Labeling Your Situation You Face
The following is an excerpt from my 12 session; 3 month golf instruction program How To Play Your Most Consistent Golf.
It is natural for any golfer to have what I call; ‘friction feelings’ when they play. These situations or outcomes that occur to every golfer, happen when they are experiencing poor outcomes; shots that they prefer not to see, such as a shot in the bunker, a lake or the trees off the fairway.
To become a more consistent golfer we must begin to control our conscious thoughts, expectations and reactions to ANY situation we have when we play. You as a golfer have complete control over the reality you see; thus your conscious mind’s projection of feelings and expectations of any shot you attempt will greatly affect the outcome you see.
Most golfers do not recognize this or understand this principle and thus they go about their round of golf playing by default or auto pilot, or they are attached to the way they are swinging; for many their constant focus on their swing prevents them from even having any intent of where they really want their next shot to go.
You may be one of those golfers who at times is so wrapped up in your swing mechanic or technique that you hardly even pay attention to WHERE you want the ball to go. I have given many playing lessons with hundreds of players and I am amazed at how many do not have any focus or intent of where they wish to see their shot land. Too many golfers do not have dominant intentions of what shot they wish to create; their dominant intent or focus is on what type of swing they will make.
As I state in my book Awakening to Golf; If you have no intent of where you want the ball end up, how will it ever get there?
The current reality you see any time you play is REFLECTING back at us the previous thoughts, emotions and beliefs we have about ourselves. These reflected realities are shaped by our emotions we have toward a shot such as fear or fearing a shot go into the water hazard. Almost any golfer can associate past situations where they had fear of hitting a ball into a lake; and presto, there it sails into the wet water. For any golfer these bring about additional emotions of frustration, anger and disappointment.
All of these emotional moments of frustration, anger or disappointment come to us on the golf course because we have the habit of Labeling Our Experiences when we play. Golfers are generally used to labeling their experience of having just made a 5 foot putt for par as a ‘good experience’ when playing.
Conversely, if a golfer hits their approach shot to the green into a bunker and it gets buried under the lip of that bunker; this is usually is labeled as a poor outcome or bad break.
Golfers give power to their circumstances and that power can be seen as good or bad in their eyes and when they do, they label this situation with how they ‘feel’ about their circumstance they now face as they play.
As you can begin to see now, it is our feelings or reactions to situations that are at the root of any situation when we play. Because as golfers we have labels of situations and these labels carry meanings to them for us when we play. These meanings have emotional charges that greatly affect how we perceive our reality on the golf course.
To clarify this point for you, let’s assume I have a glass of water in front of you on your desk or counter as you are reading this. It is a simple glass of water, nothing really special, just a glass of water. As you notice and see this glass of water it probably does not have much meaning to you, hey it is just water. You have very little reaction to it, because it does not mean anything to you at the present moment.
Now let’s place you out on the golf course, on the side of the 3rd hole and you find your golf ball you just hit under a tree, with low branches overhanging the ball; that just sits there as you walk up to it looking to find it. There it is, a golf ball, your golf ball, sitting under a tree – awaiting you to hit it again toward the hole.
As you can guess, your reaction to you observing your golf ball sitting under a tree is going to bring about a much different emotional response for you than you observing a glass of water on your desk or counter.
How we see reality when we play will in our eyes, or perception, always be affected by what meaning we give that reality or as I call it; how you ‘label your experience or circumstance’ when you play.
This ‘labeling’ we do is all based on our reaction to how we FEEL when we are encountering situations when we play.
Investigate why you are reacting this way, take a look inside yourself and try to determine why do you react to certain situations you have when you play in the way that you do?
When you focus on the idea of lack, you start to feel bad. This is not a random thing that just happens to golfers.
When we hit a ball off the fairway and under a tree golfers of all levels will react and for sure have some kind of a charged reaction they feel when they find their golf ball. Of course some players allow this situation to bother them more than others and if you are an inconsistent golfer you may be one that reacts in a poor, lack belief way. You may think you lack the ability to recover from that spot and your situation is bad. You feel bad as you sit there looking at your shot under the tree.
