Accessing A Positive State Of Mind - The Golf Mind Set Series - Issue 4

A great performance in any sport involves a great deal of mind-body interaction. Golf possibly more than others. As a golfer, you know how your mood can affect your game. You are probably familiar with how challenging it can be to get yourself into the right frame of mind.

This is the forth blog in the Golf Mindset Series. To maximize your golf performance, you can also read Post 1, Post 2 and Post 3.

Getting yourself in to the right frame of mind, or state, is crucial to golfing success. If you believe you will perform badly, then you will. You know how sometimes you feel very confident, as though you could take on anyone and win. Other times you are dreading even starting the round. So what is it that causes these differences? And how can you always be in the good state?

A range of things can cause us to be in a good or bad frame of mind. Often it is external triggers, also called anchors. Common anchors related to golf are:

• What the weather is like
• Whether you got caught in traffic on the way to the course
• Who you're playing with
• What your work environment was like earlier in the day

All sorts of things affect our mind set and can change our state, putting us into a positive or negative state of mind. 

Anchors exist every day in our day to day lives, not just related to golf. For example, if you hear a song of the radio which reminds you of a good night out, and makes you laugh, the song is the anchor and the state is fun and laughter. Or, if you smell a perfume which reminds you of someone you used to know, and makes you feel nostalgic, the perfume is the anchor and the state is nostalgia. 

The good news is that we can use the phenomenon of anchoring to our advantage. You can create a trigger to instantly get you back into a good positive state of mind for playing golf. 

You do this as follows. Close your eyes and remember your best game. Really engage your imagination. Remember the best bits in clear detail. Use all of your senses to recall what you could see around you, how light it was, what you could hear and smell, how the club felt in your hand and the position of your body. When you are fully back in the memory create a trigger word and say it aloud to yourself. A trigger word could be something like, 'win,' 'play,' 'shot' or anything else which you feel works well for the situation. Repeat this process several times and you will firmly establish a link between the trigger word and the positive state. You can then use this trigger word whenever you want to feel confident about winning. 

Anchoring is a wonderful skill to learn and you can use this skill in many areas of your life.

Have you ever used anchoring? Do you have any other hints for improving your golf game. If so please do add them in the comments below.

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How To Use Your Mind To Overcome The Yips. The Golf Mind Set Series – Issue 1

Admittedly golf is never a life or death situation. However, if golf is your way of relaxing after a busy week at work, or if golf is your opportunity to socialize or network, then you want it to be as enjoyable as possible don’t you?

If you are a keen golfer, then you will already be aware of how much mind-body interaction there is in the game.

• Have intrusive thoughts ever messed up a shot for you?
• Do you overthink your swing?
• If you make one mistake, does that affect the rest of your game?
• Are you a better player when there is less pressure?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then you can use the simple techniques discussed in this series of blogs, to improve your game.

Imagine how good that will be. You winning the game, sauntering to the club house with an air of importance usually only seen in young pop stars, casually shoehorning your score into every conversation, walking in slow motion as if you are in a TV advert for golf clubs. I know nobody likes a smug winner…..but who cares? Not you, you’re the winner!

OK, so maybe the above is a little over the top. But it certainly feels better to win your game than to lose right?

So what are the secrets? How do you use your mind to help you rather than hinder you on the golf course?

Let’s talk about the yips first. I’ve treated many experienced golfers who inexplicably start twitching or shaking when playing. Often this can start suddenly and is very frustrating. An almost universal trend seen in golfers suffering with the yips, is that it only happens when they are under pressure. It only happens when an important game is being played, not if they are practicing on their own.

What does this tell you?

Well, it tells you there is no physical issue. This issue is purely in the mind. Therefore, it is relatively easy to resolve. The problem happens when you are under pressure, about to take that big shot in an important game. That game when you definitely don’t want to look stupid in front of everyone. All this pressure activates your fight or flight response. Your fight or flight response (also called the sympathetic nervous response) is triggered when your mind perceives you are in danger. Your body then gets ready to run or fight. Clearly this is not the correct response when you want your fine motor skills to be at their best and to be cool and calm taking a shot.

