Archived Newsletters - PERSONAL MAKEOVER FOR 2010 :
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Newsletter January 2010
2009 was a challenging year for just about everybody on our planet. As golfers we are fortunate to be able to participate in a sport that moves us away from the fear, drama, and chaos and focuses us on something we enjoy doing.
Develop your blueprint for success by setting your goals now for the new year. Instruction can be found on the PMI Archived Newsletter, January 2000 at www.pmi4.com.
This is the second decade of the new 2000 millennium. Let's start 2010 with a renewed focus and clean slate. Did you accomplish what you desired in the last ten years? If so, what kept you from creating your dreams? Perhaps you need to look at yourself in a different way.
We are composed of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. To play golf at your peak potential, these parts must be in entrainment or sync. When you change your spiritual body it changes your physical, emotional and mental bodies. When you change your physical body it changes your emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies. In fact, you cannot change one without changing the others, too.
Consider the following for improving your life and your golf game:
1. Choose clear and positive thoughts for your mental body. Negative thoughts produce self-fulfilling prophesies that result in giving you permission to fail. When your negative self-talk is habitual you destroy your self-confidence. Who knows your weaknesses better than you? When you miss a shot, do you berate yourself with sarcastic comments like, “Nice shot, you dummy!” Every time you repeat it, you create a negative anchor of harmful memories that poison your brain.
How did you learn to be so critical and treat yourself so badly in ways that you would not accept from other people? As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Anchored into your subconscious mind are messages that you heard repeatedly as a child.
- By the time you were 5 years old, you were told negatives or “NO” 30,000 times.
- By the time you were 13 years old, you were told negatives or “NO” 100,000 times.
- Throughout your entire lifetime, and especially during your early childhood years, you were told over and over again what you could not do, many more times than what you could do.
- You heard the word bad more often than good.
- You were criticized more often than you were praised.
- You were told you were wrong more often than you were told you were right.
- You were called stupid more often than you were called intelligent.
- You were called lazy more often than you were called energetic.
- You heard the word don’t more often than the word do.
- You heard the word no more often than the word yes.
- and so on……….
This damaging negative programming inhibits or prevents the development of your natural neuro-muscular potential when you want to perform an athletic event.
You are probably aware of the ups and downs of Colin Montgomerie’s career. “Monty” is generally considered to be one of the best golfers never to have won a major championship. His attitude of being miserable on the golf course and throwing temper tantrums when he is not playing well has alienated him from the golf fans. He is noted for his lack of focus, and quite often becomes distracted by seemingly very minor incidents, often blaming those around him for his poor play. How did he get that way?
After “Monty” shot 76 during the 1997 British Open at Royal Troon where his father Jim Montgomerie was the club secretary, his father told him, “You’ve let your family down, you’ve let your town down… in fact, you’ve let your country down.” Messages like this convince your brain that the body is under attack and it produces chemicals like adrenalin that are part of the conditioned flight/fight response.
Time and effort change many things. In January 2009, it was announced that Montgomerie will captain the European team of the 2010 Ryder Cup to be played at Celtic Manor where he designed one of the courses, The Montgomerie.
2. Choose clear and positive thoughts for your physical body. In your childhood you were warned hundreds and thousands of times by your parents and other authority figures of the dangers inherent in every physical activity including running, jumping, climbing, sliding, balancing, throwing, catching, pushing, pulling, rolling, lifting, hanging, swinging, kicking, twisting, turning, etc. For example, the nature and associated risks of Dodgeball have resulted in controversies, lawsuits, and calls to eliminate the game from school physical education programs.
Do you remember being told to be careful that you will hurt yourself, break an arm, break a leg, fall, trip, bang your head, bruise yourself, scrape your knee, etc.? This kind of negative programming produces the very mind set that invites the injuries “they” were trying to avoid.
We all have been conditioned to believe certain things by hearing the same negative messages over and over. Unfortunately these negative messages have taught us to limit ourselves just like the elephants that are chained to a peg from birth so they won’t run away. When they are grown the chain is taken off and they never stray. We need to change our limiting beliefs that have us in chains.
