Your Golf Mind – Are You Running Your Brain Or Is It Running You?

Are you passively reacting to events as they unfold around you, a victim of being run by your brain even though you think you are in control? You may need to do a bit of old fashioned honest soul searching because the chances are very good that you are submissively responding to events. You need to discover how to take control of yourself if you want to play better golf and enjoy yourself to the maximum.

As much as you may not want to hear it you are run by your brain rather than you running it. Now that’s not to say you have no control and say over your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and life existence, because clearly you do have a say in it. But if we are talking percentage in control, you consciously versus your unconscious (which you have no conscious control over*) I’m afraid we all come a dismal second.

Now as your indignation perhaps arises and you are forming arguments in your mind that you are in full control, stop a second and think about that reaction. Or if you like tell me how much you are consciously aware of virtually all your incredibly complex life functions which are going on right now and controlled by your unconscious.

Digestion and distribution of nutrients, oxygen exchange and removal of pollutants, blood replacement, lymphatic system, skin repair, liver and kidney function, blood ph balance, control over the working of tens of thousands of muscle moves each day controlling every tiny move you make. Do I need go on? No, you are not in control of the vast majority of what your body and mind does. Your brain is running you.

The brain’s control of us in those areas is highly desirable but for most people there is also a lack of control in more personal behaviour areas, and these should concern you. Have you ever lost your temper and regretted it? Of course you have. That’s an example of not being in control of an emotional reaction that you should have control over, and it really should concern you that you are being run (you did not consciously control your reaction) by your brain.

Now lets look at this as it applies to a couple of areas in golf and why you should get more control over your own emotional reactions if you wish to play better.

You play a bad shot and immediately get a little embarrassed/annoyed/cross/fuming mad. None of which are helpful to you in playing your next shot. I’m sure you understand that best performance comes from a relaxed, calm mind that is confident and committed to each shot. So it follows that any form of negative emotion from embarrassment to humiliation to annoyance or outright fuming anger is going to be harmful to your following shots. The downward spiral is now set in motion because you are more likely to play bad shots because of your poor emotional state and those bad shots get you even more upset, right?

If you have not experienced this then either you are a Zen Master or from a different planet to us humans. I suppose you could also be very lucky and have no ego which would really help in controlling emotions.

I hope you can now see the connection between going into a mental state that is bad for playing golf and my earlier claim that you have less control over yourself than you think. If you are completely in control of your emotions then you will never get annoyed, cross, angry, embarrassed or downright humiliated on the course ever again, because you know it will make things worse.

The great challenge is not to be in control of our golf game, but to be in control of our emotions and state of mind, for that is the real governor of performance.

While I am not sure that you will ever completely master your own emotional control when faced with any situation, (and I’m not saying you won’t) you can get very, very good at controlling emotions no matter what you are faced with. There are good reasons we react poorly to shots on the course and it pretty much boils down to your ego in the end.

The world of modern sport psychology has now got a number of highly effective tools for emotional control ranging from Hypnosis to Cognitive Behavioural Techniques and in particular NLP. (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Sport psychology has advanced tremendously just in the last ten years and we have learnt more about the human brain function and behaviour in that short time than in all of history.
Take advantage of these techniques and you can expect some really significant, profound changes in your golf game, which by the way, will positively impact on virtually all areas of your life.

Wishing you FIR’s, GIR’s & Blue Skies.

*Although I say you have no conscious control over your unconscious there are some gray areas. You don’t have any conscious control over a great many body functions etc but you can for example speed up or slow down heart rate intentionally. You can also reprogram your unconscious reactions/beliefs etc by using specific techniques. So from that perspective you do have some control over your unconscious although the vast majority of people will not even be aware of this. Ergo they have no conscious control over even these areas as they lack the critical information. Unlike you now..

PS - Remember to go now and get your FREE golf ebook from the Golf Mind Shop website just one easy click away from discovering some great techniques to quickly and easily get results the next time you play.

If this article has been of interest you can find specific programs on controlling emotions and state using the inner game of golf techniques at http://www.golfmindshop.com

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Mark Wright is a Master Coach and Sport Psychologist. He can be contacted via his website where you can get free advice on your golf swing or mental game just for the asking.