What does this statement mean to you?

The meaning I’ve attached to it is, when we train our minds, we’ve conquered ourselves, because the mind begins to work for us, instead of working against us. I know from my experience and by watching it work for my students that The playing golf with a trained mind, becomes the practice field for life. I feel certain that every coach and student at the mental state of mind community can understand what I am saying.. We all have a powerful tool at our disposal and the happiest people are those willing to grow, learn and discover new ways to apply ancient and modern teachings to their games. With this training, confidence and certainty to overcome the doubt and fears to emerge, into a confident player. I’m here to show you that you can create great golf games!!

My base teaching came from being a golfer, working at a golf course as a bartender and taking a Yoga Teacher Training course 16 years. Today I’ll lay a foundation of the first two steps I teach to become a confident golfer. Using a story and an kinesology exercise you can try to make you a believer in the power of your words to shape your games. Let me begin with explaining it with the Yoga concept of Karma, which means cause and effect. Thoughts are the cause and the effect is what shows up in our lives or in other words our experiences. We can look at our minds like a computer, our thoughts are the data going into the computer and then we view that data on the screen. Negative thoughts can be viewed as a virus so the screen is not clear or it shuts down altogether. This same analogy can be applied to our golf game the thoughts we say to ourselves produce the experience we see on the screen of the golf course.

To grasp this concept on a deep level I’ll share a story in confidence from teaching a junior golfer private yoga for golf classes one spring and he continued with them all summer long.

He had just completed his first year at college on a golf scholarship. He had lost confidence in his ability to play. He was a good player but a bad thinker. I went through a list of the golf affirmations with him to which ones he believed and didn’t believe. The method of using affirmations was to get inside his head and finding out what he was thinking and believing and what was limiting him. I asked him which one he thought would help him the most. That was revealed by what he didn’t believe at the moment, He didn’t believe, “I recover quickly from temporary setbacks.” He said that was his biggest problem at the moment. He couldn’t recover and so he was losing faith in himself. I then asked him what he believed to be his biggest strength while playing He told me “I putt the best when under pressure.” Well, I thought, we are half way there if that is his belief. Because of the power of that statement he will be back on top of his game in no time. You see he had a great deal of confidence before he went to college, but after seeing all the good players he became intimidated and began to lose faith in himself . Now let me tell you how he began to improve by using these two affirmations. “I recover quickly from temporary set backs and I putt the best under pressure. If we think about them as autosuggestions we see it is a form of self-hypnosis. The first autosuggestion was just a flimsy thought, which is how all habits begin. He didn’t really believe it but because we did the kinesiology test (the experiment you can do below )which proved how his strong words equaled a strong performance in his body so he was willing to trust me and the results. He repeated the two affirmations over and over for 2 months. However, In a short time he began to experience that he was bouncing back easily from setbacks. Until one day he noticed a consistency in how quickly he could recover, and by the end of the summer he had faith in himself to recover and was not in fear or anxious in tournaments like he had been before. With his tension removed he began winning more. Now the interesting part of his second suggestion was that it surpassed just being a belief and became a deeper knowing within him. He knew he putted the best under pressure because he had seen the results before we even talked about it. By the end of the summer with his continuous repetition the thoughts, became a reality, and a new habit, which became like a strong, steel cable, to pull him to victory. We worked on correcting the problem of his mind, which left his body clear to do what it already knew how to do, which was, play great golf and win more.

Kinesiology Test

You will need to find a willing participant to do this easy, fun and very powerful experiment with. The person doesn’t have to be a golfer and you can do it without a club in your hand. I am just outlining the steps the way I teach it:

1) Hold out your strongest arm straight in front of you at shoulder height, and your other hand could be holding a golf club or down at your side.

2) You will say out loud 5 times “I hate this club”, shake out your arm and say another 5 times “I play weak with this club”.

3) Your partner simultaneously places their hand on top of your outstretched arm and tries to push your arm down with one hand, while you are saying your statements aloud.You will resist this pressure as if you had your hand against a wall 5. After this is said both statements for a total of 10 times, shake out your arm, and hold it up again,

4) Use the same procedure as before but now state out loud that “I LOVE my golf club” 5 times and then state another 5 times “I play strong with this club”

5) Just for good measure one last time say out loud 5 times “ I play weak with this club”.

