Mind Fit

Is your mind fit for… golf?

If you watch any sport on TV these days the pundits can’t stop saying things about the mindset of the manager, owner, team, player and even the fans come in for some comments.

Golf is no different apart from the focus is on one person – the golfer. The pundits and the specialists just can’t get away from using the term ‘mindset’. As well as the regular golf coach, all the pros have a team around them with the most important geared to the player’s mindset.

Now this isn’t anything new! In fact it’s been known for years as Jack Nicklaus has said many times

“Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You’ve got to believe you can play a shot instead of wondering where your next bad shot is coming from”

But it’s only recently that golfers all over the world have been listening.

Listening for some has turned into thinking. So there are some golfers asking the question

“what does that mean to me? I’m not a pro and I haven’t got a team around me that can help. So what can I do to get the right mindset?”

The answer is simple – and all golfers know it – you have to practice.

Some reading this will say

“but I do practice, I’m always on the driving range.”

and others  might be thinking…

“I’d better start practising”

or maybe you’re thinking something else.

For those that do practice or now want to practice then there’s help.

First, just take a minute to think what it would feel like if after every shot you stood there and just smiled.

Now it might not be because you just hit a dream shot – but it will be because you know exactly what you did when you played the shot. And all of that unique experience goes into your memory banks to help you calibrate what you are doing. And it will be stored in such a way that you will be naturally improving your game, with every shot you play.

With the process Mind Fit will introduce you to that is exactly what is going to happen. You will now have the opportunity to learn something from every golf shot, improving your game in real time. And that applies whether you are on the golf course or on the practice range or in the office imagining.

Now the question you have to answer first is

“Do you believe that’s possible?”

If you believe it is possible then it is, or not if that is what you want to believe.

Belief is a mental issue and it comes at the start of anything we do. What we believe is what makes us unique, and it goes something like this:

• We are what we believe
• What we believe, together with our experiences, form our attitudes
• Our attitudes in action form our behaviours

Now you might say we are all different, and of course you’d be right. However, for all of our uniqueness there are only 3 states our beliefs, attitudes and behaviours will take us and we have simplified the states to:

• Can’t do – negative
• Won’t do – negative
• Can do – positive

Everyone would like to think they are a ‘can do’ person, but the reality is we all flow between the three states and depending on what we are doing and how we are doing we could be in any of the three.

Take a simple example:

You are looking at a green surrounded by bunkers. If you are thinking positively and focused, the fact that the last time you played this hole and you hit your ball into the right hand bunker last time should be irrelevant. But is it?

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you are right” Henry Ford

So where is your mindset? Just saying you can hit the green is not enough, you have to believe it and have a routine to make sure you give yourself the best chance to succeed.

Saying “I can do it” isn’t enough

In ‘Mind games’ by Jeff Grout & Sarah Perrin, they refer to how Jonny Wilkinson from rugby union fame uses imagination to handle a massive number of permutations when taking a penalty kick. In essence his penalty kick is the same as footballer taking a penalty (and we know how good some teams are at that!) or a golfer taking a shot.

He said, “As soon as you know you are going to kick you fall into that routine, which more or less shuts you off from everything. So I set the ball up, move back a certain number of steps, check everything is in line, do a visualisation of the path of the ball – where it is going to go and where I want it to go. Then I move to the side so I am now ready to kick. The routine then continues in a visualisation kind of way, but it’s actually more of a sensation; I imagine the feeling I have when the ball hits the foot, the perfect feel of how I want it to feel when it hits my foot, where I want it to hit my foot – what it’s going to feel like when it goes right.

Then I find a tiny dot dead centre between the posts, or wherever I’m aiming. I visualise the line of the ball to the dot, as if it were on a wire attached to it. Then I have a kind of ‘centring’ response, where I visualise all the power going from my central point down to where it needs to be, down my left leg and exploding from my left foot. I really feel that sensation. Then I really focus on the exact point on the ball I am going to hit and the part of my foot that I want it to come off. Then I send the ball up the wire.

So I don’t stand by the ball and say, “I am going to kick this, I feel fantastic.” It’s that as soon as I am given the kick I go into the routine I have done a hundred times a week in practice.”

Do you do any of that in your golf, or anything else you do come to think of it? So as Jonny Wilkinson would say its back to practice, practice and more practice.

What’s the alternative?

Golf like so many sports has gone down the information route – ball trackers, motion trackers, motion Apps… the list is endless. In an insane thought process of following the idea that just giving you lots of information will help you automatically join all the dots and improve. It seems that if something can be measured it will be and if enough evidence is gathered to suggest a trend that produces a successful outcome, this then becomes a fact and now if everyone does it that way a successful result must occur. Until it doesn’t happen! That’s when you realise it didn’t have your name on it so now what do you do?

Let’s get back to your mindset – the 5 inches between your ears – and in anything we do, we need to use every inch in a positive and constructive way.

