Looking for Mental Golf Quick Fixes

Hello, golf friends! In this episode of *Above Par*, Kathy dives deep into the allure of quick fixes and why they don’t work for your mental golf game. 

Kathy draws parallels between seeking quick fixes for swing mechanics and mental game. She explains why quick fixes, like band-aids, eventually fall off, leaving golfers right back where they started. Instead, Kathy emphasizes the importance of developing lasting mental skills that allow you to manage anxiety, pressure, and fear on the course effectively.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- The pitfalls of seeking quick fixes for your golf game.

- Why managing your mind is akin to mastering a physical skill.

- How to develop resilience and confidence through consistent mental practice.

- The importance of understanding your emotions and how they impact your game.

Get ready to shift your mindset and embrace the process of becoming a mentally strong golfer. Listen now and start your journey to sustained mental mastery on and off the golf course!

Tune in, take notes, and transform your game with insights from Kathy. Let's go beyond quick fixes and build lasting confidence!

Connect with Kathy at KathyHartWood.com

Stay in the look on new opportunities to Think Above Par by here: KathyHartWood.com/join

Transcript

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 going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it.

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to above parental. I am so happy you are here and listening. I want to jump right in and share a win with one of the members from my academy who is actually the youngest member in my academy and his mom emailed me and shared some of the wins that he's been having. He had his best finish as of yet as the youngest member of the 15 to 18 year old field at Teen Worlds and he won after a three hole playoff after shooting his personal best round to take home the trophy and the win.

And Bodhi shows up on a consistent basis and does the work and asks questions and offers value. And I appreciate his contribution there and I'm so excited for him to see how that is paying off for him on the golf course. So congratulations, Bodhi. Thanks for sharing that. I wanted to share that with you. And one of the things about my membership is I had a range of members in there from 15 to in their eighties, my men and women and all level golfers.

And it doesn't really matter if you're considering showing up for that or considering doing this work. It really doesn't matter the level of golfer you are, how old you are. We all can relate to each other because we have one brain. Everybody learns off of each other inside the membership. And there's so much to learn from other people. But there's also to understand that we're all doing the same exact things.

Whether you're shooting in the sixties or whether you're shooting in the nineties, it doesn't matter. We all experience those emotions and our golf game exactly the same way. Anxiety is anxiety, pressure is pressure. Fear is fear. It doesn't matter if your situation is different than somewhere else's situation. You can relate to how they're managing those emotions and what they're experiencing, though I love that Modi as the youngest member shows up and is having lots of success.

So today I want to talk about quick fixes for your mental golf. And if you clicked on this to listen just because of the title, that said, quick fixes for your mental golf and you're like, yes, I'm in I want a quick six. You're also the likely, the person who goes and takes a lesson, who wants a quick fix for their golf game. And I want to put it into context of how those two are very similar.

So as someone who taught golf for a very long time, my golf for a long time competing. I taught golf for a long time. So many of my students would come to me the day before tournament, the week before tournament and said, you need to fix me. I'm having problems. I'm hitting a shot to the right and I need to get my ball in play. Now, they might have been doing that for a while, but they decide right now is the time to fix it.

What you want is a band aid because the time it's going to take for you to fix what's causing that ball to go to the right. If it is mechanical, let's just say it's going to take time. And you have 24 hours before you tee off in a tournament that matters a lot to you. So they come like, give me a quick fix. I called it a band Aid, right?

You want a band aid. And the problem with a band aid is a band aid eventually will fall off and what you're left with is what you owned originally that you didn't put in the time and the work to shift and change. And a lot of people in golf will go from band Aid to band aid to band Aid, and they all fall off because theyre not lasting.

Theyre quick fixes. It would sound like Im just going to jack up your grip and make it really strong to straighten out your ball. But ill get you through tomorrow. But you dont want to keep doing that. Eventually youre going to start pumping it with that grip, right. So its going to fall off. Its not going to work anymore. And it was so interesting because I could understand their mindset coming take a lesson from me.

