Put on a New Attitude for the New Year

Did you know that your attitude is something you put on a wear just as you put on and wear an outfit each day? Perhaps you’ve always thought your attitude was the result of how your day, or your round was unfolding. If that’s the case, I challenge you to more proactively put on a new attitude for the New Year in your game.

When you leave your attitude to chance, you’ll be leaving yourself (and your emotions) vulnerable to being tossed about when unexpected and undesirable things happen on the course. It’s important for you to start thinking about attitude as a choice and something you can select AND MAINTAIN throughout a round no matter what happens during it.

Why?

Because attitude is a better predictor of success than talent. So when your technical game feels a little bit weak, you’ve got to make sure that your attitude stays strong if you want to play to the best of your ability on any given day.

Consider the alternative…

Think about the last time you played a round and struggled to get your putts to drop. Some fell short of the hole. Others rolled past the hole. And there were even putts that lipped out again and again leaving you feeling like you just couldn’t catch a break.

In this situation, you have two choices —

1. You could allow your attitude to take a nose dive into negativity and focus on how much of a struggle you’re having, and how many putts you’ve missed, OR
2. You could hold firm with a positive attitude that stems from your belief in your ability to make putts, think about how many putts you’ve made so far in the round (without comparing them to the ones you’ve missed), and keep expecting the next putt to drop.

The difference this steady, winner’s attitude can make in your game is HUGE!

Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can fake. You have to honestly believe in yourself as a player during a tough round rather than allowing the circumstances to diminish your belief in the strength of you and your game. This is something I help golfers train themselves to do.

When the going gets tough, and you know it does from time to time for every golfer (even the best), you must stay tough to maintain a positive attitude in response. By actively cultivating a winning attitude in the face of any challenges in golf you’ll allow your mind to work at it’s fullest capacity, and to your advantage.

Golfers who remain positive can —

• Stay focused on the task at hand
• See the right strategy
• Maintain an expectation of success
• Concentrate on leveraging their strengths
• and more!

When you train yourself to remain positive you prevent a negative attitude shift that can create the type of mental clutter that ripples into golf swings with tension, tempo shifts, and trying to force shots to happen. When you choose to cultivate a positive mindset you will swing with the most freedom. When you swing freely you will more consistently produce the best possible shots that you have in your bag for the day. It’s that simple.

So as we move into a New Year, I challenge you to put on a new attitude so you may start to play with more freedom and better results every round. It’s your choice.