The can do, can’t do, won’t do states explained

One negative state represents ‘can’t do’ or helpless people. These people are easily overwhelmed and ignore or avoid, consciously or unconsciously doing tasks where they can. So if you avoid any of the practice we are suggesting you know who you are then.

Dr Martin Seligman, who today is one of the leading lights in the world of positive psychology, calls this groups behaviour as stemming from ‘Learned Helplessness®’. The interesting part of that term is that research, carried out over several years deemed it ‘learned’ behaviour and he suggested at the time it could be ‘un-learned’ too.

Today we know how you can unlearn that behaviour wherever you may be doing it – in golf, education or even in business.

For your golf, we’ll be showing you how you can develop that ‘can do’ state in our book  “Is your mind fit for golf? The missing link to your success…”

The other negative state is ‘Learned Defensiveness®’ or ‘won’t do’. These are defensive people and they tend to over control and block anything even though they may know it is the right thing to do. Using your 6 iron when you know the 5 iron is the right club no matter what you have told yourself the reason is. And if you have convinced yourself you don’t need to practice to improve when you know every professional golfer spends more time practicing than in tournament play, then you know you are in the ‘won’t do’ state.

Both negative attitudes and behaviours lead to a lack of focus, wasted energy and typically deliver a poor result. If you are having a bad round and you continue to operate in the wrong mindset who knows how bad it will turn out?

Collectively for the ‘can’t do’ and ‘won’t do’ we call this ‘Behavioural Waste™’. Golfers clearly demonstrate a lot of this but it’s all around us if we start looking. In business we have found that up to 50% of people-time at work does not focus on what is business essential and instead are involved in activities that are unproductive and lead nowhere, many become engrained in the culture and stubbornly resistant to change.

Why can a handbook, a golf manual help you improve – permanently?

In most other contexts where you operate there are other people involved – people make up your team so in truth anything could happen that’s probably out of your control. At work you have colleagues or if you run your own business you have clients, customers and suppliers. There are lots of other people in those contexts that influence your success and your performance. Looking at the business context your team is made up of other people, where we would have to work together on your specific issues individually and jointly make what you are doing a joint success.

But there are no other people in your team when you are on the golf course – it is your game and it should not be influenced by what others do or say. To play your best you now know you only have on your team:

• Intelligent golf clubs – each specifically designed
• Honest golf balls – they obey the laws of physics

So that is your team and they turn up every time ready for action. That just leaves you!

We know if you want to have fun and improve you will be happy to follow drills and practice routines that work. Any golfer knows you have to put in the effort and time to improve. What we now do is help you to put in ‘focused effort’. There are no short cuts to this.

Focused effort

In our book “Is your mind fit for golf? The missing link to your success…” what we are giving you is a process that anyone can do that will build your ‘can do’ mindset for golf. It will also build confidence and resilience, giving you the bounce-back-ability you need to succeed.

If you want to succeed, this process becomes your focused effort. In time you will be able to do it without thinking. It will become natural and something you will do automatically and willingly. Just like riding a bike or driving a car – it may be challenging at first but eventually when you have done it  enough you will become good at it, without really having to think.

Some of this process you can also practice even when you are not on the golf course. You can use your memory and imagination if you want.

We have also included a very simple feedback process that will raise your awareness of what you are doing every time you take a swing and keep you engaged in the process and in that ‘can do’ powerful mindset.

The Good News

It’s all in the book! It contains all you need to know and then practice so that when you turn up to play you are in the best place you can be mentally. We have created  and included everything you need, there are no short cuts remember, just follow this process, do the practice drills and keep repeating them because the more you do them the more you will raise your awareness.

Just believe what we are saying and when you succeed you will be the next testimonial, the proof that this process works. It is the most efficient and effective way we know to help you become the best that you can be.

In closing it would be easy to forget one thing. Remembering that golf is a game, and a game is supposed to be fun. What we are doing in this book is helping you to develop the enjoyment of knowing you ‘can do’ golf. Why not have that summed up by a golfing legend:

“I am a firm believer in the theory that people only do their best at things they truly enjoy. It is difficult to excel at something you don’t enjoy” Jack Nicklaus

So here’s one simple practice drill taken from the book. 

Practice Drill #5 when playing on the golf course monitor your mindset by giving yourself a ‘tick’ or a ‘cross’ after every shot. Be honest, you are only kidding yourself otherwise. Give yourself a ‘tick’ based on your commitment, your self-talk and your emotional response after your shot. If there are any negative elements you give yourself a ‘cross’. You are now playing a new game where the aim is to gain a tick after every shot.

We’re all kids at heart so there’s a book for small kids (plus a Parents’ Guide) and a book for big kids. Together they are less than the cost one golf club and you’ll never need to buy another book about golf.

If you master your game, the changes in you will also help improve your business.

Get the book here 

All the best

Neville Gaunt

CEO Mind Fit