The Do's and Don'ts in Your Golf Mind - Part 2

You can also use this type of visualization to become more creative in your short game, visualizing different shots, both high and low. Remember, everything in life starts with a thought, including every shot you make in golf. You have to think about it, plan it, visualize it and then it has the best chance of doing what you what it to do. If you don't tell the golf ball clearly where you want it to go, it will go wherever it pleases...and probably won't please you!

Here's a challenge for habitual slicers, which covers, as you probably know, 70% of the golfing population. Be honest now and really think about what thoughts run through your mind when you're standing on the tee and there are trees all the way down the right of the fairway. Are you thinking "OK, there's a great spot in the middle of the fairway and I'm going to aim at that particular point"; or do you think "Oh no, trees on the right, I'd better aim further left"? And as you aim further left, do you pick an exact target to aim at, or do you simply think "further left"? And as you aim "further left" do you find that you come across the ball more and slice the ball even further to the right? Because if you did that your golf ball probably did exactly what you told it to do...Even as you were thinking "further left" were you not PICTURING those darned trees down the right?

(If you think about it, what I'm saying is also very logical - if by intentionally setting it out left, you unintentionally hit a slice, then is it possible that by intentionally setting it out right, you might unintentionally hit a draw?)

Once again, you can be visualizing your routine and your shots when you are relaxing at home. What can be simpler than this type of practice? Practice, of the right things, really does make perfect. The beauty of visualization practice is that EVERY shot is perfect and so your brain is recording these perfect shots all of the time whilst you visualize. If you were partaking of actual practice, some shots would be great whilst others might not be so accurate - and your brain is recording every shot. This explains why numerous studies have shown that visualization practice is MORE effective than actual practice.

So if you want to get a HEAD start to your golfing season, get visualizing. And you don't have to spend hours at it either. Research has shown that just spending 1-3 minutes visualizing at a time is optimal for this type of effective practice. To put it in perspective, that's less time than smokers spend on smoking a cigarette! You could be visualizing whilst smoking or even while brushing your teeth.

And if you really want to excel you could go to sleep listening to a golf hypnosis cd to embed such visualizations deep into your subconscious mind; Again, what could be easier? You just get into bed, put the golf hypnosis cd on and fall asleep. Easy!

And that’s what you want; you want to make it happen when you are out there on the course.

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