If someone repeatedly told you as a child that you had a good golf swing, that you are athletic and well coordinated and that you will be a great golfer you would believe it and dream of being successful. It worked for Jack Nicklaus, Phil Michelson and Tiger Woods among others.
The best way to learn how to do something is to be positive and to have FUN with the process of learning. So ANY project in which you are happily creating because you absolutely love what you’re doing will be successful for you. Conversely, any project which is done purely for any other ego desire will become a struggle and will not last.
Phil Mickelson’s father built a 3-hole golf course in their backyard where Phil played as a child. How did he develop such a fantastic short game? When he got bored with hitting the same shots, he had fun inventing and perfecting new ones.
There are many things our physical body can live without, and breathing is not one of them. When we are stressed or frustrated, we become 'shallow breathers', taking in as little life giving oxygen as possible. For today, breathe in deeply; take in as much life giving oxygen as possible with each breath. Let each breath fill your lungs with peace and calm, and extend that feeling into every aspect of your being.
3. Choose clear and positive images for your emotional body. Seek the mountain top of expanded vision.
Right now, imagine you are standing in a circle which represents the old year that has just finished. Stand within the circle of 2009…. feel it, remember it, and experience it. It had its joys and miracles on the golf course. It also had its challenges and you may have felt fear as you faced them. Let the fear fall from you now, like a blanket you allow to fall from your shoulders and let it drop to the floor.
And for those golf shots and rounds of golf that did not work out as you hoped and planned, let the regret drop to your feet as well, like a tattered old coat that you no longer need. There may come a time when you see how some things fit into a larger pattern. There may come a time when you look back with a new wisdom that you have gained. You may see all you learned by having the experiences of this year, ways in which you grew, ways in which you reached into your heart of courage and showed just what you are made of.
And now, see in front of you a circle that is the coming year of 2010. Step into it and see yourself on the golf course feeling the enjoyment of performing as you truly desire, feeling in control, confident and glowing with the joy of a person who has easily accessed his/her inner champion. Open your heart to the experience, knowing that everything is exactly as it is meant to be, in this moment, right here, right now.
You are the creator of your future. You are worthy of all the things you want to create in your life. Be willing to receive the infinite abundance. Develop a healthy self-respect, healthy emotional self-sufficiency, and trust in your inner champion golfer.
4. Choose clear and positive images for your spiritual body. If you were only able to play golf for one last day, what would be truly important to you? Contemplate the following questions to help you get in touch with your natural connection with spirit and access your own answers.
What would you want to see?
What sound would you want to hear?
What sweetness would you like to taste?
What aroma would you like to smell?
What sensation would you like to feel?
Who would you forgive?
Who would you thank?
Who would you play your round with?
What would become important?
What would not matter any more?
What would you want to remember forever?
Are you open to change and the possibilities it brings to you? Are you ready to release limiting thoughts, regrets, or angers that hold you hostage? Greet each new day as a new beginning, a chance to express your creative power. Live and play golf to your full potential and then stretch that ability a little more every day. You were born to do great things. Remember that every day and act accordingly.
This off-season time period is your opportunity to look forward and create with a new vision the golfer you want to become. As you allow your imagination to play, it frees you from the limits you place on yourself. It opens you to the realm of potential and possibilities. Take time each day to play in this way. See yourself as unlimited, accomplishing all the dreams you dare to dream.-
It’s what you do next that counts. –-- Accenture ad in The Wall Street Journal
Entrain Your Heart & Brain for Peak Performances!
© Copyright PMI 2010. All Rights Reserved.
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Contact Joan at pmi4@bellsouth.net or 828-696-2541 for a free consultation to learn about mental golf coaching in person, or world-wide by phone. Learn what is missing in your game so you can achieve the success you desire.
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If this monthly mental instruction newsletter has been helpful to you, please share it with your friends so they can have more fun playing the game of golf while lowering their scores. Also, please share with us how this information has helped improve your game. If you have a question, or need help with your mental game, email Joan at pmi4@bellsouth.net.
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