. The same is true for your golf game, and for meeting the continuous challenge of preventing injuries in the workplace.
Still, we rely too much on punishment to correct behavior. In this article, I want to show the futility of this approach. Errors, or cognitive failures and mistakes (that result from our mental processes involving awareness and judgment), are unintentional and often caused by environmental factors. And when errors are intentional (as in calculated risks), the person didn't intend to cause an injury. Rather there were factors that influenced the decision to take the risk. The reasons for errors and calculated risks need to be discovered and addressed.