“Once you get the basics down, it’s all mental”

- Ken Venturi, pro golfer

The golf psychology technique of visualisation is key to success in the game of golf. If you watch professional golfers in action, preparing to take a shot involves not only physical preparation in terms of achieving the correct stance and grip on the club, it involves mental preparation in terms of achieving the correct degree of focus and then visualising where they want the ball to go before they swing their club.

Experienced golfers think of a golf course as eighteen separate sections. Each section, or hole played, represents a step towards successful completion of the whole course. The ultimate goal is to complete the course; each hole played is a stepping-stone goal towards achieving that goal, and specific goals are set to boost the chances of successfully completing each stepping-stone goal. So, for example, a golfer preparing to play the first hole on the course might set himself the target of completing the task in five shots. He must now visualise where each one of those shots will take his ball in order to make sure that the fifth shot sees his ball sinking into the hole on the green! With a clear vision of where he wants the ball to land after his first swing, he’s now mentally prepared to play that shot.

Set a course

Have you ever heard it said that golf reflects life? It’s true! When you set yourself some goals in life, you’re setting a course for your life. Just as a golfer can’t stand on the teeing area for the first hole, take an almighty swing at the ball and expect it to roll neatly into the hole on the eighteenth green, you can’t expect to get from where you are now in life to where you want to be in one giant step. You need some stepping-stones; you need to play the holes that keep you on track to achieving the success you’ve mapped out for yourself in the course of your life. The process used by a golfer to achieve success on the golf course is the exact same process you need to use to achieve success on your life course.

 So, a golfer is preparing to take his first shot. To achieve his target of completing the hole in five shots, he has visualised his first shot taking the ball fifty yards in a straight line to land in the centre of the fairway, avoiding rough grass and trees on the right and a bunker on the left. After taking his shot, he profiles it. In others words, he watches the ball in flight and studies its path. Profiling a shot allows a golfer to analyse whether the actual shot matches the visualised shot. If not, he’s in a good position to figure out why not and adjustments can then be made.

 “A golf ball is like a clock. Always hit it at six o’clock and make it go toward twelve o’clock. But make sure you’re in the same time zone”

- Chi Chi Rodriguez, pro golfer

Let’s say you’ve decided to go for a big promotion at work. Your ultimate goal is to secure the new job but the first step you must take; the first hole you must play, is to successfully pass an interview in front of a panel of company directors. Before entering the interview room, you visualise your success; you visualise yourself performing confidently. After the interview, you profile it. Did your actual performance match your visualised performance?

Follow the Diversion

If the golfer’s shot landed his ball in the trees instead of on the fairway, it’s not ‘game over.’ He must now carry on making his way around the course from where he is now: he must visualise where he wants the ball to land after his next shot. It might not be the route he originally planned to reach the first green but it doesn’t mean he can’t get there. If your interview doesn’t go to plan and you don’t get put forward for promotion, it’s not ‘game over.’ You might feel like you’re stuck in a bunker but profile your interview; analyse your performance, and work out what it is you need to do to move forward. Then, visualise your next shot and take it – play on!

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“Eighteen holes of match or medal play will teach you more about your foe than will eighteen years of dealing with them across a desk…”

It’s always said that you can learn a lot about someone and their psychology of life by their handshake. If you speak to a golf professional, they’ll add to that by saying that you can also learn a lot about someone by the way they play golf.

Golf coach Tim Sanders says, “The way a player approaches the game of golf is usually a good indication of the way they approach life. It’s good golf etiquette to shake hands with a player you haven’t met before, before playing a round of golf but that handshake can tell you a lot about the type of opponent they’ll be. A strong handshake is usually given by a strong character but there are some characters who always want to be on top, so much so that they’ll actually turn your hand as they shake it just to get their own hand on the top. People can come to the game with that kind of attitude but the game of golf has a way of levelling the playing field for everyone.”

