The month of December signals the end of the year and forecasts the beginning of a new year. As this year winds down, it is an opportunity to look back and reflect on the successes you have had, the missed opportunities, and the life-long memories you created on the golf course.
It’s a good time to ask yourself if your mental golf toolbox has all the tools it needs to play at your peak performance level next season. It is a good time to ask yourself some questions that will empower you to ensure that the next year is even more fun and rewarding than the past year.
Golf is an inner game. Get to know yourself better to improve your performances. Develop a mindset to become a better player by differentiating your mental game from your peers.
Here are some mental, emotional and spiritual attitude tools to bring you into balance for a more rewarding life and more successful golf games.
• Be aware. Thoughts, words and deeds are the tools of creation. Every act you perform is an act of self-definition. It is important that you use your full awareness to speak and act consciously from your own experience instead of just repeating what you have heard from others.
• Focus on what you desire, and not on what you don’t want. Staying in the present state of flow is all about focus. Choose the results you want. Have complete trust that it will happen. The degree of your trust will be the degree that the results will happen.
• Put yourself at the head of your gift list. Be kind to yourself. Think, talk, PLAY golf, and live your life the way you would like it to be. Play for your own enjoyment, not to please others.
• Turn frustration into a smile. Smile through adversity. When you are frustrated in traffic, at the shopping mall, or on the golf course, acknowledge the emotion as an opportunity to change. Smile inwardly to change your physiology and send lightness into your heart and the world instead of darkness.
• Turn worry into action. No one has ever accomplished anything by worrying about it. When you begin to fret about something in your golf game, let go of your attachment to the outcome. Formulate a plan and execute it. Affirm what it is you want to manifest NOW. For example, instead of worrying about HOW to hit the ball on the first tee, formulate a plan to relax, and then focus on your tempo and target.
• Be grateful. By being grateful for the things you do have in your life, you create a positive attitude and send positive energy into your mind and body, and out into the world.
• Forgive yourself for your mistakes. Understand that making mistakes is the best and fastest way to learn and grow. Forgive (give for) yourself for being human and give yourself the gift of letting go of blame and guilt. Return to a peaceful and harmonious state of mind.
• Make your self-talk positive. Monitor your thoughts. Change the words “if only” to “next time.” Stay in the present by changing fear thoughts from the past, and anxious thoughts of the future, to thoughts of what you desire to happen in your life right now.
• Make happiness a habit. Look for the “good” in all situations. Have faith in the perfection of your life experiences. Believe that you do not always know what is best for you. Acknowledge that on another level you are creating every situation for your learning experience.
• Use your sense of humor. Children laugh 500 times a day and adults only around 50 times. When you laugh your body produces endorphins to make you feel good. Humor can take the tenseness out of a situation. Perhaps that is why there are so many jokes about the game of golf. Humor builds self-esteem if you can laugh at your humanness.
• Maintain your composure. Golf will always challenge your self-control. Accept your circumstances and LET GO of reacting, defending, explaining, becoming fearful or anxious. When you let go of control, you have more control. Breathe deeply to center yourself back into emotional balance.
• Accept your circumstances. Acceptance is surrendering to what is; your feelings, your problems, your relationships, your golf game. Before you can change what is, recognize that this is the way it is right now. Resist the struggle. Accepting the situation brings a peace to your soul. It releases the pressure and brings relief. When you relax, you change your heartbeat, physiology and energy pattern. Then you are better able to see what to do next.
• Do random acts of kindness. Fill in a divot, fix a ball mark, return a shopping cart, or pick up trash. You will not only feel better, you will be helping the environment and creating good will.
When you develop a mindset for these types of self-awareness, looking both at the past year and anticipating the new one, it can provide the stimulus for action that is focused, committed and effective in helping you fully enjoy the wonderful adventure of your golf game and your life.
Let the brightness of the holiday season shine in your life,
bringing you peace, harmony and love for yourself and all that you do.
Additional tools to put into your mental golf toolbox:
Improve your golf game over the winter by listening to PMI self-hypnosis CDs in the privacy of your own home, available at www.pmi4.com/cart
“THE HEART OF GOLF, Access Your Supreme Intelligence for Peak Performances” 
explores and explains negative emotions such as fear and performance anxiety, the four Cs of mind blockage, the four progressive stages of learning the supreme intelligence of the heart, and the way to access the zone in competition. It is a player’s guide for developing your true inner self by returning to the joy and love of self instead of seeking praise and rewards from the outside world.
“THE HEART OF GOLF” guidebook for transforming your life and golf game is available now on Amazon and Kindle at https://amzn.to/2MQzjfq All royalties will be donated to Junior Golf!
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