Your core beliefs can destroy your golf game

In rehearsal for last Monday night’s Dancing with the Stars, 47-year-old Olympian ice skater Nancy Kerrigan, tearfully showed her personal core belief of inadequacy when her dancing partner Artem Chigvintsev told her she looked good.

In her skating career Kerrigan was constantly criticized to do better. “Having been judged my whole life, it is hard for me to believe the good,” she said. On DWTS Artem praised her and told her she was beautiful. She left the rehearsal in tears because it was painful… she didn’t believe him.

“I’m always hard on myself. I’ve never had a teacher tell me I was good before. So to hear compliments is really hard,” Kerrigan explained. “He’s (Artem) trying to give me a compliment and I don’t like it. I can’t take it,” she said.

Kerrigan hopes to “become more confident” by having fun doing DWTS.

Your beliefs can limit or expand you 

Golfers who ask me for help when their game has gone south need to realize that they are still holding on to an unconscious self-limiting core belief. If you have fear-based thoughts and emotions like anxiety, anger, self-doubt, insecurity, it means that you still have blockages and limitations in your beliefs.

Discovering your self-limiting core beliefs is like peeling an onion. The outer layer of the onion is the smooth protective skin. As you peel away each layer, there is another  layer underneath. Self-discovery is finding the limiting thoughts and emotions in each layer that keep you from discovering your true inner self of wholeness. For example, anger is not a solitary event as it usually covers up the more dominant emotion of fear.

When you have an intense emotional reaction to an event like Kerrigan did, pay attention to the feeling of discomfort as it is a trigger being activated by your core belief. Peel back the layers of your feelings, tracing back to the source to truly understand yourself.

The golf course will always present new challenges and perceived pressures that bring up fearful emotions. You can practice and practice, but if you don’t change your core belief, you won’t reach your potential. Stress/pressure will bring it out. Release old core beliefs of vulnerability and self-limitation for a greater understanding of yourself. When you truly love yourself and love to play golf regardless of the outcome, you are accessing your true self.

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“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.