“…Golf gives you an insight into human nature, your own as well as your opponent’s”

- Grantland Rice, sports writer and commentator

Patience is a virtue

Another popular saying is ‘practice makes perfect’ and it holds true in all areas of life. “If I see a new player pick up a club and start swinging fast, I can be fairly sure that they live a fast-paced life,” says Tim, “but swinging a club fast doesn’t help you to learn the game of golf any faster! If a player wants to master the game of golf, they have to be prepared to practice and putting in practice requires patience.” 

 Whether your goal in life is to master a sports skill or a business skill, there are no shortcuts. Some people are going to get to the top before others but nobody gets to the top without working their way up the necessary steps of the ladder. “The first step in golf is to learn how to hold the club,” says Tim, “but newcomers to the game are often too impatient and they just want to hit the ball. What they must understand is that being able to hit the ball, no matter how hard, is not actually going to progress them very far in their game because without a correct grip, they’ll have no control over where the ball goes.”  

 One step at a time

If you’re one of life’s ‘hard hitters,’ are you sure your actions are keeping you on target to achieving the success you want? In the game of golf, your ultimate goal is to play all eighteen holes successfully so each hole you play is effectively taking you another step closer and every shot you take counts.

 Coaches Corner:

 What’s your ultimate goal in life ?

 What represents reaching the eighteenth green in the game of life?

 Make sure every shot you play in life counts and that each one takes you one step closer to success. What can you do today that will take you closer to your goal ?

 “Life is just like a game of golf, but played on a bigger course”

- Tim Sanders, golf pro

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Integrity in the game of golf is such that even if no other player happened to be in view of the clump of nettles, meaning no other player would see you if you sneakily retrieved your ball, you would still take your next shot from the middle of that clump of nettles. Fishing the ball out with your club before taking your next shot would make life much easier and improve your score for your round – and, after all, no one would actually know you’d fished it out except you – but, if you want to call yourself a golfer, you’ll continue to play that shot from where it lies. If you move it, you’re cheating. In the current sports climate of mandatory drug testing for performance enhancing drugs, this mental attitude, and willingness to play the game by the rules, speaks volumes about the psychology of those who make it to the top.

“Play it as it lies is one of the fundamental dictates of golf. The other is, wear it if it clashes”

- Henry Beard

Be true to yourself

Some might say that cheating in golf, or any other sport, is only cheating if you get caught but when you play golf, you not only play against other players, you play against the course and you play against yourself. Even if no one caught you cheating by fishing your ball out of the nettles, you’d still be cheating yourself. Of course, it’s not actually against the rules to move your ball in order to make it more playable – your ball may land in the branches of a tree for example – but moving your ball must then be marked on your card as a shot taken.

Top golfers don’t get to the top by not marking their cards. The score on their card at the end of a round must always be a true reflection of their golfing ability. If they don’t like that score, they’ll get back out on the course and practice their skills until they achieve a score they like: then they’ll go back out again and see if they can improve some more. Top golfers are not content with a win over other players on a course, they are only content with a mastery of each course they play. In sports psychology terms, top golfers are motivated by mastery orientated goals: top golfers play to win but they always play against ‘old man par.’

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 So what are the benefits of being able to think quickly? Well, if you’re a Formula One driver, the main benefit is staying alive! However, for the rest of us, the main benefit of learning how to think quickly is really learning how to think clearly when the pressure is on. In sport, clear thinking is focused thinking. Learning how to focus is essentially  learning how to concentrate but crucially, focus equates to learning how to concentrate only on what matters.

 Action v Distraction

Only a few years ago, reigning world champion Jenson Button was as famous for his playboy lifestyle as he was for his Formula One success. Things have now changed. In a recent interview he said, “I thought that driving skill would be enough in Formula One, but it wasn’t…I realised that skill was not enough because everyone in Formula One is skilled – that’s why they’re here…I realised that everything else had to be on hold for as long as I was in F1.” Jenson Button has learned that physical skill alone is not enough. Staying at the top of your game takes mental skill. It takes focus: and Button’s focus is now only on winning, although he admits to not being a “saint.”

