What mental skills do you currently have an awareness and understanding of, and how many of these are you implementing?

The theory is easy, it makes sense, but I am a big believer in the phrases – actions speak louder than words – and – it is easier said than done. The most challenging part of the mental game is not the awareness and understanding of the concepts or how they might be helpful, but actually doing them.

Let’s review the skills that have been discussed to date on iseekgolf.com since the first article earlier this year.

You have learned to:

• Assess the mental demands of your competitions and integrate the mental skills required to match these demands into your practise
• Identify the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that contribute to your ‘A Game’
• Develop a consistent pre-shot routine both in behaviours and thoughts
• Construct your own Course Mental Plan; a system that can be repeated with success
• Set different types of goals and round process goals to ensure that you are working on self-improvement to attain outcome goals
• Understand the indicators of a ‘choking’ and the underlying causes thus leading to an acceptance of anxiety
• Breathe with the purpose of being able to quieten your mind and body on and off the course for maximum effect

Consider the following questions:

• Are you practising your mental skills in your weekly practise schedule?
• Are you training your ‘A Game’ in practise and using it to guide you in competition?
• Are you practising your newly developed pre-shot routine and incorporating into your competitive golf, every shot?
• Are you sticking to the CMP that you have designed, which guides how you want to think and act at each of the four stages on the course?
• Are you using outcome, performance, and process goals to direct your practise and competition?
• Are you able to identify when you are anxious and focus on your processes and emotional management?
• Are you practising your breathing at home and integrating it into your practise and play?

If you can answer “yes” to all of these questions, then that is wonderful news. If your answers are “no”, use this list as a checklist to work through and continue the pursuit of acting on the information, rather than simply understanding it. Review the key areas for you to train and start plugging away at making them an integral part of your game.

To give you an example of how change should progress, I recently spent nine holes working with a player on course, who has never developed a consistent pre-shot routine, let alone a consistent Course Mental Plan. This was in preparation for a major event in less than two weeks time.

The starting point is to explain the concept of the CMP and its importance and benefits. From here we venture into developing the player’s personal Course Mental Plan, tapping into their ‘A Game’ and their individuality.

Once we have started to develop a CMP and can see glimpses of it by the end of the nine holes, it is time to practise it on the range and course, and then take it to competition.

Now, the competition part is where players want to see evidence that this stuff works. The rush to get a result from the time invested is apparent with most players – it is understandable but can hinder the process at times.

If this player has not been committed to anything consistent in the past, then the aim is to increase the number of shots (and thus holes) that the routines are attempted. So, when this player reviews their round at the major competition and estimates that 13 out of 18 holes on day one were pretty systematic, that is both exciting and impressive.

But, when the following day there were only six out of the 18 holes that managed to attempt the routines, the enthusiasm for the CMP drops. However, when you step back and remember that this player started less than two weeks ago and on average they are now just over 50% of their time on the course is aiming to follow their CMP.

The main point here is for players to focus on the percentages; calculate how many shots and holes did you manage to stick to your CMP? Track your progress. The goal of increasing your number of shots that you integrate a pre-shot routine is a fine example of a performance goal for you to monitor!

Despite everyone’s best intentions change takes time and what’s more, progress can be made but then a slip backwards can also occur very easily. Change is challenging and often takes more than one ‘go’ to occur…Be patient and persist with the changes to incorporate the mental skills into your game and you will be rewarded.

To help you understand this perspective, consider an adaptation of Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model:

Pre-contemplation
Not currently considering change: ‘Ignorance is bliss’

Contemplation
Ambivalent about change: ‘Sitting on the fence’
Not considering change within the next month

Preparation
Some experience with change and are trying to change: ‘Testing the waters’
Planning to act within one month

Action
Practicing new behaviour for 3-6 months

Maintenance
Continued commitment to sustaining new behaviour
Post-6 months to 5 years

Lapse
Revisiting of old behaviours: A brief ‘slip up’ or ‘visit’

Relapse
Resumption of old behaviours: ‘Fall from grace’

Continual Self-Improvement

Continual self-improvement is the key. Keep pressing for progress on your performance goals. On this note, it is relevant to consider one of the factors that make the ‘best of the best’ golfers so mentally tough, is that these players have a system that works for them and the toughest aspect is to remain consistent in the pursuit of perfecting their system.

It is much ‘easier’ to abandon their system than stick by it. The human psyche is constantly being tempted in day-to-day life by numerous luring ‘negative’ emotions so to put it bluntly elite athletes need to be immune to these temptations where performance is concerned. I often say it is a ‘super human’ mix of qualities that ‘the best of the best’ performers possess.

The toughest thing about integrating mental skills training into your game is knowing that you are trying to find your most effective mindset, keep it simple to enable repetition, and committing to it regardless of tempting normal human emotional reactions to the unique demands of the competitive performance environment.

This is not easy because if it were there would be many more athletes in all sports consistently achieving amazing results.

So, start looking at your performance goals to track your progress with your mental skills learnt to date. Work hard at them to ensure that they become part of your game. However be realistic with the change process and accept that skills need time to develop and be maintained as a part of your game.

Discipline is the key in ensuring that your mental skills are working for you. It is the cold hard truth but discipline regarding your mental game is so rewarding when you really break through and see how your time and effort invested can reduce the number of shots on your scorecard.

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