6) Then you can change partners.

Pretty powerful stuff, don’t you agree? Strong words creates strength in your arm, Weak words creates weakness in your body.

You have just been introduced to your sub-conscious mind, and you can see for yourself the truth that it doesn’t judge, it just reacts to what you tell it to do. Whatever you do, think or say comes back to you just like a boomerang; there is no good or bad, no judgment, it just is.

What words are you saying about yourself, game or equipment??

About Keeping Your Head Down And Golf

There are many tips bandied around in golf that are open to misinterpretation and misapplication. “You looked up” or “You peeked” are variations of the “Keep your head down” theme.

A friend commented the other day that I’m really good at keeping my head down when powering my ball out of thick rough. OK, yeah, I know you’re not meant to be in the rough, but inevitably the ball finds its way in there more often than a golfer likes, me included. I just laughed and commented that when my ball is in the rough I watch it as intently as a cat watching a mouse.

For the remainder of the round, every time she addressed her ball I could hear her telling herself to “play kitty cat”! Playing kitty cat worked rather well for her; so well, in fact that we ended up having a discussion about why that thought just clicked for her. She had been telling herself to keep her head down, and to not peek, to not look up for a while and the results were unpredictable. In reality, her previous instructions to herself on this subject hadn’t been working very well at all.

So why did “playing kitty cat” work so well? The answer is extraordinarily simple. The instruction provided a very clear and precise purpose that is appropriate and relevant in golf. It told her to watch that ball, to keep her eyes glued to that ball.

In contrast, “Keep your head down” actually does not precisely apply to its real intent. It is entirely possible to keep your head down but not really be watching the ball, thereby missing the entire purpose of the command. The alternative options of “Don’t look up” or “Don’t peek” trigger an even more inappropriate result as the human mind tends to do the reverse when faced with an instruction prefixed by “don’t”.

The moral of the story is that if “play kitty cat” means to you to watch the ball like a cat watching a mouse then the result will be that you are telling yourself to watch the ball very, very intently, and then you are more than likely to do just that. If “play kitty cat” means to you rolling around on the ground inviting someone to rub your tummy then it won’t help your golf game one iota!

A golfer has to be very careful to understand and appreciate the purpose of any tip or instruction. If you don’t fully understand why you are meant to be doing something, either mental or technical, then you are more than likely going to misapply it. Then you are likely to think that the tip just doesn’t work.

It is also incredibly vital for a golfer to understand the impact of his or her mind upon the game. The example above of the way in which your mind can twist a “Don’t” instruction around so that it becomes a “do” command shows very clearly how important it is to know how to get your mind to remain upon your side whilst out on the golf course. You really don’t want your mind to wander off upon a frolic of it’s own, or your golf ball will sadly follow suit!

Roseanna Leaton, golf addict and specialist in golf hypnosis mp3s and author of the
GolferWithin golf mind training system.

The purpose of all practice should be to transfer your skills onto the course, but the three-ball routine has to be one of the worst ways to practice. The last time I checked only one ball is played in competition. Plus, practicing with three balls actually provides a false sense of confidence.

Hypothetically, let’s say all three balls stop close to the hole, but what does it actually improve? Because all three balls were putted in about the same spot, the line and speed are already known, thus eliminating two of the major factors in putting. Lastly, most will only rarely remember whether the three balls ended up either short or long. For instance, if someone putts all three balls close to the hole but short, then the player will most likely leave putts short on the course, too.

Everyone practices putting, but how many players approach putting practice with a purpose and a goal? One way to transfer the putting green mentality onto the course is to become creative and competitive with the practice. Help create pressure situations by using only one ball, emphasizing putting competitions, having goals, and developing and reinforcing feel.

The word “mindset” also implies a certain mutability — they are not cast in stone. Once a golfer understands her beliefs and motivations, she can begin replacing counter-productive, self-defeating assumptions with a positive outlook.

