Your Golfing Future Is In Your Hands...
Well, Your Thoughts Actually.
Your self image, the way that you see or feel about yourself, is in continual change.
For most of us that change is slow and we hardly notice it from day to day although occasionally something happens in our life that is quite a momentous event and this can have an immediate effect on who we think we are.
Big moment's aside, you are still slowly evolving and changing your self image by many small things you do on a daily basis.
Living in the future is any time you imagine an event that has not yet happened, like thinking about how badly you are going to play in the upcoming medal because your last few games have been a disaster.
Living in the future is when you are stood over a putt thinking about the consequences if you miss it, like "I have to hole this putt just to halve the hole.
If I miss this then the match is lost!" Living in the future is when you are stood on the T and your opponent has just driven it perfect and long down the middle and you are just thinking; "Don't slice it now! I must get this in the fairway!" While these examples of living in a negative future are certainly going to be unhelpful to your game on the day, and you are best advised to stop them, there are also insidious thoughts that will program your everyday self image and undermine your performance every time.
For example, if you keep recalling times you have driven the ball badly and forget or discount any time your drove the ball well then eventually you are going to believe you are a mediocre or poor driver of the ball.
If you keep bombarding your mind with negative thoughts of aspects of your performance, eventually they will "stick" and without realising it you will have programmed a belief into your unconscious which now adds to your self image.
Belief and confidence go a long way to good performance and conversely poor beliefs and the lack of confidence that follows the negative thinking, will end up producing the poor, un-confident performance you have been "thinking" about over an over.
Now it gets really nasty because here's what happens.
Because you have been thinking badly you get bad performance and then this bad performance gives you the "proof" that you are correct about your negative thoughts, which reinforces the whole negative cycle.
Now you really have developed a deep belief, backed by evidence, that you are poor at...
(Add your negative belief here) Now you know how constant negative thinking can reprogram your unconscious belief system and form a negative self image of yourself, you also know what to do to counter it.
Stop your thoughts when-ever you catch them thinking negatively about any aspect of your performance.
Say "CANCEL" to yourself when it happens.
Saying it out loud is really powerful but can get you some strange looks in the street so you may want to keep it internal if you are in public.
Once you have cancelled the though replace it with a positive image of yourself performing the task well.
Keep insisting on thinking positively about yourself even if you don't believe it for a while.
Amazingly you will eventually find that you start to feel better about yourself and if you keep doing it you will start to believe in yourself.
Guess what happens next? Because your are starting to believe in yourself and your confidence is growing, your performances will get better and this will give you the "Proof" that you really can do this...
(enter your desired belief here) So you can use living in the future in a negative fashion to undermine your own self image and performance or you can live in positive empowering futures that will program you for best performances.
I am just a little curious and wondering which one you would rather do from now on? Wishing you FIR's, GIR's & Blue Skies.
Well, Your Thoughts Actually.
Your self image, the way that you see or feel about yourself, is in continual change.
For most of us that change is slow and we hardly notice it from day to day although occasionally something happens in our life that is quite a momentous event and this can have an immediate effect on who we think we are.
Big moment's aside, you are still slowly evolving and changing your self image by many small things you do on a daily basis.
Living in the future is any time you imagine an event that has not yet happened, like thinking about how badly you are going to play in the upcoming medal because your last few games have been a disaster.
Living in the future is when you are stood over a putt thinking about the consequences if you miss it, like "I have to hole this putt just to halve the hole.
If I miss this then the match is lost!" Living in the future is when you are stood on the T and your opponent has just driven it perfect and long down the middle and you are just thinking; "Don't slice it now! I must get this in the fairway!" While these examples of living in a negative future are certainly going to be unhelpful to your game on the day, and you are best advised to stop them, there are also insidious thoughts that will program your everyday self image and undermine your performance every time.
For example, if you keep recalling times you have driven the ball badly and forget or discount any time your drove the ball well then eventually you are going to believe you are a mediocre or poor driver of the ball.
If you keep bombarding your mind with negative thoughts of aspects of your performance, eventually they will "stick" and without realising it you will have programmed a belief into your unconscious which now adds to your self image.
Belief and confidence go a long way to good performance and conversely poor beliefs and the lack of confidence that follows the negative thinking, will end up producing the poor, un-confident performance you have been "thinking" about over an over.
Now it gets really nasty because here's what happens.
Because you have been thinking badly you get bad performance and then this bad performance gives you the "proof" that you are correct about your negative thoughts, which reinforces the whole negative cycle.
Now you really have developed a deep belief, backed by evidence, that you are poor at...
(Add your negative belief here) Now you know how constant negative thinking can reprogram your unconscious belief system and form a negative self image of yourself, you also know what to do to counter it.
Stop your thoughts when-ever you catch them thinking negatively about any aspect of your performance.
Say "CANCEL" to yourself when it happens.
Saying it out loud is really powerful but can get you some strange looks in the street so you may want to keep it internal if you are in public.
Once you have cancelled the though replace it with a positive image of yourself performing the task well.
Keep insisting on thinking positively about yourself even if you don't believe it for a while.
Amazingly you will eventually find that you start to feel better about yourself and if you keep doing it you will start to believe in yourself.
Guess what happens next? Because your are starting to believe in yourself and your confidence is growing, your performances will get better and this will give you the "Proof" that you really can do this...
(enter your desired belief here) So you can use living in the future in a negative fashion to undermine your own self image and performance or you can live in positive empowering futures that will program you for best performances.
I am just a little curious and wondering which one you would rather do from now on? Wishing you FIR's, GIR's & Blue Skies.
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