How to Overcome Golf Imposter Syndrome (attn. Golf Pros)

Whether you are a golf pro, former college golfer, accomplished athlete, high achiever or a person whose handicap just dropped a handful of strokes, you can relate to the feeling that you are not as good as people think you are.

Imposter syndrome can produce a lot of anxiety, fear, worry, and doubt in people.

In this episode, I talk about what imposter syndrome is relative to the game of golf.
I use golf pros as an example because it is such a prevalent issue for many in the industry.

You do not need to be a golf pro to relate to feeling like a fraud or inadequate in someway. I

I share with you 5 steps to overcoming imposter syndrome in golf or life so that you can reduce the negative emotions that keep you from not only playing well but enjoying the day.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are gonna learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it. Hello my golf friend. Welcome back to Above Par. Hope you're having a beautiful week. I'm back from Arizona again. I had such an amazing time out there with the members at Mirabelle and Desert Mountain and at the Desert Classic. Gave a couple workshops live, helping a lot of people manage their minds, playing some better golf, taking their talent out onto the golf course. It was super fun. Other than the red eye I took back. I just like, I didn't, I think I'm done with red eyes. It takes too long to recover. But otherwise, it was an amazing time. I got to connect with some clients out there that I only get to see through Zoom, so it was nice to see them live and give them a hug. So anyway, I had a wonderful time. And while I was out there, I ran into a golf pro friend. We had a conversation, and I've actually had the same conversation with a couple other golf pros that I know, and I wanted to do a podcast about imposter syndrome. And I'm going to expand on it a little bit. And the audience of this podcast is not just golf pros or former athletes or people who are really good in other sports. It could even be that you're very successful at your job. You can take the content of this podcast and apply it to so many different areas. So while I'm going to talk a little bit more about the golf pro, the club pro, even a tour player, I'm going to talk about imposter syndrome. And I'm going to explain it in a way that I think you can apply to any area of your life where you might have a little of imposter syndrome. It is very common. It's very common for high achievers and high performers. And I want to just pull it apart a little bit to see if I can give some relief to people when we're going out and basically believing that we're not good enough, that our skills aren't up to snuff, where we're a little anxious about performing. We have a fear about performing. And I want to just break it down and hopefully help you get your head around it so that you can overcome some of those emotions that are keeping you from going out there and playing and performing to the level that you can, or even going out there and performing and playing and participating. Okay, so first let's define imposter syndrome. And by definition, it is the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. So this could be you don't feel like you're qualified for the job that you're in or the position that you're in or the role that you're in. A simpler context is that really it's just doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It's super common and it's super common in the professional golf world. And I want to talk about that because I'm very familiar with it. And like I said, I've had a lot of people come up to me and ask about it. And I've also experienced this myself. So, like I said, this can be for golf pros. This could be if you played collegiate golf, you're a really good college golfer, and now maybe people know your past record. It could be that you used to be a really good golfer or that you formerly played professional golf or you had an amazing amateur career and now you're playing not as much or not to that same level. Also, it could be that you are a great athlete in another sport and you can have some imposter syndrome when it comes to playing golf, not believing in your own abilities or skills. So the first thing I want to talk about is your identity. So your identity are the thoughts that you have about you, the dialogue you have about yourself, the language that you're listening to about you and your ability. Your beliefs about yourself come from the conversation that you're having in your head. If you believe that you're good enough or deserving of the thing, you're gonna be good enough and deserving of the thing. But if you have these thoughts that you're not deserving or your skill isn't up to snuff, or that you don't deserve your position or your title, right, they can create a lot of anxiety and fear. It always starts with the language that we have in our head, the words that we're saying to ourselves. So some of the things that you could be saying to yourself, it could be that I was a club champion. I used to be the club champion, I won the club championship seven times. People have this image of me as the past former club champion. I won a state title or a national title. Or if you're a tour player, it could be that you were had a certain amount of income, or that you just were a tour player and you're not a tour player anymore. That would be me. I used to be a tour player, I'm not a tour player anymore. You could have the dialogue in my in your head, I'm a golf pro, I have the title of a golf pro, but I teach. I have the title of a golf pro, but I stand behind the counter and manage the shop, or I run tournaments, or I sell merchandise, or I buy merchandise. You could have the dialogue, I'm not as good as I used to be, which goes to I'm not as good as they think I am, which then goes to they expect me, they being whoever you're playing with, expect me to play well. They expect me to play to a certain level that I don't think I'm capable of. And really what it boils down to is we're worried about what other people think. So where imposter syndrome comes up a lot for golf pros, particularly, is when they