Negative Scripts: The Elephant on the Road to Resilience

Have you ever felt negative thoughts on the golf course, and then had poor results for the round? If you answered yes, you are not alone. Most golfers bring a set of negative scripts onto the course with them round after round, with predictable, disappointing results. They are like actors who have rehearsed their lines and cannot deviate from the script. Such a script leads a golfer to go for the green when the shot is clearly beyond his distance or chip with a wedge when she lacks the confidence and skill to do so. For many golfers these negative scripts full of self-defeating thoughts influence most if not all aspects of their game. Positive scripts, on the other hand, occur when we repeat attitudes, beliefs, strategies and behaviors that lead to a good outcome.

Golf provides many examples of negative scripts. For instance, many recreational golfers expect perfection, and by the third flawed hole, they have long since forgotten to enjoy the company and the round. Some individuals remain unaware of their negative scripts, even when it is obvious to other golfers. Some blame their equipment, the weather or a misguided instructor. To develop resiliency, a golfer must first identify his ineffective or self-defeating attitudes. Then he must define new goals, anticipate possible obstacles and select a positive script. Take a minute and consider three negative scripts you bring to the game and the positive scripts you might substitute in their place.

Changing Negative Scripts Begins with Changing Your Attitude

Try this simple exercise. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the center from top to bottom. On the left side list three or more words you would use to describe your thoughts and behaviors on the golf course. Then add three or more words you think fellow golfers and friends would chose to describe you as well. On the right side, list three words you would prefer to use to describe yourself on the golf course and then three or more words you would want friends and fellow golfers to choose. The left side of the page represents your current mindset. The right side of the page represents the resilient mindset you want to achieve. To get there, you must identify and change your negative scripts and learn from every drive, shot, pitch or putt. You must accept your game and set realistic expectations and goals based on your current skill level. Furthermore, you have to recognize your strengths as well as your vulnerabilities. Remember you play golf in the first place to recreate and have a good time. To become a resilient golfer you should develop effective self-discipline and self-control on the course. Finally and most importantly, your response to mistakes and failures are an integral part of a resilient mindset. Resilient golfers view mistakes as experiences for learning and growth. Of course, no one likes chipping an easy shot into the sand, but resilient golfers are not easily discouraged. Consider how your personal beliefs about mistakes affect your behavior on the course.

Practice the Three P’s

Resilience requires PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE and, most importantly PRACTICE. On the professional level, the differences between scores are as much a reflection of the attitudes and beliefs each golfer brings to the game as a difference in actual ability. A resilient mindset brings enjoyment and consistency to every golfer’s game.

To learn more about Dr. Sam Goldstein’s teaching, please visit www.samgoldstein.com/

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

We live in a fast-paced, impatient society where instant gratification is often the norm. When we want something we want it now. Taking this sense of urgency into our golf game can be disastrous. Developing a patient attitude full of acceptance is our key to improved golf and greater consistency. What does that look like?

We can begin by asking ourselves a few questions:

• Is this just an affair or do I really care about the game?
• Am I involved only for what I can get out of it instantly or am I willing to put in time and effort to make it work?
• Do I love the feel of the club in my hand, the grass under my feet?
• Do I love the sights and smell of a golf course?
• Am I really in love with the game? All of it?

These questions can help you realize that the game is worth developing patience and you are worth it as well. If you think about being impatient, it’s just a form of beating yourself up. No amount of resisting the moment is going to change it. It only produces tension and anxiety in your mind and that transfers over to your body, hence bad swing shots.

A helpful insight is to look at the game of golf as a powerful mirror to the game of life. As children we learn by playing, and we can apply this to ourselves as adults. Golf is a perfect game to learn about ourselves. It is the ultimate reflection of your inward thoughts, beliefs, and conditioning’s. It so honestly reflects either the battleground within or the playground. Do you play golf or work at it? Awareness is the key to changing our game and our lives. A very simple, but not always easy way to shift away from working at golf and getting back to playing it is to drop positive thoughts in your mind,  like affirmations. Since we are always speaking to ourselves anyways, we can build a new habit of productive and  affirming thoughts. It is estimated that golfers have one positive thought out of 10 negative ones. This can be changed by creating a new pattern in the brain with different thoughts. Please believe me when I say changing your thoughts is self-direction, not self-deception. An affirmation is a firm statement that is true or has the potential to be true.

