What’s going on in your mind? What are you saying to yourself? Probably not how much you are enjoying the smell of newly mown grass and the first signs of spring. More likely you are thinking: “Don’t hook it whatever you do!” or “If I hit it right, I’ll be in equally big trouble!” What images then appear in your mind? How are you feeling? Been there, Thought that? Any of the above – self talk and negative imaging –will adversely affect your emotional state and lead to feelings of doubt and anxiety and in turn increase the tension in your muscles, producing a less effective swing. And what about this: ever heard yourself or playing partners say “I knew I was going to do that!” once that ball lands in the bunker or hooks out of bounds? Amazing, quite a feat, actually….you actually visualized what you were going to do – and did it! Just imagine if you could visualize positively, not in the opposite direction because we attract what we focus on. If you can concentrate on what to do right – not what you can do wrong – you give yourself a far better chance of pulling off a shot that will keep you out of trouble. Here’s another example of how mindset can have a phenomenal affect on your actions: when attempting to pass a large, articulated lorry on the motorway in the outside lane in difficult weather conditions – heavy rain, spray, poor vision, etc. – notice that if you begin to worry about the proximity of the lorry and become too focused on it, you will almost certainly find yourself doing exactly what you fear most at that moment – you are drawn closer to the lorry. Yet when you focus on the positive - i.e. the outside of your own lane, you will sweep past safely and with ease.
When playing his best golf, Tiger Woods talks about … “getting myself out of the way” – a way of saying that he removes any doubts or fears his ego may feed him and operates from within his own personal cocoon… “As if I’m outside of myself looking in”. Driving safely past a lorry might not appear to be connected with hitting a perfect shot down the middle of the fairway or holing a clutch putt … but it is because it is about selecting positives rather than negatives, it is about getting yourself into the right frame of mind. Jeremy Snape, a former England cricket one-dayer and Twenty/20 International and performance coach/psychologist to the South African cricket team believes everyone has the ability to focus in a way that brings out the best results, not the worst. The important factor to remember is “where you place the focus”. On recently helping the South African team to beat Australia – the first time they have been beaten in a home test series for sixteen years – he indicated that it’s not a switch that you can flick to make the players believe in themselves… “but more a ‘mindset shaping’. So it is with golf. If you spend a bit of time watching the competitors practising at a pro tournament, you’ll notice that they are mostly all equally talented ball strikers. It’s difficult to pick out the winners from the also-rans purely on their ball striking ability. So what does make the difference, and could this difference be accessed by any category of golfer? The difference of course, is ‘mindset’ – a mixture of a productive self-perception, self belief, self confidence and expectation, leading to a level of mental strength which sustains the top golfer through the many challenges they face over the course of a tournament. And yes, ‘mindset shaping’ will also help mid to high handicappers, helping them to reduce their scores and their handicaps! Having the right mindset will assist you to develop a more productive self perception and self belief, strengthen your self confidence in your golf game and raise your expectations. It will show you how to focus – knowing to what you should pay attention, and what to avoid paying attention to. It will teach you how to manage your thoughts, - what you say to yourself and what you picture – marshal your emotions and stay relaxed and flexible in your physical body to maximise your golf game. In the next article, we will start to examine how to secure that mindset – and how to maximize it!