get invited to go play in pro-ams. They get invited to play in events with members or even other pros, and they're worried about how they're going to perform, what number they have to shove up on the board for everybody to see. They're worried that they're going to disappoint the amateurs that they're playing with. They're even worried or a little anxious or fearful about how their image, which it might be a beautiful image as a golf pro in the industry, as a teaching pro or as a club pro in the industry, and they might tarnish their image because right now, without you seeing me playing golf, everybody thinks that I'm a golf pro. I'm pretty good. And I might go up and stick up a number that's embarrassing. And that might change the dialogue that those people have in their head about me. I think it's important for us to do a couple steps in this to help us get through this imposter syndrome. The first thing is to focus on the truth and the facts. So if I'm going to speak to the golf pro, the fact is that really, in reality, there's three kinds of golf pros. There's a tour player who his job is to go out there and play golf and make money playing golf, competing. There's a teaching pro, and their job is to go out there and teach golf and make money teaching golf. And then there's a club pro, and their job is to be more administrative. They're in there running the golf shop and running tournaments and merchandising. So there's three basic categories of golf pros. Yes, you can argue with me that you can be a golf pro and a club fitter, and you can be a golf pro and just focus on tournaments. Yes, okay, let's just put it into three major buckets. Those are the three major buckets of different types of golf pros. Only one of them spends all of their time fine-tuning their golf game. But all of them get the category of pro. Now, I'm not saying also that a tour player can't have some identity issues and some imposter syndrome for sure, based on their past record, perhaps. So the truth of the matter is if you're a teaching pro or a club pro and you got invited to play in a pro am and you're having this little imposter syndrome, the truth, let's talk about it. It's you don't spend as much time on your golf game as you do on your specialty within the industry. So your game isn't going to be as good. This is the truth. It might not be as good as it used to be when you used to play for a living or play a lot more golf, or when you were an amateur or college player. My game was definitely more consistent when I was playing tournaments for a living. When I started teaching for a living, I didn't play as much. Now that I do this for a living, I play even less. So yeah, my game is in two totally different spots than it used to be when I played college golf and professional golf than it is right now. But my label's the same. I'm still golf pro, right? And so that messes with our identity a little bit. How we perceive ourselves, knowing that we used to be very good, or we could potentially play at a different level if we had the time to do it. But we're actually the truth is that we're spending all of our time and energy in a different arena within the industry. So that's the truth. And it's good reminding your brain of the truth. The other truth is that the people that you're playing with might not understand that dynamic. They might not understand that just because you have the label of pro, that you're supposed to like never miss a shot. It doesn't matter how many people we run into, when they think you're a pro, they think that you just hit every shot in the center of the green or right next to the flags that can make every putt. They don't have necessarily a complete concept of what it takes to play professional golf, how much work and energy and time it takes to maintain your game at that level. And they might not appreciate that you can also be a golf pro and not put in that time. And then, of course, you're gonna have more inconsistencies in your game. I think honestly, that misconception about how much work it takes to be really good at this game is what holds a lot of amateurs back. They have high expectations with a little bit of work, and golf pros for sure, tour players for sure, know how much energy it takes and how much time it takes to really create a game that can be effective and consistent. So, some of the truth is that a lot of amateurs are uneducated on the definition of a pro. Actually, I went to the USGA website, and all it takes to be considered a golf pro is to take money in a tournament. Technically. You go play in a tournament, you deem yourself I'm a pro, take home $1,200, you are now a professional. You go teach in a golf school and you deem yourself a professional, you get paid for that. By definition, you're a golf pro. I know you can be a coach and keep your amateur status. I know that you can volunteer in the first T program and get paid and still maintain your amateur status. I'm not going to go into my opinions about all of that, but that's basically what is involved in beturning pro. It doesn't mean that you're an unbelievable golfer, you're a plus seven handicap. All it means is that I played in a tournament and took some cash. I gave someone a lesson and they paid me. You now have professional status, you've lost your amateur status. The second thing that's important to do is acknowledge that you do have some anxiety and you do have some fear and you have some worry, you're gonna have some doubt about your ability to go out and perform. You're starting to feel some pressure. I think it's so important not to deny our emotions, but to validate them, to acknowledge them. Because when you acknowledge them and you state that I'm a little bit worried about my performance and how I'm gonna show up, then you have the ability to pivot. But when we try and shove it away and pretend it's not there, we're denying it and it's still there. And then you lose the ability to pivot into a place that's gonna serve you a little bit more. Which goes to my next point. Now, once you acknowledge that you're a little bit worried, once you identify the emotion that you're having, doubt or worry or fear or anxiety, then you want to decide what