When you really want to play your best golf, you must understand this simple philosophy: action always follows thought. I have found this verbal directive to be true in working with every golfer who wants to improve his or her talent potential and to post lower scores. The key point of this mental lesson is that in order to make your most efficient swing and play your best golf, you must first get your thoughts and emotions in an organised and positive working order before you step into the address position and strike your ball. In a very real sense, you must be psychologically and emotionally ready long before you are physically set to hit a correct golf shot or make a sound golf swing. This 'ready mindset' must be addressed before you step on to the first tee and before you play any shot on the course.
The Way Your Brain WorksThe reasoning that you must get your thoughts in a positive and focused order before you act is really quite simple. It is based on your brain's never-ending struggle of entertaining positive thoughts versus negative ones. In today's fast-paced commercial world, where we are constantly exposed to advertising campaigns and information overload, it seems almost second-nature to become sceptical and cynical and to buy into negative messages.
The content of many of these messages distort our sense of 'reality' and we start to programme negative thoughts as being 'realistic'. This is known in neurological literature as the negative bias of the human brain. Your brain is skewed to view information in a way that will hold you back or protect you and make you cautious.
Simply stated, your brain responds to negative information much more readily than it does to positive signals. (If you don't believe me, just look at the front page of any newspaper.) The result is a negative focus or mental perspective. And the trouble with negative thinking is that if you buy into it, it always works!
The concept is known psychologically as 'negative emotional contagion'. The result is: think bad stuff, bad stuff happens. This is why it is so important to get your thoughts flowing in a positive direction. Let's apply this to your golf. If you think you're going to miss a shot or find trouble, you usually become worried and feel a bit vulnerable. In an effort to gain control over your negative thoughts and feelings, you become tight and try to overcontrol the shot. You steer the club in an attempt to gain control over negative imagined events in your mind (that you are trying to avoid) and as a result, you end up with the negative result – i.e. exactly what you were trying not to do.
If you choose to focus on the negative approach or you just act without planning your shot or thinking about the situation correctly, your golfing day is over. The problem then becomes that your lack of focus coupled with a negative attitude carries over into the rest of your game. What started out as a promising round ends up as a bad day on the links.
The good news about this is that there is another way to think and to programme your mind and body for optimal performance. The accompanying sequences of Luke Donald in action tell their own story, while the following passages will describe how to create a purposeful and positive mindset for playing great golf.
Creating a Positive and Directed FocusAn organised and positive mindset gives you the opportunity to hit consistent shots and to repeat that sequence for an entire round. By getting your mind focused on what you want to achieve versus what you want to avoid helps to create a mental scheme or road map for success. Here are three simple suggestions for getting your mind into a positive, directed focus for golfing success.
1. When you stand behind your ball before the shot, give yourself specific directions on what you want to achieve and where you want the ball to go. Think about what the situation gives you and make an appropriate decision based on your assessment of the situation and your available golf skills.
2. Understand that your brain and body do not understand the word imagery of don't. Your body only understands the energy that is given to brain. It becomes imperative that you always give yourself a do this directive. Directing your mind to a specific intention of do will allow your body to respond more effectively by sending positive motor movement signals from the brain. The do this mindset helps to create a smoother and more efficient motor action with your swing.
Make a clear decision about what you want to do and stick with it, even during your swing. Remember, the clearer your picture from behind the ball in your planning, the more likely it will result in a more efficient swing when you are ready to strike the ball.
3. As you go out to play, adopt the single goal that you will have a clear and focused mind on each shot you hit and that you will not hit any shot until you are 100% positively focused and ready. If you are over a shot and you become negative, simply back away from the ball and become refocused. Get yourself recommitted to the specific task of what you want to happen and then swing away to your target with trust.
