Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Justin Rose shows power of golf mental game self talk


Justin Rose (and his ailing shoulder) was featured in an article written by Rex Hoggard on golfchannel.com. In that article was a CRUCIAL aspect of the mental game - what we say to ourselves (AKA self talk) and whether we take ownership of what's negative in our lives.

Here's what I mean. How many times have you heard a golfer (or anyone) talk about "their" slump or yips, "their" problem with their swing, etc. Or they say something like, "I always bogey on the XX hole at XX golf course"

What that self talk does is reinforce to their belief system that they have a problem - that they own it - and we are taught as a society NOT to give up what belongs to us. That kind of self talk makes it really hard to let the problem go, even if we want to.

The article referred to Justin Rose's "ailing shoulder" but Rose was quoted as referring to it as "a little something."

That reinforces, to him, that it is just a bump in the road he'll get past, not a roadblock.

You can do this, too. Be aware of your language, and even one simple change: "my" to "the" can send a powerful message to yourself, because our mind is always listening. That's an important part of the mental game and it's easy to do.
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Here's the link to the golfchannel.com article

Please comment to tell me what you think or contact me with any questions.