Once you start feeling playing better, you will begin to play better the challenge is to keep up your affirmations. Here are a few Golf Affirmations you can use to boost your self and your golf performance.

I am confident

I am relaxed and calm

I am a great golfer

I am a calm and composed golfer

I use every challenge as an opportunity to grow

It’s not what happens, but how I respond that creates a great game

I produce quality results with excellence and ease

The exciting news is that learning the game of golf is a life long discovery and practicing positive thinking is a life long habit to focus on. With this realization acceptance comes more naturally.

What are some of you favorite golf affirmations?

Like what you read, try Margarit’s “Positive Affirmations” mp3!

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Video courtesy of Golf Monthly

But what his win amplifies is the power of visualization and feel in golf. Bubba Watson has never had a golf lesson. His head is never cluttered with swing thoughts and the over-welming counter productive force of trying to perfect the physical side of the game. He sees the shape of the shot (which is different everytime it seems) and “feels” that swing which he thinks will produce that outcome. This is achieved through practicing in the right way (using techniques like “the nine shots“), which means he can swing freely on the golf course. He’s not thinking, “OK, so I have to hit this right to left, so I better take this a little on the outside on the way back…” Instead it’s golf in its purest form. The mind is quiet and the eyes and body play the shot. His thinking is done during the preparation phase of each shot – Augusta requires careful strategy and placement of EVERY shot. His practice has made the fundamentals instinctive so once he’s aligned correctly, the mind becomes silent, and his focus becomes the target and the back of the ball.

Obviously we can’t all be as creative and have the athletic ability of Bubba, but if we thought more about the shape and trajactory of every shot, instead of trying to execute the perfect swing and hit the perfectly straight shot, we’d all see better results. Golf is a game of visualization and feel and the mental game is best played when the mind is quiet.

Charlie mentioned how people put more focus on negatives than positives whereas in reality we
generally do more things well than badly. That is something that I haven’t really thought about in
great detail, because it’s so obvious that I’ve tended to take it for granted that people who come
to me for help have positive attitudes, just because they are doing something about it.

In his article Charlie suggests that for every one thing you need to improve on, you do eight
things well. It is a question of focussing your mind on the plusses whilst working to improve your
weaknesses and turn them into plusses. Isn’t that obvious?

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the apparent insecurity of many top golfers,
particularly when they are having a bad spell. It is like they think they are automatons when
in reality as mere human beings they should appreciate that the margins for error in golf are
minute. And if you are slightly off, one of your peers will be on and it will be their week.

My old granddad used to tell me not to worry about things over which you have no control.
How right and wise he was! I am constantly bemused by experienced golfers having all sorts of
extraneous thoughts in their head at very odd times – like when they are addressing the ball!!
So break things down into their simplest parts and learn to take control of your mind and apply it
to your golf game.

That fits in with one of my ultimate aims which is to help people take responsibility for their lives.
So many excuses abound today for being out of control and creating problems – in many cases
drink-related. If you know you cannot handle alcohol then don’t drink!! Simple as that!

Achieving a balanced lifestyle is something which I believe gives everyone the opportunity to
reach heights and achieve success. I break things down into 7 main categories and work with
clients to improve their ratings. The categories with brief examples are:

Family – as you get older you appreciate more the value of family and its importance in
helping you to achieve your ambitions
Health – it is essential to live a healthy lifestyle for many reasons, least of all the growing
cost of healthcare
Career – times have changed, whereby you never stop learning if you want to reach the
top
Finance – economic experiences over the past few years have shown the importance of
managing your finances

Spirituality – the ‘meaning of life’ is not something that generally dominates life when you
are younger but the emergence of meditation, holistic medicine, ethical living without
religion, etc allows you to consider whether spirituality has any meaning for you and how
it may be integrated into your whole life planning
Recreation – there are so many opportunities to participate in leisure activities for those
who want to lead a ‘fuller life’
Social – life is about relationships and you can identify the key people in your life, how
you interact with them and who you can go to in times of need

To see where you are right now, mark yourself on a scale of 1-10 for each of those criteria and
identify where you need to put in additional work. Having the aim of being the best you can be
provides the opportunity to reach for the sky and fulfil your dreams.

