Score, handicap, fairways hit, and greens in regulation are just some of the ways you may be tracking your golf success. But are you seeking any rewards from the things that actually sow seeds of success in golf?
Great scores and improving your statistics will make you all warm and fuzzy when it comes to your game. You want to experience a sense of accomplishment for all your hard work. That’s normal.
Where golfers tend to get stuck or even start backsliding in their game is when they stop investing in the process of their game. Trouble can start when you take your game for granted, when your expectations get skewed, and when you misinterpret growth as failure.
In this article I want to address each of these sticking points in an effort to help you avoid them.
Taking Your Game for Granted
Think about what is required to excel at anything — learning, hard work, more learning, discipline, self-awareness, humility, commitment, perseverance, and consistent effort. The last requirement on the list is probably the most important of all.
To do anything well you must work at it and keep working at it. To sow seeds of success in golf it’s essential that you continually tend to the things that have an impact on your performance — your fitness, your mindset, your mechanics, your strategy, and your equipment. Taking any part of your game for granted will make that part of your game vulnerable to deterioration.
Avoid plateauing or backsliding by maintaining an organized and well-balanced approach to your game at all times. Just because things are working well in one area doesn’t mean that you should stop investing time and effort there. The key to ongoing success is consistent effort to maintain and advance all parts of your game simultaneously. This doesn’t mean training like a Tour player, just taking an integrated approach to your current training activities.
Playing with Skewed Expectations
One of the most damaging words I hear golfers using is the word “should” ~
- I should be able to drive the ball 200 yards…
- I should be able to make 3 foot putts…
- I should be able to play as well as she does…
- I should be able to figure this out on my own…
When you start “shoulding” your game you allow your ego to shift your mindset in an unproductive direction that can begin to radically skew your expectations. The “shoulds” contribute to poor thinking habits like comparing your game to others’, worrying about what others think about your game, refusing to reach out to a trusted resource for help, and focusing on what you perceive to be the weaknesses in your game.
You can learn to set healthy expectations that sow seeds of success in golf when you consistently track the right wins, play within your game, compete against the course, and set process-centered measures for every shot. Simple mental game routines will equip you to pay attention to all the right things that contribute to a solid game.
Misinterpreting Growth as Failure
Growth never comes without growing pains. And failing doesn’t make you a failure. At times you may feel that it does. Great players train themselves to embrace the lessons that come from making mistakes on the range and the course. The sooner you learn how to capitalize on every experience the game brings during a round the better player you will be.
You can sow seeds of success in golf by carving out time for growth phases. This means choosing to practice and play for a specific period of time with a more patient, creative, flexible, and solution-oriented mindset during which you can welcome failure as part of the process. You may need to remove yourself from playing rounds where achieving a certain score is going to put unnecessary pressure on you. If you don’t give yourself specific time to develop your game without the pressure to maintain a particular performance level you will likely feel like you are failing at both.
Success Occurs Inside the Process
To sow seeds of success in golf commit to looking at your game as a happy journey and not a destination. As the saying goes, what you sow is what you will reap. Pay attention to the parts of your game that will contribute to a great harvest inside every round.
If you need help planning the right approach to your game in order to achieve greater success for your investment of time, effort, and money I can help. Mental game training is not something you should view as a “nice to have” in golf. It’s an essential component to success for every golfer no matter what level they play.
CONTACT ME today to learn more about how to unlock your best game.
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