you do want to think about going out there and playing. Often those emotions are coming from questions that we ask our brain that don't serve us and freak us out. Basically, like, what happens if I don't score well? I wonder what they're gonna think if I don't play well. I wonder what my peers will think if I don't play well. What will happen to their image of me if I have a blow-up hole or I shoot a big number? If you ask your brain that question, your brain's gonna freak you out. It's gonna come up with all kinds of ways that it's gonna be horrible. And that's gonna create much more anxiety and fear because now your brain thinks you're in danger. So ask yourself good questions, powerful questions, useful questions, so you get some better answers that can help you lower your anxiety and your fear and your worry and your doubt. It starts with the first one is pulling out the facts and then deciding what do you want to think about the round. I would also be very purposeful on your intention, like why the heck are you playing? Are you planning to go out there and shoot a super low number? Or are you planning to go out there and connect with the people that you're playing with? Connect with your membership, connect with your friends, fellow peers, golf pros. Because if the purpose is to go out there and shoot a really low number, then I would assume you would have prepared and taken time off and worked on your game, which we don't do. I just had this, I played out in Arizona with some of my clients. My intention was to go and connect with my clients, enjoy the day, enjoy the course. But I wasn't gonna not play because I hadn't been playing a lot of golf. My intention was to have a great time connecting with my clients. So set an intention is very helpful, and then decide what you want to think about the round. Just as let's assume we're playing in like a pro am. And then the last thing that I want to tell you is you can't control what people think. And I know logically we know this, but really we can't. You could jump through all these hoops, you could shoot a great number in your head, and they might still think it's not good enough. And they might still think that you could have made a couple putts out there. We don't know and we can't control it. The only thing that ever matters is your opinion of yourself, your thoughts about yourself. Have your own back. Be cautious on taking an opportunity, even if you don't play well, to beat yourself up. The more you're worried about beating yourself up at the end of the round because you didn't play well, the more pressure you're going to put on yourself during the round so that you don't beat yourself up. And guess what happens? You don't play well when you put a lot of pressure on yourself to play well. But if your beliefs and the story that you had about yourself felt good and were powerful, increased your confidence, you wouldn't be an imposter syndrome to begin with because it goes back, it circles back to really why we're there is because of the language and the dialogue and the beliefs that we have about ourselves. So start with the truth. The truth is you don't play as much golf as a tour player, even though you have the same label. The truth is you're going to be inconsistent because you're working. The truth is that amateurs don't understand, a lot of amateurs don't understand that because you have the label golf pro doesn't mean you're a plus seven or eight handicap. It's just a label. Then acknowledge your feelings. Acknowledge how you're a little anxious and you're a little worried. Notice where they're coming from. They're usually coming from questions that are not helpful or useful. So decide then what you want to think about the day. What do you want to think about you and your ability? And that's much easier to do when we set an intention on why we're going out there. What's the whole purpose in doing it? Because I promise you, your brain is going to tell you to go home, sit under the covers, and eat popcorn and watch Netflix. Your brain would much rather you do that. Because the minute we set foot out of the cave and we put ourselves into what we deem as danger in our brain, it's going to freak us out. So the more that you create this going and playing in this pro-am, for instance, as not dangerous, the less your brain is going to chatter and freak you out. So set an intention that quiets down your brain. Set an intention that's a win, no matter what you shoot, which could be connecting with your members, connecting with your peers, taking a day off of work, taking a trip. Do we want to play well? Of course we want to play well. But the truth of the matter is that we might not because of the amount of time that we put into our game, and that's okay too. And lastly, of course, remember that we can't control other people's thoughts. Embarrassment comes from the thought that that was embarrassing. That's it. It doesn't come from it being a fact. The proof in that is how many times I've embarrassed my kids. I didn't think I was embarrassing. I might go out and tell a corny joke at a party, and my kids are like, oh my god, mom, that's so embarrassing. Like, what? I thought it was great. I thought it was hysterical, and they're embarrassed. I can't control that. When people get embarrassed by the thought, the initial thought, that's embarrassing. And we just have to decide if that's true. It could be that we walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck on our shoe. Some people go, oh my god, that's so embarrassing. Or we could just go, I just had toilet paper stuck to my shoe. It all shifts with a thought. All right, my golf pro friends and my imposter syndrome golfers. This can apply to so many different areas of your life. Use this framework to help you get over that imposter syndrome, that belief that you're not good enough or you're not deserving of your success or your title or your position, or we worry so much about what other people are thinking. And if you want any help with this, if you feel like you're struggling with a little imposter syndrome, make sure that you reach out to me at Kathy at KathyHartwood.com. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.