Positive Thinking in Golf - Part 1

Your mind doesn't need to be your biggest handicap! Once you work out how to control your thoughts, and overcome sometimes unconscious negative thought patterns, your golf will reach a far higher level. As well as removing negative thoughts, you can also choose to fill your mind with positive expectations, as demonstrated by this Jack Nicklaus quote:-

"I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in focus picture of it in my head. It's like a color movie. First I see the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes and I see the ball going there: its path, trajectory and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there is a sort of fade out and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality."

This quote, from one of the greatest golfers, sums up the mental focus and consistent attitude necessary to play great golf. I would like to outline some of the basic mental golf skills which can be learned by EVERY golfer, so as to ensure that your mind is not your biggest handicap. It has been shown that the link between confidence and performance is a direct relationship - the greater the confidence, the greater the performance. It is all too easy to dwell on past failures. But this creates a negative performance next time. You can learn how to remember successes, to recall and relive them and to feel the confidence and drive from these times and to draw upon the components of success and transfer them to your future performance.

"The prime causes of error are within the mind - doubt, tension and a lack of concentration cause more errors than ignorance of mechanics" MICHAEL MURPHY 1975

Some golfer's problem may be that they perform well in practice, but get too nervous in competition. The difference between anxiety and excitement is very slight and you can be shown ways of channeling any anxiety into positive motivation and energy, so as to lift performance up to a higher level.

"To control the ball - a golfer must first learn to control himself" JOHN STUART MARTIN

Many people are distracted by some aspect of the environment in which they perform. You can be assisted in learning how to focus, really focus, to achieve a tunnel of concentration and mental fixation, so that any unnecessary element takes a back seat and no longer interferes with performance.

"The busier you keep yourself with the particulars of the shot at hand – the less room there is for negative thoughts" JACK NICKLAUS 1979

Some people don't achieve their maximum potential simply because they don't set goals for themselves. They just turn up and "see how it goes". With this type of approach the result is, needless to say, haphazard! It is hugely important in sport to set realistic goals for yourself and stage goals between now and the end goal. But just thinking about that goal is not enough. You can learn how to visualize your goal, to really feel it happening now and to program it into your future reality.

"Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the only thing that insures the outcome of our ventures - both successful and unsuccessful" WILLIAM JONES

Visualization is a hugely important part of successful sport. If someone is truly visualizing themselves in some physical activity, research has shown that the brain impulses to the muscles involved actually take place and some minute stimuli of the muscles occurs during visualization. Hence one is not only communicating mentally but establishing a physical "memory" too (Richardson "Psycho Neuromuscular Theory" 1967), a memory which is drawn upon when you are next on the golf course.

Why not spend a little bit of time in learning to visualize effectively? You can learn how to create more powerfully compelling visualizations with the help of hypnosis downloads. Why do you think the professionals use golf hypnosis? They use golf hypnosis because it works; hypnosis downloads can be used to get you to focus, to stay in the now, and to really visualize your shots. With hypnosis downloads you can learn to access the more creative part of your mind and this will enable you to visualize your shots better.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in golf hypnosis cds and hypnosis mp3 downloads.