Hypnotize Your Way to Success on the Golf Course:
Hypnotize Your Way to Success on the Golf Course
Use Mental Rehearsal to Achieve Success
Joan A. King, C.Ht., P.NLP
- Who are you today?
- What is keeping you from achieving your greatest success?
- What is your biggest fear?
For most Americans it is a fear of public speaking. For Annika Sorestam, a leading money on the LPGA Tour, it was an all consuming fear. When she was a teen-ager she was so afraid of speaking to the media, she would purposefully miss shots on the last holes so she wouldn't be interviewed as the winner.
For golfers, a common fear is the "first tee jitters", a fear of missing the first shot in the game. Do you hypnotize yourself into the fear by imagining what it would be like to fail? Public speaking and hitting the golf ball on the first tee in front of people are examples of performance anxiety. The feeling of anxiety is a fear of the future, of what might happen. Anxious feelings lead to nervousness and an inability to concentrate and focus. With anxious thoughts, it is impossible to have the relaxed muscles that are necessary to swing a golf club successfully.
What you think is what you become.
All permanent change occurs at the mental level before it happens in the physical. The first step for change is to stop talking about and feeding the fear with its resulting emotions. Go into your own world of imagination by anticipating and visualizing what you want to happen. Make your golf game hypnotic. See, hear, and feel through your senses the game you want.
In sports it is called mental rehearsal or self-hypnosis. When Roger Bannister was a medical student at Cambridge, there were several scientific papers written proving that it was physically impossible to run a sub-four minute mile. Roger believed it could be done and practiced doing just that by "seeing" himself running around the track breaking the record. After practicing in his mind hundreds of times, he was able to easily accomplish his feat. Since that time 60 people have broken the four-minute mile.
Is your belief in what you can accomplish as strong as Roger's, or do you limit yourself with fears and excuses? Human beings have unlimited potential. To accomplish your dreams, let go of the illusion of fear and replace it positive, empowering visions of your greatness. Steps to accomplish this are:
- Learn to relax physically and mentally by deep breathing, practicing Tai Chi, Yoga, meditation, etc. Through deep breathing you can slow down the electrical energy in your brain which is generating conscious interfering thoughts of judgment, analysis, criticism, rationalization and turn your thoughts into mental clarity, focus, concentration and ease of visualization.
- Eliminate negative self-talk. Your thoughts create your reality. Your thoughts direct your physical body to produce the golf shots consistent with your thoughts. Therefore, only think about the good shots that you want to hit.
- Produce an imaginary movie of yourself performing at your ultimate peak performance. See this movie over and over in your mind's eye. Use your imagination to "see" or imagine yourself in this movie of bright vivid color, stereophonic sound and swinging the golf club with a smooth, easy, effortless and powerful swing. Imagine yourself confident, in control, and playing like a champion.
- See/imagine yourself accomplishing your goals. Feel the feelings of success. See yourself accepting the accolades of people around you. Enjoy the feelings of success.
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