 “Your mind management has to be spot on and you must always have maximum concentration to maintain complete consistency” - Chris Buncombe

 When Lewis Hamilton was only nine-years old, he boldly introduced himself to Ron Dennis, McLaren team boss at the time, by saying, “Hi, I’m Lewis Hamilton. I won the British Championships and one day I want to be racing your cars.” The rest, as they say, is history! Unlike Button, Hamilton has not come to “realise” that success in motor racing requires focus, his focus has always been on Formula One success.

“Lewis is exceptional. He has the mind for it, the attitude, the God-given skill, but he is already recognising that he needs something else. And he is doing it with humility and style” – Jackie Stewart

Clear the Clutter

Racing drivers have only nano seconds in which to make decisions. They are under extreme physical and mental pressure when racing and the difference between a podium finish and an ‘also ran’ finish is often only the tiniest fraction of a second. There is absolutely no downtime in the cockpit of a racing car, total concentration is needed at all times. With focus and with clear thinking, decisions can be made at lightening speed. Doubts or negative thoughts of any kind are clutter, and clutter can’t be allowed to enter a racing driver’s mind. Hamilton is described as having, “an acute tactical mind, strong race-craft, and brilliant opportunism.” Button, on the other hand, is described as, “laidback but seriously competitive.” Both drivers have mental skill. Both have the ability to “see” what they have to do, and both know that their focus must always remain on what can be achieved and what can be controlled or influenced by their thoughts and actions at any given moment of time. They have no room in their mind for negative thoughts.

 Sir Stirling Moss once said of Lewis Hamilton, “It isn’t just that he is a driver, he obviously can drive – he is a racer, he can see a gap and he’s in it.” That’s NLP mental skill; that’s real quick thinking in high-speed action. Jenson Button has also demonstrated his ability to remain focused only on the elements of the race within his control by saying of less than favourable weather conditions before a race, “It’s disappointing, but we can’t stop it raining here.” So, next time you feel under pressure to make a “quick” decision, clear your mind of unnecessary clutter, learn to focus only on what matters, think like a racing driver.

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“Just as a sapless tree will split and decay
  So an inflexible force will meet defeat” – Tao Te Ching

Flexibility can have as much power or more as sheer force of will and determination. Think of the power of water. One of the greatest athletes of all time, Bruce Lee, used the example of water in his philosophy in life. What is more flexible and soft than water? It can flow between gaps we cannot even see. It molds itself to any situation or container, yet over many years it can carve deep canyons. Though its methods are long and we may see it as a slow and weak flowing substance, can it not crash and cause devastation, or seep into cracks and then freeze, splitting things apart?

This relates to us in ways that may not be immediately clear. Just as water may be immediately diverted from its path, so may we. That does not mean that we stop. We continue on, find the little cracks and crevices in life and flow toward our goals.

We may not take the path we originally envisioned, but as long as we keep moving forward in a positive direction, does it really matter how we get there?

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive coaching programme starting April 1, 2010 - more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

I’d like to talk about leadership in a way we perhaps don’t always think of it. In order to lead, we must know how to follow.

Those born for a leadership role do not just seize the reigns of power and gallop on without an understanding of those they are leading. It doesn’t really work well that way.

As is said in the Tao Te Ching, “The river carves out the valley by flowing beneath it.
 Thereby the river is the master of the valley.”

This and many other examples are used in Taoist philosophy to demonstrate the power of the low. This power is the power of the servant of the people, the person who follows in order to lead. This is a powerful notion, and has real world application.

How can we lead people without being their servant? Is that not what a leader is? A facilitator, a communicator, a voice for a group of people – these are examples of services we provide for our team when we lead them. We act as the focal point for problems and we serve as enablers for our team members. We move obstacles so that they may do their work and shine for the entire group.

If we recognise our roles as a servants and followers of our teams and strive to make it clear to them that we exist in a leadership capacity only to make things easier for them, chances are that they will never feel threatened by that leadership.  There will be no sense of competition or oppression.

In this style of leadership you may not come to the finish line in front, gleaming with pride to take all of the glory, but your team will definitely make it there together and you’ll have more respect than if you had seized the reigns.

