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Golf Psychology Newsletter - IS THERE A FORMULA TO SUCCESS?
By Dr. Karl Morris
www.golf-brain.com
Is there a formula for success at golf?
We have tried the X Factor, we have had the Five Fundamentals, the Seven Laws and whatever else the ‘gurus’ have decreed as being the answer in the search for the perfect swing.
As many of you feel immense frustration with the lack of genuine results with the latest ‘answer’ then maybe you could look at another formula, which by no stretch of the imagination do I propose is the answer, but it is one that Phil Mickelson,
the current Masters champion seems to be living by.
THE FRL TRIANGLE
The FRL (Fun, Results, Learning) triangle provides us with a model of optimal experience, be it in Sport, Business or Life.
RESULTS
FUN LEARNING
When all legs of the triangle are in balance, we will experience peak performance. We will most likely enjoy our best results in terms of performance and score, but not at the expense of the other two elements, learning and fun.
If you consider your golf in the early days, you were probably having lots of fun and learning new aspects of the game each time you played. Over a short period of time you probably seemed to improve quite rapidly.
As a person becomes obsessed with results, the triangle gets out of balance. When solely focused on the score, the enjoyment goes down and shuts off the learning filters. The cruel irony is that scores usually get worse.
This dynamic can also occur in the business world. Many of the companieswhich whom we have consulted have a huge imbalance in the FRL triangle. They become SO results orientated that the triangle becomes horribly lopsided. Morale and motivation suffer terribly and inevitably performance dips soon after.
Certainly, the objective is not to go onto the course and clown around, or go into the office with a big grin on your face after losing out on an important deal. The point is that whatever you do, you need to maintain a balance in the FLR Triangle in order to allow the desired results to emerge.
Success in most fields of endeavour seem to be about preparing the groundwork and then allowing performance and results to naturally develop. In golf game, this is not about gritting your teeth and trying to force the score or the results.
It is very important for you to consider your real purpose in playing the game. Sometimes along the way we can actually get lost in the desire for just performance and results. Please understand that we are not for one minute implying that results on the golf course are unimportant, any more than we would say that profit isn’t important in a business. The way that people go about achieving results can at times be counterproductive. The mindset used can actually get in the way of any success that is possible. When obsessed with winning, reducing handicaps, turning professional, etc., we can lose sight of why we started playing the game in the first place. For so many people the joy and fascination of the game seems to have disappeared.
Paradoxically, when we stop having fun and enjoyment our actual performance and results tend to diminish. It almost seems crazy to suggest that to deliberately set out to have more fun on the golf course will result in lower scores, but time again in our consulting work we have found this to be true. I have seen many players who believe that if they play good they will feel good!
Big problem! The flip side of that coin is obvious because if I play bad by that formula I am then going to feel bad!
As a culture we have been conditioned into believing that success is totally dependent on sheer hard work, effort and seriousness. This categorically is not the case. It would be ridiculous to say that you don’t have to put any effort into improving your game. Of course you do. What will happen is that when you get back in touch with your true purpose for playing it will not seem like effort at all. You will just have the sense of really wanting to discover just how good you can be.
Think back to when you first started to play golf. Didn’t it seem like an adventure every time you stepped out onto the golf course? You may not have been able to shoot par, but those days were probably filled with a real sense of discovery. And didn’t you improve at a rapid pace? Each week did you learn something new? If you think about it now, with all the skills that you have at your disposal, golf should be even more of an adventure now than when you first started. Consider for a moment if a pianist could only play one tune. Do you think he would look forward to playing the piano? Yet, if there were numerous tunes at his disposal, so you suppose his attitude might be different?
Do you now play golf like the pianist who only has one tune? Just think, each time out on the course is a different round from the last. This should give you the opportunity for real discovery each time you play. People who continue to excel are the ones who have not lost their sense of wonder, nor their sense of curiosity about what is really possible. There is a freshness about them that is inspiring. Can you say the same? Or is your golf pretty much the same in terms of your approach, each time you play, with only slight variation. The past, setting the example for the future.
Perhaps the past routine has always been to arrive at the practice ground, work on the swing, feeling the need to get this move right and get into a rhythm. Go to the first tee, hit the same shot as in practice, work on the swing some more, hit one or two good shots, while there are many other shots not so good, and some are just downright bad. Now thinking that you must work on the swing some more, organise another lesson, try a bit harder.
Before you play golf next time I want you to answer a couple of key questions:
And as you gain the answer to those two questions I want you to play golf with a commitment to focus on your answers.
If you play golf for fun focus on FUN, if you play golf for the challenge focus on the CHALLENGE, if you play golf because you want to be with friends focus on your FRIENDS.
The key point here is that you will be committed to playing YOUR game not what you think somebody else want you to play.
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