Sometimes I take a risk and play with amateurs that I don't know very well. I am courious how my mind will react and also how they will behave during that round. I know for myself, that in my brain there is a tendency to show up in a good light and to protect my professional status. It took quite a time to know my mind and its strategies and today I know it's only for some kind of protection, game survival that mind wants to play.....
We like to talk about golf being a mental game and so often we hear the famous phrase that the whole thing is in the head. Despite of this knowing, ironically- we still like to ditch ourselves inside the thought patterns that do us no good and the game reflects our inner state immediately. For the purpose of recognition and awareness of such inner processes,here is a list of 5 unhelpful thinking styles that ruin our days on the greens. I got an idea for this title from Jeff Foster (www.lifewithoutacentre.com ) when he was talking about depression and how it occurred to him that depression actually always leads to a deep rest. Why can depression be beneficial? Because it is a sign of our exhaustion and fighting with life and it's telling us (our our ego) to finally give up the fight and let go. It seems that when we play well everything flows without a trace of doubt in our performance. Our body, club and a ball do exactly what we want from them. Golfers such moments describe by adjectives such as: light, flowing, instinctive, decisive, without thinking, effortless,....These terms usually don’t include technical language that would refer to swing mechanics. Having such an experience we can say that we play in the “zone” or a state of flow. |