Are you stressed out and impatient with the hustle and bustle of the holidays?

Most golfers say they play golf for relaxation from their hectic schedules. When you encounter a situation that frustrates you, do you have a method for controlling your mind and emotions?

Practice meditation for golf focus 

Meditation was taught by the Buddha thousands of years ago to quiet the voices of fear, anxiety, worry and other negative emotions in the mind. He described the inner mental noise as drunken monkeys chattering in your mind. Today we call it the negative self-talk that goes on in everyone’s mind. Golfers try to “block out” these distracting thoughts, but it’s useless to do that because what you resist, persists.

Meditation is considered a type of mind-body alternative medicine. Meditation produces a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the “monkey mind” thoughts that may be distracting you and causing stress.

The Mindfulness of Breathing 

Deep breathing is very useful in your pre-shot routine to put you into the relaxed state of mind-body-spirit necessary for accessing your personal best performances.

By practicing this simple breathing meditation daily for 10-15 minutes you can find inner peace and balance in all aspects of your life.

• Find a place that is quiet where you won’t be distracted.
• Sit in a comfortable position; either the cross-legged posture or a straight back chair.
• Concentrate only on how you breathe.
• Inhale deeply and then exhale as long as possible.
• Imagine how far out from you the air you exhaled goes before you breathe it in again.
• If your mind wanders from this process and is following your thoughts, bring it back to focusing on your breathing.
• Continue following your breath until you are no longer distracted by your thoughts.
• You are now in the present moment where all is still and quiet. 

Meditation Practices 

• Guided meditation. Listen to guided imagery on the Positive Mental Imagery CDs to  be guided on forming the mental images of the golf game you desire. Available at www.pmi4.com/cart
• Mantra meditation. A mantra is a personal ritual of repeating a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts.
• Qi gong. Qi Qong is part of traditional Chinese medicine that combines breathing exercises, physical movement, exercise and meditation for balance.
• Tai chi. Tai Chi is a form of Chinese martial arts. It combines deep breathing with slow, graceful movements. It is meditation in movement and my personal favorite.
• Yoga. Yoga combines physical, mental and spiritual disciplines to attain a state of permanent peace. The series of postures and controlled breathing exercises promote a more flexible body and a calm mind. 

Meditating for a few minutes every day can improve your focus, your health, your enjoyment of your golf game and your quality of life.

In the midst of movement and chaos,
keep stillness inside of you.
– Deepak Chopra

Concentration

• Mental concentration is at its peak when your mind is clear of all distractions.
• “The ability to concentrate is good, but thinking too much about how you are doing what you are doing can be disastrous.” — Harvey Penick
• Be totally ready mentally and physically to play before you hit your shot.
• Concentration is the art of allowing yourself to become engrossed with what you are doing.

Tempo

• Don’t be in a hurry. Make your backswing and forward swing speeds the same.
• Think positively as you approach your next shot. Every shot is a new experience. The next one may be the best shot of your life.
• Never make a change based on one bad shot, or even a few missed shots.
• Stick to the one thing you can control—you.

Emotions

• “You just have to take the attitude that you’ve done all the training that is required, and what is the point of that training if you’re not going to trust it”? — Bob Rotella
• You cannot be relaxed and tense at the same time. The easiest path to a relaxed state of mind is through a relaxed body.
• Know the difference between being self-centered and centered in self.
• Release fears and judgments that keep you bound in faulty thinking.
• Remember the confident feelings of playing “in the zone.”
• “It’s tough to play bad when you’re happy on the inside.” – Jessica Korda, LPGA

Positive Mental Practices

• It is more important to learn to score than it is to learn to swing.
• A miss-hit is a golden opportunity to learn what not to do.
• Experience is your best teacher.
• Always picture in your mind where you want the ball to land safely.
• Change “it’s impossible” to “maybe it’s possible” – Just Do It!
• A consistent pre-shot routine produces consistent shots.
• Expecting to play a round without error is unrealistic.
• The game of golf is mind over muscle.
• Golf is a waiting game. Wait for the opportunities to appear.
• Practice the way you want to play.
• The mental game of golf is not so much what you know, as it is how you use that knowledge at the right times.