So how can we fix this?

There is a wonderfully simply technique you can use. This technique (called Systematic Desensitization, to give it its fancy name) makes a new association in your mind, between taking the shot and feeling calm.

You can’t be very calm and very anxious at the same time. If you make a new, strong association in your mind between taking an important shot in an important game, and feeling calm, then you are removing the anxiety.

Here’s how to do this:

1) Get yourself into a lovely relaxed state, by downloading and listening to my free Enter Hypnosis MP3 here. 

2) When you are really relaxed, imagine you are playing an important game. Really imagine it as vividly as possible, as if you're actually there. Notice what you see, hear and feel.

3) All the time concentrate on relaxation and hold on to that level of relaxation.

4) Imagine the whole scenario all the way through to the end and see yourself hitting the perfect shot, over and over again.

5) Repeat as often as possible.

This technique works by pairing the feeling of calm relaxation with the scenario in your mind. It's impossible to feel relaxed and anxious at the same time so the association of relaxation replaces that of anxiety or pressure.

This is the first in a series of blogs about golf and mind set. Please leave comments and check out the other blog entries in this series.

For more about the power of visualization in sports performance check out the podcast with professional power lifter and gold medal winning Laura Shea here.
http://cshypnotherapypodcast.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/feb-2016-laura-shea-gold-medal-winning.html

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Hypnotherapy and sports

As the Summer draws to a close, here in the UK, I’ve been reflecting upon the events of Summer 2013. One stand out highlight, for all of Britain, has to be Andy Murray winning Wimbledon. It was a nail biting game and, following his emotional defeat last year, everyone was rooting for him. His win helped to up lift the mood of the whole country.

It’s wonderful to witness this success, but have you ever given much thought to the physical and mental training that precedes such a success?

I know I had not, until I recently started to work with some professional tennis players in my hypnotherapy clinic. Working with professional sports people has been an eye opening experience for me. In addition to the physical endurance required for training, the determination to adhere to strict diet plans and the sacrifices which need to be made in their social lives, professional sports people also have huge mental challenges to overcome.

So, how does hypnosis help with sport? To be the best at what they do, people have to truly believe they can be. They need to be able to visualise winning. To do this they must handle any defeats in a certain way. It’s tough to do this.

In addition to this, the travelling involved in being a professional sports person can create a lot of anxiety. Meeting lots of new people, travelling on planes, spending long periods of time away from home, especially when you’re quite young can all create anxiety. Sports people also face a lot of socially difficult situations. Unless you play a team sport, being a professional can be quite lonely. The tennis players I have worked with describe how it is difficult to approach the other competitors and ask them to warm up with you at a tournament. Many of us find it difficult to approach strangers and start conversations but that difficulty is multiplied when those strangers are also your competitors. I teach techniques to my clients which alleviate this anxiety and allow them to maximise their sporting potential.

I also help my clients to cope with the immense pressure they are under. Most of us have a long extended career in which to achieve our goals. For many sports people, achieving their goal depends on their performance on a single day. That’s an enormous amount of pressure. I teach my clients various calming techniques to enable them to handle the pressure.

One of the biggest fears of the general population is public speaking. Are you one of the people who would do almost anything to avoid giving a speech? A typical audience for a speech would be about 40 people. Compare that to the thousands or even millions of people watching a professional athlete. That is some serious stage fright to overcome!

Hypnotherapy is wonderful for helping with all of these challenges, faced by sports people. Hypnotherapy is very relaxing and you can use hypnotherapy to overcome anxiety and stress, help you to achieve your goals and also to manage pain. For these reasons, hypnotherapy is being increasingly used within the world of professional sport.

Of course we are always impressed with the achievements of professional sports stars. Upon reflection of the additional obstacles they must overcome, I find myself increasingly in awe of them.

If you’d like to find out more about sports and hypnosis then get in touch here.

If you would like more information about hypnotherapy, well-being and personal development, please subscribe to my newsletter in the top right.