Society will tell you that the feeling you have is because your ability to play is limited or you have not practiced enough. Your golf swing is not good enough, perhaps your pre-programmed mind is telling you again that you are a choker. You are choking again and you feel bad or like crap BECAUSE your ball sits where it is.
Society and golfers of all levels take this wrong, this feeling you have is actually almost a mechanical mechanism that is designed to snap you back to the truth of “you have infinite opportunities to create any shot” and this negative feeling is telling you that you are out of alignment with the True Nature of who you are. You are a creator who is only limited in your ability to create good golf shots, if you believe you are.
When you feel bad you are then using an aspect of consciousness, you are focusing on a thought form that is focused in Lack, lack of ability to create the shot you desire. Lack of seeing your preferred outcome. You have thus succumbed to previous programming of all those around who feel and think this is normal. This is not normal!
Regain more and more of your innate free will when you play golf by not succumbing to your past habits. These past habits we all have and they show up when we play by how we constantly label situations as good or bad on a golf course or practice range.
When a situation arises on the golf course and you find that you have hit a bad shot, or worse yet ‘several bad shots in a row’ and you have a bad feeling about that experience you are having, you need to investigate why are you having this feeling? Do you believe you are creating these bad shots because your slice has not gone away? Do you believe that if you keep hitting bad shot after bad shot that you would look like a choker on the course? Many golfers ‘fear’ looking bad in front of other club members or business associates. Many golfers have deep rooted beliefs that if they are seeing poor shots occur, then they will look bad, they will feel less than they wish to. Their fear or lack of a better situation occurring, is causing a reaction to their situation.
That reaction they are not really aware is occurring because this is the natural built in mechanism by the universe to ‘wake you up’ and alert you to the fact that you have lost your focus. You have labeled your situation in such a way that you become the victim. This is not the case, but it is the case if you look at it like you have previously done and you keep looking at that way over and over.
Don’t run from this experience, I am not suggesting that. But do not also continue to beat the drum in these situations and act like you are the victim of your circumstance.
Do not continue to feel bad and stay in your pre-conceived thoughts of limited potential. Be committed to find a way to change the way you are thinking and looking at the situation. Find a way to change how you label these situations, and then work toward finding better and better thoughts and feelings to help you here.
Suggested Exercise:
The next time you play a round of golf notice how many times you do actually label situations you face? Consider what this may look like:
In fact I would bet you make it over 50 in a 4:30 minute round of golf. At some point early in the round you will notice it is almost Comical how much you do label your situations as you play.
Notice how many times you label situations you have when you play the next time you are on the course.
Have fun with the exercise, learn from it and try to improve the next time you play.
It is natural for any golfer to have what I call; ‘friction feelings’ when they play. These situations or outcomes that occur to every golfer, happen when they are experiencing poor outcomes; shots that they prefer not to see, such as a shot in the bunker, a lake or the trees off the fairway.
To become a more consistent golfer we must begin to control our conscious thoughts, expectations and reactions to ANY situation we have when we play. You as a golfer have complete control over the reality you see; thus your conscious mind’s projection of feelings and expectations of any shot you attempt will greatly affect the outcome you see.
Most golfers do not recognize this or understand this principle and thus they go about their round of golf playing by default or auto pilot, or they are attached to the way they are swinging; for many their constant focus on their swing prevents them from even having any intent of where they really want their next shot to go.
You may be one of those golfers who at times is so wrapped up in your swing mechanic or technique that you hardly even pay attention to WHERE you want the ball to go. I have given many playing lessons with hundreds of players and I am amazed at how many do not have any focus or intent of where they wish to see their shot land. Too many golfers do not have dominant intentions of what shot they wish to create; their dominant intent or focus is on what type of swing they will make.
As I state in my book Awakening to Golf; If you have no intent of where you want the ball end up, how will it ever get there?
The current reality you see any time you play is REFLECTING back at us the previous thoughts, emotions and beliefs we have about ourselves. These reflected realities are shaped by our emotions we have toward a shot such as fear or fearing a shot go into the water hazard. Almost any golfer can associate past situations where they had fear of hitting a ball into a lake; and presto, there it sails into the wet water. For any golfer these bring about additional emotions of frustration, anger and disappointment.
