Golf Hypnotherapy and how to train your mind for Better Golf
“The mind is a powerful force. It can enslave us or empower us. It can plunge us into the depths of misery or take us to the heights of ecstasy. Learn to use the power wisely.”
How to win the Mind game on the Golf Course
Golf as any pro will know is a mind game! To be a winner you have to remain focused in times of pressure, often under the glare of competitors and spectators! Your mind and body must work together to ensure that your swing is smooth and effortless whilst your mind remains crystal clear! You must have the ability to carefully plan your shot and to see it through and to quickly move on and to maintain focus if a shot just doesn’t come together!
Yet for many golfers, this simply doesn’t happen!
The subconscious mind is vital to achieve success in golf, and hypnotherapy influences this part of the mind, making it a superb strategy for keen players.
The game of golf is a precise game with a lot riding on very small actions and adjustments. Psychological agility is important because there is so much concentration involved.
What if there is a way to train your mind to think about it effectively?
It is interesting to note some recent information from Research Scientist, John Annett of the University of Warwick about how your brain actually codes and stores your golf swing. For many golfers the notion that the brain makes a complete mental blueprint of your entire swing motion, down to the finest of details, is an enticing and appealing one. The thought being that if you hit enough balls in practice you will create ‘muscle memory’ that once established will never go away.
This is what most people seem to be striving for who grind out balls one after another, hour after hour on the range. The thought being that if enough balls are hit in practice, then the swing will become so grooved that it will never ever let you down. Many golfers keep going with this quest all of their lives, yet their own experience should tell them that they are searching for something that just isn’t possible. How many times have you hit the ball well for a couple of days and you then begin to think that you ‘have it’, only to ‘lose it’ very quickly within a couple of days. On the other hand you can be playing very poorly, and then you focus on a certain aspect of our swing and suddenly the ball finds the middle of the club again.
The research from Warwick explains to us that our elusive quest for totally repeating and creating lasting muscle memory is an illusion. The brain just doesn’t work that way.
“Although absolute values of felt force, distance and direction can be retained with moderate accuracy for short periods it is unlikely that we rely on simple sensory motor memory of discrete movements to remember how to perform skilled motor tasks like the golf swing. “
In golfing terms your brain will code your golf swing in such a way that you will never stand on the first tee and swing the club like you would a baseball bat, but it will never code all of the swing exactly. This is science confirming what we already know, that we must always keep working on our swing. A coach can provide assistance and feed back to us on what we are doing, however, we will NEVER have a totally repeating unbreakable motion.
When this concept is accepted, the whole of the mental game takes on a new dimension. We accept that we will make certain mistakes, that we will have bad holes, that we will have a bad day, but it does not mean our swing has gone. This mindset allows us to deal with whatever the course and the day can throw at us. Golf never has been, and never will be, an art of perfection
“It’s all in the mind … Golf is 90% mental… I lost my head when it really mattered… I can never play well under pressure.”
Hypnosis for golf is so effective because it stops the mental chatter that creates tension that ultimately ruins your swing.
So many people let excess emotion such as anxiety or anger at themselves sabotage the state of flow needed to produce the perfect golf swing.
Playing golf well is all about focus – after using this download a few times you will be able to go from chatting with your friends to calm, laser-like focus in a matter of moments.
The problem is that if you focus on the problem, then that is often what you end up with.
Basically it all comes down to the direction in which you send your brain, and if you direct your brain to the problem, then it will stay with the problem. If, however, your focus is on the solution, you tend to find them. When you start to focus towards solution, at the very least, you set in motion the mechanics to provide you with the opportunity to change. Unfortunately many of our existing models tend to keep us stuck in the problem.
- With hypnosis we are able to train the mind to remain calm in high pressured situations, to create the expectation of playing well, to hone technique, alter negative self-talk and to challenge and alter negative beliefs that may be keeping you stuck in a cycle of poor performance so that you are able to thrive in high pressured competition situations and to play to the best of your abilities. And as a cognitive behavioural hypnotherapist I can teach you to challenge problem thinking and create the expectation of playing well! I can help you to feel calm when being judged by others and to thrive under pressure and to put the enjoyment back into your game!