And often some of it wasnt even a mechanical error. It was their nervousness and their anxiety and their fear and the pressure they're putting on themselves was causing the mechanical errors. So now you got two issues where you're trying to fix something there really isn't broken. We have a mental error because we're not able to manage our minds and we're trying to fix a mechanical error that's really caused by a lot of tension and tempo and maybe some old habits that creep back in where we're not swaying freely and thinking clearly.

So if you're the type of person who likes to show up and take a lesson, ask someone to hurry, fix me, because I have a tournament tomorrow. You're probably also the type of person who's looking for a quick fix with your mental golf. And this happens to me. I'll have clients who come and say, I have a tournament tomorrow and I'm nervous or I'm anxious. I'm feeling a little pressure.

Fix me. Give me some tools. Give me a band aid to get through that route so that I can score well and play well and I can do that. I can offer things. Whether they resonate, whether the person does it, that's up to them. But what happens at the end of the round? They haven't shifted and grown. Their game hasn't changed. They haven't become a person who knows how to manual manage the pressure and the anxiety.

They just had a tool or a quick thought that was going to get them through that round. And then in between, they don't do the work and they show up and they have another tournament. They call me and say, I have a tournament tomorrow. Give me another band aid to get me through the round. I do not like to coach this way. I avoid it at all costs because I want people to learn the skill.

Just like in golf, you had to put in the work to learn how to hit shots and putts and chips. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have mechanical issues. It doesn't mean things are going to ebb and flow. It doesn't mean that you're done. You're never done with golf. We're always constantly working on our golf game. But I want to bring up some points about what it takes for you to really, truly work on the mental part of golf.

So most of the time, what's happening is we're underestimating the work involved and learning the skills to manage your mind on the golf course. You are changing habits and you're changing beliefs and you're learning skills and you're getting curious about what's going on in your head. You're looking at different ways that are holding you back. You might have to shift your identity. You might, for the first time in your life, have to really be curious and self aware about actually what's going on.

It might require you to do some deeper work about how you treat yourself and your identity and your self worth and your confidence. So these are great things that you want to anticipate as you work on your mental part of your game? Yes. Can you have some tools that will help you get through around? For sure. Are those bandits? Not really. You do want to have some tools, you do want to have some things in your arsenal to go to.

So for sure, I can share those with people. But I also want you to learn how to manage your mind. I want you to have the certainty and the confidence that you can go out there, the golf course, and say, bring it on. I can't talk to Kathy right now, but actually, I know how to manage this one. We didn't talk about it yesterday, but this situation I can deal with because I know how to do it.

I practiced it, I rehearsed it. I know the tools and the skills that I need to get it done so that I can get myself back to a place where I can swing freely and think clearly, calm, certain and confident. I can pivot back there. I know how to do it. That's so much certainty and confidence that you get from knowing that you can manage your brain around the game of golf.

When you get a band aid, there's even a part of it, whether it's in your full swing or whether it's mentally, you have a band Aida that there is a little uncertainty in it because you don't own it, you're borrowing it. It's not permanent, it's temporary. That in itself doesn't create a lot of certainty on the golf course, right? There's just a little bit of doubt and lack of trust and actually what you're doing because you haven't had any history with it, you have any evidence that it actually works.

Okay? So the first thing that I want you to know is that when you're working on mental golf, mental management, thought management, emotional resilience on the golf course, what you're doing is you are learning a skill just like you do in the game of golf. And the fastest way for you to learn a skill is for you to practice it and rehearse in it, rehearse it with dedication over and over again, for you to gain the fastest traction is for you to put in the work consistently, not once, and you're done.

You don't go to the range and hit one ball. Go. Okay, I'm done. I got it. I own it. But we think we should do that with golf. Alright, I got the thought. I'm good to go sometimes. Maybe it'll work, but likely not on a consistent basis. So just like you learn any skill, whether you're learning an instrument, whether you're learning a sport, or whether you're learning how to manage your mind and practice the skills that hopefully you learn here on the podcast or through some of my programs, you learn actually how to do it.