Play “In the Zone” with Joan

Entrain Your Heart & Brain for Peak Performances

For more information about how to play “ín the zone” contact Joan at 828-696-2547 or visit the Positive Mental Imagery website at www.positivementalimagery.com 

Learn to prepare your mind through relaxation, imagery and suggestion by listening to “Self-Hypnosis for Playing in the Zone.” CDs are available on the website for moving into the zone state for accessing your peak performances. www.pmi4.com/cart   

            Imagine that you are playing golf on a beautiful sunny day. While looking for your ball you run into a genie. In mystical stories, a genie is a magic spirit who serves the person who calls it forward. Genies are very much like your subconscious mind because they give you exactly what you ask for. 

            This genie is like all the other genies. He will give you three wishes for your golf game. Whatever you ask for, he will give to you. What three wishes do you desire for your golf game?

            Your genie has granted your three wishes.

            How long do you think it will take you to sabotage those three wishes? 

Which part of your mind is playing the game of golf when you are in the zone?

Your subconscious mind. If you let go of control of thinking in your conscious mind and allow your subconscious mind to swing the club you will access your peak performances without the effort.  Everyone knows how to do this because it is a form of daydreaming.

Golfers think they have to control all the aspects of the game. Their worries, judgments, criticism, and thoughts about themselves keep them focused in their ego centered conscious mind instead of allowing the subconscious mind to “Just Do It.”

How do I stay in this mental state where golf is so easy?

A 30-handicap woman played the front nine in one over par. At the turn she saw her husband and excitedly told him all about her extraordinary game. On the back nine she tried to duplicate her miraculous feat and shot 54. By thinking and analyzing, she took herself right out of the easy, trusting mode of playing.

“Staying in the present is the key to any golfer’s game. Once you start thinking about a shot you just messed up or what you have to do on the next nine to catch somebody, you’re lost.”  — Paul Azinger

Staying in this mental state where you are calm, have a heightened sense of intuition, mental clarity, intensified concentration, and are totally focused on shot-making, requires that you stay in the present. Here are some mental keys to practice for staying in the zone for an entire round or successive rounds.

1. Have a positive attitude at all times
2. Trust your intuition & decisions
3. See some good in every shot
4. Stay in your desired arousal state
5. Take deep breaths to relax and slow down your conscious mind
6. Stay totally focused on the shot at hand
7. Use your imagination to create the shot in your mind
8. Be totally focused on your pre-shot routine

“When I’m in a zone, I don’t think about the shot or the wind or the distance or the gallery or anything. I just pull a club and swing.”  — Mark Calcavecchia

Play “In the Zone” with Joan

Entrain Your Heart & Brain for Peak Performances

For more information about how to play “ín the zone” contact Joan at 828-696-2547 or visit the Positive Mental Imagery website at www.positivementalimagery.com 

Learn to prepare your mind through relaxation, imagery and suggestion by listening to “Self-Hypnosis for Playing in the Zone.” CDs are available on the website for moving into the zone state for accessing your peak performances. www.pmi4.com/cart   

Do you really love to play golf? Does playing golf bring you joy every time you play? Our emotional states dictate how we feel. The lowest energy level of emotions that upset us on the golf course are anger, fear, frustration, etc. At the highest energy level that makes us feel good are love, joy, care, compassion, etc.

Most golfers believe that when they play well they will be happy. And when they aren’t playing well they experience anger and frustration. To be successful requires a paradigm shift in the thoughts that cause your emotions. It is important to remain in a state of loving the experience of playing golf no matter what the results are. Albert Schweitzer explained it simply as:

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer

How do you change your stressful state?

We become stressed when our performance doesn’t meet our expectations and we don’t manage our emotional reaction.

To change your emotional state, reframe the situation that upsets you. There is always another way of looking at a situation and reacting to it.

You hit a perfect shot over a sand bunker to a pin in the front of a green and it falls just short and imbeds under the lip of the bunker. Amid the frustration and disappointment, remember why you love golf. It’s a game where one-half inch can be the difference between perfection and disaster. Chasing perfection and avoiding disaster is the challenge that makes the game so captivating.

If you only love to play golf when the half-inch works in your favor, you will be frustrated and angry often on the golf course.

To change your state of mind and body when things don’t go your way, smile at adversity and be surprised rather than angry that it didn’t happen the way you expected. The more you repeat changing your state in this way the easier it will become to access and stay “in the zone.”