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive coaching programme starting April 1, 2010 - more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
- Stephen Covey

You may know one of those people who have forged something from nothing, or you may be one of these people. Seeking their goals with a determination which is quite amazing. This could be someone in business, in sport or in any other sort of pursuit. The point is that these people seem quite amazing at first glance and our first reaction can be admiration or envy.

Let’s take a second glance. Often these people are amazing at single-mindedly pursuing one goal. This could be profit in the case of a businessperson, sometimes started because of childhood experiences or a desire to change things for their family. This could be awards, recognition, fame or other such things for a musician or an actor. It could be the next record for an athlete. The challenge with this is not the pursuit of these things. It is the imbalance the pursuit often causes.

Sometimes people often lose sight of the importance of other aspects in their lives and become so consumed with their end goal that they often damage or lose the reasons they had for starting in the first place. Forsaking family, friends, relationships. When it is all said and done, what is left when they’ve attained their goals?

The important thing is to know where your heart is, and pursue that goal in a way that is aligned with who you are and what is important to you. Never lose sight of your true reasons and don’t sell your soul regardless of the glittering prizes you may see in the distance. Your future isn’t all about wealth or fame.

It is about the sense of fulfilment you get when you practice your craft or when you’ve provided a suitable environment for your family.

It is about enjoying each moment instead of obsessing over what more you could gain.

It is about knowing when to pause and enjoy your “rich moments” rather than pursuing some future bliss, which may never come.

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive coaching programme starting April 1, 2010 - more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

What is it about change that sometimes terrifies or thrills us? Is change something we should seek out or shy from, and is it a necessary part of life?

Change can terrify us when we become over attached to the idea of our current existence. We like things the way they are, so why change them? Change can also thrill us if we’re fed up with the current state of things and long for something different, new and exciting. The truth is that change just is. What change brings to us isn’t so much a reflection of its nature, but a reflection of ours.

If you’re afraid of change it is often wise to question that fear:

• Is it possible that you’re stuck in a rut and that change may refresh you, teach you new things and open up possibilities you never expected?

In the same spirit, you could attempt to address your yearning for change:

• Why are you so uncomfortable with things as they are?
• Is something deeper bothering you?
• Couldn’t your current situation teach you anything worth abiding if you’d only give it a chance?

The most important thing in dealing with change isn’t to fight our own natures or the nature of change itself. If you’re given an opportunity or see one to be taken and it speaks to that voice inside of you, then go for it. If you’re fighting too hard for a change which won’t come through for you, chances are that that in itself is something to notice.

In all things, stay true to yourself, who you are becoming and flow with change, don’t fight it.

P.S. I will be taking on 4 new clients for a one year intensive coaching programme starting April 1, 2010 - more details to follow. Please email me: Donald@zonedinperformance.com

We’ve all heard the popular words of Robert Eliot – “Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.” It would be silly to argue these words, as they ring true to most ears. Worrying about the small things will usually get you nowhere, but what about appreciating the small things?

What are some things we take for granted everyday which could benefit our lives a little more if we appreciated them more?

The key to appreciating these moments is to concentrate on them, rather than letting your mind wander onto other matters. When eating a good meal, truly savour the tastes and the company instead of worrying about the dishes to wash up after you’re done. When phoned by a friend, wonder at the conversation and the marvels which allow you to connect with that friend from a distance, instead of worrying about which bills you haven’t yet paid or how many free minutes you’ve got left on your mobile contract. If you have to walk somewhere, enjoy the colour of the sky, the song of the birds – all of the sights and sounds of the natural world or even those native to a city.

Even seemingly menial tasks can be enjoyed in this way. When washing up after a meal, enjoy the work itself. Concentrate on getting each dish sparklingly clean and on the warm soapy water instead of thinking ahead to what you’d rather be doing. You’ll probably find the whole experience much more enjoyable this way.

The key is to concentrate on the here and now and enjoy this moment, rather than focusing on what has been or what is to come. Each of these small things joins together in the chain which becomes your life, so don’t sweat the negative ones and focus on the positive ones.