You gotta know what you're practicing. Going to the rage and just hitting balls without practicing anything on purpose is really like treading water. You're not necessarily going forward or backwards. You're just spending a lot of energy. You got to know what you're practicing. And just like with the mental part, you got to know what you're rehearsing and practicing. I share a lot of that with you in the podcast here.

The second part, to understand and appreciate. And just like your golf game, it's not linear. It doesn't mean you're just instantly going to go straight up to the top and have it right away and never have some setbacks. Never have some moments that you're like, hmm, what happened today? That wasn't my best day. That's not going to happen. Just like the stock market goes up and down, so is the progression of you learning how to manage your mind.

You're going to have days that are really great, and you're like, I got it. This was easy. But if you settle in and stop doing the work, you're going to have moments where you're like, today, I don't feel like I got it. I feel like I went backwards. Just expect it. It's just like learning anything. And the third thing that I want you to know, as you work on your mental game, if you want to do this, if you want to work on these mental skills, you're never done.

Just like with golf, you're never done. You're always going to have life experiences that are going to come your way and introduce new things to you. Like, I haven't been here before. I don't know what I'm doing, but you know how to pivot and you know how to manage your mind around it. You know how to process those emotions, right? So you're never done as long as you're standing upright and moving forward, you want to grow.

And as you want to grow as a human, you're going to have new life experiences that are going to make you uncomfortable. They're going to challenge you mentally and emotionally. And the other reason that you're never done is because you're working against your own brain, which has a negative bias, which is always trying to freak you out. And if you're not on top of it and you're not constantly doing the work, it wins.

When you start feeling crappy, freaking crappy results, you start thinking wonky thoughts, because that's what your brain does. Just trying to protect you. But it has a negative bias, meaning it's scanning for different ways that you're going to get into trouble or hurt. And if you listen to it and don't know the skills on how to recognize what's going on, you become, at the effect of your own brain, all those negative thoughts and those emotions.

So anticipate that it's never going to be done. Jump in and enjoy the process. All that's going to happen is it's going to get faster and easier. And as it gets faster and easier, you expand and take on new experiences, whether it's with your golf game or in life. You're like, okay, I'm willing to go over there because I'm not afraid anymore. I know I can manage myself, right?

So there are no quick fixes that are lasting, that aren't going to fall off relative to the mental part of golf or the relative to manage your mind on or off the golf course. You can get band aids. So I want you to anticipate, if you want to jump in and do this work so that you can have your expectations in check. That takes work and practice just like anything else.

It doesn't have to be hard, doesn't have to be taxing. You get excited about doing the work, because the more you do it, the more dedicated you are to it, the more you're going to change and become a different person on and off the golf course. How exciting is that? Right? Because if you're the problem, you're the solution. So if I'm the solution, let me go ahead and tackle that and put in that work.

Meaning, if I'm the one that's creating my negative thoughts, I'm the one that's creating my negative behaviors and actions, then I'm the solution. That's a great place to be when you recognize that. So it is a skill that you have to learn. It is not linear. You are going to have ups and downs along the way, but it is going to constantly be moving in an upward trend as long as you keep doing the work and you are never done.

This is a life process. If you want to grow, if you want to have a different experience, if you want to feel better, if you want to create better results, you're never done. So when you can accept that you can jump into the work of managing and learning how to manage your mind, then there's nothing that's going to stop you. But if you want a quick six, you're going to constantly be chasing squirrels.

Whether it's with your full swing or with the mental part of the game because you're going to wake up tomorrow and that Band Aid's going to have fallen off and you're like, now what do I do, my friends? Do you want Band Aid or do you want to learn a skill? Do you want to have something that's going to fall off or do you want to have something that you own?

I teach you in this podcast and all these different episodes on how to do the work. I teach you in all these episodes the skills that you need. You just got to decide that you're going to rehearse it and practice it just like you would practice your golf game. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week and if I can help you in any way, make sure that you reach out to me.

Get on my email list kathyheartwood.com joy all right, I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Bye.