Play “In the Zone” With Joan

Entrain Your Heart & Mind for Peak Performances

If this article is helpful to you, and you want to learn more about developing a strong mental game, call Joan for a complimentary 15-minute consultation. She can be reached by phone at 828-696-2547, or by email at pmi4@bellsouth.net 

Self-empowering mental golf CDs are available on the Positive Mental Imagery website.

For the past 21 years with my 4 C’s Program, I have been helping golfers overcome their mental stumbling blocks that keep them from playing at their personal best. The four areas that golfers want to improve the most are; Control, Concentration, Consistency and Confidence. All four of these areas involve your thoughts and emotional reactions. Without positive thoughts and emotions you will create stressful situations that will sabotage your round.

Using your mind correctly is the key to great golf. Most golfers spend their time trying to perfect the physical swing and view the mental game as a last resort. It is only when you accept that you know how to swing the club that you can trust yourself to play well. Of course there will be miss hits. No round of golf was ever perfectly executed. The challenge of the game is to do the best you are able and to accept the results.

The golf swing is a very complicated maneuver using many different muscle groups, at times moving in opposing directions. World-class golfers know that this complex movement cannot be accomplished successfully by conscious thought about how to swing the golf clubs.

Your subconscious mind controls the movements of your physical body. Peak performance is obtained when golfers trust their subconscious mind to swing the golf club automatically without trying to make something happen.

If there is a secret to golf, it is using your two minds in the proper sequence. To determine the yardage, strength of the wind, landing area, and which club to use are functions of the problem solving, analytically conscious mind. Swinging the club easily and effortlessly for the best timing and tempo is the result of relaxing that thinking mind, and allowing the subconscious mind to access the programming you have put into it.

To learn how to move from your thinking conscious mind into your allowing subconscious mind to access your peak performances for lower scores and more fun, contact Joan at 828.696.2547.

Mental golf CDs for accessing positive imagery to produce peak performances are available at www.pmi4.com/cart

While playing a slam bid in bridge I made a simple mistake that cost my partner and me the game. After the hand was over it the mistake I had made was obvious. My partner also knew it and told me to focus, focus, focus. How many times on the golf course after a missed shot have you realized what you had done to cause it? Taking the time to prepare mentally is what produces the results you want.

Give every shot your full intention and attention

It is my belief that all missed golf shots are due to mental errors. It is important to prepare your mind 100% for the result you want. The key to playing consistently is to prepare your mind thoroughly the same way every time so your results are consistent. Practice your pre-shot routine on the range until it becomes a habit. This will turn your preparation over to your subconscious mind to close out any extraneous thoughts. Spend more time practicing what you want to focus on than what you want to avoid.

Ways to focus on your mental routine    

• Do not rush your preparation. The USGA Rules of Golf allows you 40 seconds to prepare to hit your shot. This is plenty of time to do the following.
• Use good course management. Take the time to think positively about your strategy. Take into account the lie of your ball in the grass. Is it on a slope? Is it under a tree? What is your safest target? Will the wind affect your distance and direction?
• Be decisive about your club selection. Trust the club in your hands to produce a good solid golf shot. Believe in your club selection and target.
• Clear your mind of all negative emotions.  Let go of all fears by thinking about the shot you want to hit. Focus on your target and how to get there.
• Clear your mind of all distractions. If you are distracted by movement, noises outside your head or thoughts inside your head, back off and begin your pre-shot routine again.
• Clear your mind of all previous shots. Thinking about other shots draws your attention away from the shot you are about to hit.
• Take a practice swing to feel your swing tempo. Limit your thinking to one thought about how to access your rhythm.
• Take deep abdominal breaths to slow down your thinking mind. Breathing deeply will put your mind and body in a relaxed state for easier focus.
• Be precise in your alignment. Set up correctly. Pick an intermediate spot to align yourself correctly to your target.
• Be ready to enjoy hitting the shot. Smile inside to create a sense of ease, confidence and joy for the shot you are about to hit.

Play “In the Zone” With Joan

If this article is helpful to you, and you want to learn more about developing a strong mental game, call Joan for a complimentary 15-minute consultation.  She can be reached by phone at 828-696-2547, or by email at  pmi4@bellsouth.net

Self-empowering mental golf CDs are available on the Positive Mental Imagery website