Memories and How They Affect Your Golf

The following is a series of tools and techniques that can enable you to really take charge of the way your memory works for you. Make a commitment to use them to find out just how good you can be at golf.

The alternative to using these tools is that you will get to the end of your golfing career and you have lots of memories of potential which have remained UNFULFILLED. As you imagine that now, what would that be like if you didn’t take action on this information?

MEMORY TOOLS & TECHNIQUES The 3 Moments Diary
 

Many years ago, when I spent time working with people who were struggling with life (as opposed to sport), it became painful (but at the same time fascinating) to get to know people who were seriously threatening suicide – to discover the kind of life experience they were having which drove them to the point of making this horrendous decision as to what their life amounted to.

I then wondered that if something so simple as an Appreciation Diary could have such a big impact on people suffering in life, what impact could that have on golf?

Well, I can tell you the results over the past few years for anyone who commits to this exercise have been nothing short of miraculous. And I’m going to suggest to you that doing the same, i.e. keeping your own Golf Appreciation Diary will transform the way you think about your game. As you write out in detail each day your three best moments on the course – it could be a putt, a great drive, the way that you controlled yourself when you had a bad break, it doesn’t matter what it is – so you will begin to change the way you memorise aspects of your game which, given time, will change your outlook.

 

GOLF APPRECIATION DIARY

What happens is this. Each day, as you write out in detail each of the experiences you most enjoyed and appreciated, you SOLIDIFY that experience inside your brain – you literally begin to CONTROL your memory as you decide what is stored in there. I have lost count of the number of people who have said that after just a couple of months of keeping the diary they just can’t seem to remember the bad stuff anymore – and the feeling of self confidence and belief just gets stronger and stronger as they recall vividly the positive moments of each day.

There is a massive difference between TRYING to think positively and actually RECORDING positive events that happen each time you play a round of golf. I don’t care who you are and at what level you play, but each day you go out onto the course SOMETHING good will happen that day.

As you keep recording these moments, the brain rewires itself and then becomes TRAINED to search for uplifting experiences. Not for one minute are we saying you ignore your mistakes, but there is a world of difference between LEARNING from your mistakes and DWELLING on them. Most people are experts at the latter. What you will also find with the diary as you record your peak moments in detail is that you will notice PATTERNS beginning to emerge. You will start to notice the things you do when you are at your best, and these will help you to recognise and identify the INGREDIENTS of your success.

YOUR GOLF – 3 MOMENTS DIARY

• When you arrive home after a game of golf, write out in DETAIL your 3 best moments on the course 

• Make the detail SENSORY rich – i.e. what did you see? What did you hear? How did it feel? 

• Record any of the emotions that you felt 

• Sitting quietly, replay in your mind VIVIDLY the 3 best events from your game

 

Reproduced with kind permission of Golf International Magazine