FEBRUARY, 2002
You Have
to Believe
I would like to share an email
correspondence about a question I recently
received. You will find the following helpful in
learning to trust the process.
"Michael, I have been using
your mental keys for a while now, and combined
with some focused practice, I am beginning to get
back to my best playing. My confidence has
returned and I am more focused on the
"right" things. I have a question
regarding how to deal with the days when I
"don't have it".
"OK, so here's the question.
I find that I can be process oriented and accept
bad shots most of the time, but when it goes
really bad, like the front 9 I just described, I
need to find a way to "right the ship"
sooner. I know the answer lies in trusting the
process, but the hard cold reality that something
funky is going on with your swing makes it very
difficult. It's impossible to hit solid shots
when your head is in front of the ball at impact,
and subconsciously, when I know I haven't found
the problem or the cure, trusting the process
doesn't work for me. I still hit bad shots and it
is very hard not to analyze and "fix
it".
"I told you once before that
I am a believer of Napoleon Hill's "whatever
the mind of man can conceive, and BELIEVE, it can
achieve". It's a catch 22, when I know
something is wrong.... and I'm not sure what it
is; I can't "believe"... That seems to
be the heart of the problem for me. I have a club
championship match tomorrow. Any
suggestions?"
Ed, The Key is to continue in
trusting the process. The process in this case is
to trust your gut (subconscious) to come up with
the answer for you. Since you are searching for a
mechanical solution while you are playing, time
is of the essence.
What you have to do is
acknowledge that you need an answer to solve your
problem. Second, you must free your mind of all
negative emotions and keep firing away to the
best of your ability. After each shot, if your
mind is free of concern about the outcome from a
scoring point of view, you will be able to allow
your mind to objectively look at the feedback
from your last shot.
It will use the feedback to come
up with an adjustment for you to make. Then, fire
away again. Use the feedback to see if
"that" was the correct adjustment or
what further fine tuning you need to make. Give
your subconscious mind the freedom to fail
(experiment). It will come up with the correct
adjustment much sooner if you are not afraid to
experiment or get frustrated.
Some times you will run out of
time before you solve the riddle and have to work
it out in practice. Other times you will solve
the riddle after only one or two shots. It just
depends upon how severe the mechanical adjustment
is that needs to be made. Your gut will solve
most of your problems very quickly if you allow
it the freedom to find a solution without getting
emotionally involved in the outcome.
So it is just another process
that you have to trust. You have to BELIEVE that
your mind has the ability to figure things out if
you let it do its thing free of all negative
emotions. While you are waiting for the riddle to
be solved, by remaining positive the rest of your
game will remain intact. Otherwise, if you become
negative, it will affect your game and everything
will fall apart. I hope this helps in time for
tomorrow.
"Michael, thanks for taking
the time to respond. You've made my day. I have
enough confidence in my knowledge of the game and
my abilities that I can "believe" I'll
fix it. In fact, that's actually what happened in
the round I described to you...without realizing
it...I just went through my routine...insured my
setup was correct, and used "feel" keys
to "right the ship". At least now I'll
have a process to follow if something goes
haywire today. I'm playing the guy I beat in the
finals last year, so I'll need to be mentally
tough. "
Ed, I am glad I was able to help.
Not that it really matters, but let me know how
you do today. Winning or losing is not the issue.
The issue is what did you learn today to be
better tomorrow. Winning is the result of doing
the process better than your competitor.
"Michael, The good news is,
I won my match 4 & 3. The better news is that
I didn't have my A game today...I was blocking,
pulling, and slicing my way around the
course...but managed to make a few key birdies,
and several scrambling pars, and dropped a few
bombs on the putting green.
"Your advice about trusting
my subconscious to "analyze problems and
come up with the answer" was a key. I
figured out what was wrong, fixing it was a
challenge though because it was 2 things...and
managed to get through the match.
"Another key thing that I
may have mentioned to you previously, is that I
have been blessed with the ability to be mentally
tough when it's necessary. Your TMK, however, has
given me more of a context to recognize what I
was doing right...and wrong. It has actually
added to my mental toughness because I am
becoming a believer in your mental process and I
have something definitive to fall back on. The
more it works, the better it gets...guess my tape
is getting re-programmed...smile"
Ed, Way to go. It's always good
to see the process pay off. What is so great
about the system is that the mind/body feedback
loop puts you in a box. You just can't get away
with any negativity, especially when you are
going for the Gold. All you have to do is be
honest with yourself and make the mental and
mechanical adjustments. But, you have to BELIEVE!
"Mike, I thought I'd let you
know how the final match went. 21 holes...and as
you can imagine, over that length of time there
were many opportunities to "test" your
game and your mental approach. Several "if
you miss this putt...you will lose the
match", and "how will I explain how I
lost this match", and "wow, it will be
great to be the champ 3 years in a row"
" All the things that affect everyone. Well,
your process was my "life preserver". I
stayed in the present, most of the time, and I
dealt with the fear of losing, and I managed to
overcome the "dips" that jeapardized my
goal and I was the winner on the 21st hole.
"There was one interesting
moment that I know you will understand.
Approaching the green on the 20th hole, my
opponent said to me "well, no matter what
happens, we've had a good match, you can't do
much better than extra holes".....I knew
immediately that my desire was greater than his.
Extra holes wasn't the goal for me.....winning
was. It's even similar to one of your examples.
Thought you'd be interested. "Thanks again
for all the sound advice. You'll start getting
some orders from here. Some of my friends are
becoming believers."
Ed, Thanks for the update. I used
our correspondence to help illustrate that these
principles work in combat and are not just
wishful thinking. Many golfers are afraid to let
go of the outcome and trust the process.
Return
to Mental Keys MAIN MENU .....
|
AsiaPacificAmateurGolfers.com is owned & managed by Allied Golfers Network Sdn Bhd.
Copyright 2000-2001. Designed & maintained by 
