MIND-SIGHT FOR BETTER GOLF & LIFE

Hello Everyone

1.        Today, I am going to talk about a very different yet aptly applicable aspect in Golf as well as in our daily lives. So lets get started and understand the concept of using minds-sight to gain a unique advantage in our sporting and professional life.  

2.        Hey Folks, Have you ever thought why do best players in the world have a Sports Psychologist on their pay roll ?. I am sure not really. The main reason to have them on the pay roll is that we do not want to confront ourselves enough with the realities and in turn give birth to more conflicts to our fertile mind. So this task of systematic training of their mind to deal with such situations and add an extra high octane fuel to enhance their success rate is often dealt by the Sports Psychologists.

3.        Let us start by accepting that difficult situations and troubling emotions are often inerasable part of our personality within which we start operating and consider them as outer boundaries of causing trouble. But if we look more holistically, you will realise that in actuality, they are shaped by the structure of our human brain top-up with our real-time experiences coming from our childhood days.  This is the precise reason, I have thought of writing this blog to help you to “Discover the power of mind-sight by learning to Reflect, Train and Regulate your emotional & physical responses to the variety of situations .” These situations may arise while playing a round of golf on our favourite golf course or in our daily living where it is expected to manage our everyday situations and uncertainties.

4.        If you are with me on the subject till now  then, I would ask you to take a step back to reflect on your thoughts and try to pin-point the real source of their origin. You will realise that majority of time, it’s our anxiety of expected outcome with non-calibrated efforts coupled with our reluctance in accepting realities make us react in many ways. This is where we lose out our personal edge to other competitors in the golf course or in our professional spaces.

5.        One of the important concept of mind-sight practice which I call it as a first step is to find a balanced Harmonic-Self. Whether you are a strict or a spontaneous in your respective spaces, let me tell you that too much focus on either extreme can make you hard to be around and leave you often unsatisfied. To make you understand in a more simpler terms, let me take you towards your familiar grounds. Do you recollect, while watching a PGA Tour broadcast on the Neo Sports or on Ten Golf TV , you must have heard numerous times the commentators saying this, especially on the Final round – “folks this guy is in his own ZONE today, somehow he has found his ZONE and it seems that other players in the field are only going to be in a catch –up mode”.  Just to sight few examples to refresh your memory – Remember Tiger Woods first Masters win in 1997 by a record margin over rest of the field OR Rory Mcllroy’s first US Open win wherein he has set a 11 shot US Open records. Now, having said that, I have a few queries for you to answer :-

• Have you ever thought what is this ZONE these TV commentators are talking about during these broadcasts?
• How does it come into existence?
• What It takes to make it happen?
• Where does it exist? And How long it will Exist?.
• Can I make it happen for myself during my round of golf ?

 6.       These all queries stated above have one and ONLY one answer –“ Learn to Create a Harmonic Self”. In my words Harmonic Self is a creation of balance between your mental and physical self. This is what I would prefer to call ‘finding your ZONE” . I understand that, it might appear hard to grasp in abstract terms, but do not worry I am going to suggest a process with which you can make it happen in real time. To begin with, start by accepting that its normal to act in a range of different ways. Secondly, aim to create a rationality between your analytic thinking and emotional-self. Thirdly, do not indulge in Over-thinking on some or other pretext.

7. Let me give an example to make it easier for you to imbibe this concept  – Suppose you are standing on a TEE-Box on a PAR 3 hole and  you have taken all factors into consideration before hitting a golf ball and yet  you witnessed an absolutely horrible outcome. What is the most common reaction you folks out there see ? The natural reaction which a golfer exhibits is to blur out all possible abuses and self criticism directed towards himself OR displacement of anger to something insignificant to the outcome. So now Question is what should we do ?  My Suggestion to the fellow golfers is to indulge in a quick re-assessment of your swing by looking at the club face, Impact position, divot and observing your balance in the golf swing. By doing so, you have just made a honest attempt to find out what was different in last golf swing  which has lead to this kind of unacceptable shot ? This thought of re- assessment will act as a catalyst to make a peace with your physical and emotional-self and will keep you more focused on the task in hand rather than spending your precious energy on an unproductive acts. This will also help you to retain confidence in your ability and will prevent the self doubting thoughts to infiltrate your beautiful mind.

8.        Mind-sight is an invaluable tool to train your brain to make a neutral relationship between our two half’s. (Mental & physical self) and increase our emotional awareness. It is basically built on the three pillars and I call it as 3O’s (Observation, Objectivity & Openness).  Although, it is very easy to tell someone to keep their temper /reactions under check but in reality, it can be very tough and challenging to execute and manage it.  So, I suggest you the following to meet unexpected challenges you will find on the Golf course and in Life:–

• Keep a diary where you can record all your emotional reactions happened while playing on the golf course or at work place rather than rationalising them and dismissing them instantly.

• Learn to observe your mind and notice when distracting thoughts pull you away from your focus. Objectively assess them and thereafter openly accept their existence to work on them to fuel your success rate.

•   Remember, all reactions are not necessarily be presumed as a ingrained behaviour of ours , rather they can also be just a fleeting parts of our unique experience.

•  I suggest you to take up Meditational exercises of your liking. Let it be anything it really doesn’t matter as long as you like doing it,  this will train you to focus only on one thing and whenever you get distracted , it will help you to return to your focus quickly.

• Whenever you find yourself in such situations, I want you to imagine a picture of Sea & its everlasting Waves. You will realise that the waves on the surface are more volatile yet the sea surface beneath remain very calm and stable. My suggestion is that even if you react badly to any golf shots/ situations , thinks them as a surface waves and let it go away to meet the shore. This thought will help you to realise that your inner self is actually calm and will allow you to let go the temporarily reactions instead of building on them to spoil your round of golf.  

9. I would always like you to remember my Key phrase- O3R3 or OR33 ( write this on your Golf Gloves or on your working desk :-

• Be OBSERVANT of your actions..
  • Be OBJECTIVE in your assessment.
  • Be Open in your acceptance.
  • Be RECEPTIVE & RE-WORK on them and RE-FUEL yourself with a high octane value to increase your success rate exponentially.

Golf and Life are Akin to Each-other.

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Joe