Get Back on Track With Every Stroke in Golf and in Life

When in the course of human events you perform at less than your ability and fall into a destructive cycle of doubt about your skill, which makes you feel worse and thus perform even more badly, how do you escape? At a recent golf tournament I witnessed my son doing just that. And he even knows about mental resilience. What I realized from silently watching from the sidelines is that in golf, you have a chance to restore your equilibrium and get back on track with each and every stroke. When you know the formula, you can apply a similar strategy in many other areas of life as well. 

You may know that on average, an airplane is said to be off-course 87% of the time from take-off to successful landing at its desired destination. How can that be? The pilots simply keep micro adjusting the trajectory when the plane veers too far off the direct line of travel towards our final stop.  

We can also use this principle in life, and even in a golf game. When an event happens, we get feedback. So a long drive that ends up in the middle of the fairway gives you feedback, in the form of your positive feelings and applause from the crowd, that your skill got you well-positioned. A long drive into the woods off to the side elicits groans and the need to dig deeper into your bag of tricks for both the rules that apply to this situation and for escape strategies. At this point you want to both minimize strokes as well as avoid penalty points. 

Once back in play, each stroke is an opportunity to take another excellent shot…or not. In sports and life where your attitude and mental fitness have a huge impact on whether your skill delivers through your performance muscles or not, it behooves you to return to your desired trajectory line, just like that airplane. All too often though, without sufficient training, the mounting emotional stress, frustration and humiliation serve to hold tension in our body and brain, thus throwing off our game. We need a way to release these feelings and readjust, fast. 

I use a mnemonic trigger to remind me to reset from any point in time- the now of the moment- towards what I want to have happen. Well, when I remember to…. because when the stakes are high and the pressure is on, without a default to that trigger, I too can fall into the negative cycle of defeat. I use the Mind Chi BEAT trigger, where B stands for Body, E stands for Emotions, A stands for Actions and T stands for Thinking. I notice my current state of being, and on my left (or non-dominant) hand touch my thumb to my index finger to assess how my Body feels, middle finger to notice my current Emotions, ring finger to note current Actions and pinky to take note of my Thinking right now. 

With a few deep breaths for relaxation, I move to my right index finger and choose my desired feelings in my Body now, like relaxed concentration; move to my middle finger and choose positive and helpful Emotions now, like feeling confident in my ability; move to the ring finger to choose helpful Actions now, like taking deep breaths and maintaining good posture; then touch my thumb to my pinky and choose Thinking that will support my goals- like a reminder to focus, remember my stance, and stay cool. 

Now it’s your turn. Just try it. Once you have the Mind Chi BEAT trigger embedded, you can move quickly to the right/dominant hand and instantly trigger your desired BEAT when under pressure. It becomes a near automatic, yet still conscious refinement of your state of being. This leaves you in control of your state of play by getting you back on track at any single moment, with any single stroke. And that adds up to a great game- of golf or of life.