That naturally means that you must set targets throughout life. But appreciate that Rome
was not built in a day! Young golfers are always in a hurry to achieve a scratch handicap or
better. Yet many of them seem to lose the plot when they get there or are distracted by outside
influences and fall by the wayside.

They don’t understand the necessity to work consistently in an organised fashion at their game.
I see it as the equivalent of trades men and women learning their skills through college or
apprenticeships. Business people go to business school to learn how to run a business. They
embark on 3 year courses (or longer) and never stop learning. Why should young ‘wannabee’
golfers be any different? After all, for those lucky enough to have the talent to even consider
playing golf for a living, golf is their business and the ones that are the most successful are
those that have committed themselves to working hard over a period of years.

Top tour players have overcome their fear of failure. They stand over every putt thinking they
will make it. They enter every tournament believing they can win it. Of course they have the
talent to make it happen but even the best don’t win every week. Tiger was an exception a few
years ago but the majority of the very top players will win 3 or 4 times in a season.

The key to playing good golf is consistency. What is that? Well it was explained to me many
years ago that the best are the best because they make fewer mistakes. That starts in the
classroom at school, to the playing fields, the business arena and onto the golf course. The best
example I know of is Luke Donald who to date, on the European Tour has won money in 103
out of 106 tournaments. That is a phenomenal achievement and testimony to where every golfer
should be aiming. Luke is very intelligent and has worked hard on the areas of his game he
recognised needed improvement.

But isn’t that combining common sense with technical skill? And I teach my players that
common sense accounts for a large part of the mental game of golf.

People talk about pressure but I am amazed that seasoned professionals let the wheels come
off down the stretch when it counts when all through the week they’ve been playing great golf.
Why? One of the reasons is because many of them have done it before and the reason for that
is that they don’t have control of their minds. They allow demons to get into their sub-conscious
instead of continuing in the manner they’ve played all the week. They start doubting themselves
and once the trust in your own ability disappears self-confidence evaporates too.

Yet should it be a surprise really? We’ve all got excited when we’re playing well, got ahead
of ourselves – and then, hey presto, we start dropping shots and the round is gone. Rising
expectation levels are natural if you are an optimist and you get just a bit carried away and
careless. Handicap golfers in particular fail to realise that they are handicap golfers and when
they have a couple of consecutive pars their thinking goes into the clouds. They really think they
can shoot level par instead of thinking well and using their shots.

But that said, some moments of glory are better than none. It is no disgrace to make a mistake
– the only people who don’t make mistakes are those that never do anything!

REMEMBER – Your hottest streak is your true potential, so be realistic in your thinking and you
will get closer to your increased levels of expectation.

So going back to Charlie Unwin, he is a former GB international pentathlete who knows what
it takes to reach the top and is now helping others to do the same. It’s amazing what you can
learn from other people in similar environments. What I haven’t done yet is ask any of Charlie’s
horses what value they can add!!

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The game is designed to credit anything positive about your shots and your routine, so that becomes the focus. The more positive thoughts you have, the more you will suppress the negatives which is what we need to do for better performance. It is designed to teach you to focus on the process of hitting the shot at hand and to get you to stay in the present, instead of thinking about your total score.

There are 2 versions of this game:

Results Based:

The player scores:

1 point for hitting a fairway
1 point for hitting a green in regulation
1 point for being closest to the pin
1 point for a birdie
1 point for an up and down save for par

The player loses a point for:

Leaving a putt short
Scoring a double bogey
Taking more than 2 putts

Process Focused

This game is called “Circle 18″ and rewards you only when you have stuck to your routine for EVERY shot during the hole.

At the end of each hole, circle the hole number on the scorecard, only if you have stuck to the process of your routine for every shot. This should include:

1. Picking a small target or spot on the green
2. Visualizing the shape the shot
3. Feeling that shot with practice swings (nothing technical)
4. Getting aligned correctly
5. Forgetting about the shot once you’ve put the club back in the bag

Total up your score and make 18 circles your target for the round. This will help you start to focus on the positive steps of your routine, instead of chasing a score and you will undoubtedly play better. If you would like to learn more about a good positive process, please visit my Shot Routine article.

Would be great to get your feedback on this!