All of these emotional moments of frustration, anger or disappointment come to us on the golf course because we have the habit of Labeling Our Experiences when we play. Golfers are generally used to labeling their experience of having just made a 5 foot putt for par as a ‘good experience’ when playing.
Conversely, if a golfer hits their approach shot to the green into a bunker and it gets buried under the lip of that bunker; this is usually is labeled as a poor outcome or bad break.
Golfers give power to their circumstances and that power can be seen as good or bad in their eyes and when they do, they label this situation with how they ‘feel’ about their circumstance they now face as they play.
As you can begin to see now, it is our feelings or reactions to situations that are at the root of any situation when we play. Because as golfers we have labels of situations and these labels carry meanings to them for us when we play. These meanings have emotional charges that greatly affect how we perceive our reality on the golf course.
To clarify this point for you, let’s assume I have a glass of water in front of you on your desk or counter as you are reading this. It is a simple glass of water, nothing really special, just a glass of water. As you notice and see this glass of water it probably does not have much meaning to you, hey it is just water. You have very little reaction to it, because it does not mean anything to you at the present moment.
Now let’s place you out on the golf course, on the side of the 3rd hole and you find your golf ball you just hit under a tree, with low branches overhanging the ball; that just sits there as you walk up to it looking to find it. There it is, a golf ball, your golf ball, sitting under a tree – awaiting you to hit it again toward the hole.
As you can guess, your reaction to you observing your golf ball sitting under a tree is going to bring about a much different emotional response for you than you observing a glass of water on your desk or counter.
How we see reality when we play will in our eyes, or perception, always be affected by what meaning we give that reality or as I call it; how you ‘label your experience or circumstance’ when you play.
This ‘labeling’ we do is all based on our reaction to how we FEEL when we are encountering situations when we play.
Investigate why you are reacting this way, take a look inside yourself and try to determine why do you react to certain situations you have when you play in the way that you do?
When you focus on the idea of lack, you start to feel bad. This is not a random thing that just happens to golfers.
When we hit a ball off the fairway and under a tree golfers of all levels will react and for sure have some kind of a charged reaction they feel when they find their golf ball. Of course some players allow this situation to bother them more than others and if you are an inconsistent golfer you may be one that reacts in a poor, lack belief way. You may think you lack the ability to recover from that spot and your situation is bad. You feel bad as you sit there looking at your shot under the tree.
Society will tell you that the feeling you have is because your ability to play is limited or you have not practiced enough. Your golf swing is not good enough, perhaps your pre-programmed mind is telling you again that you are a choker. You are choking again and you feel bad or like crap BECAUSE your ball sits where it is.
Society and golfers of all levels take this wrong, this feeling you have is actually almost a mechanical mechanism that is designed to snap you back to the truth of “you have infinite opportunities to create any shot” and this negative feeling is telling you that you are out of alignment with the True Nature of who you are. You are a creator who is only limited in your ability to create good golf shots, if you believe you are.
When you feel bad you are then using an aspect of consciousness, you are focusing on a thought form that is focused in Lack, lack of ability to create the shot you desire. Lack of seeing your preferred outcome. You have thus succumbed to previous programming of all those around who feel and think this is normal. This is not normal!
Regain more and more of your innate free will when you play golf by not succumbing to your past habits. These past habits we all have and they show up when we play by how we constantly label situations as good or bad on a golf course or practice range.
When a situation arises on the golf course and you find that you have hit a bad shot, or worse yet ‘several bad shots in a row’ and you have a bad feeling about that experience you are having, you need to investigate why are you having this feeling? Do you believe you are creating these bad shots because your slice has not gone away? Do you believe that if you keep hitting bad shot after bad shot that you would look like a choker on the course? Many golfers ‘fear’ looking bad in front of other club members or business associates. Many golfers have deep rooted beliefs that if they are seeing poor shots occur, then they will look bad, they will feel less than they wish to. Their fear or lack of a better situation occurring, is causing a reaction to their situation.
That reaction they are not really aware is occurring because this is the natural built in mechanism by the universe to ‘wake you up’ and alert you to the fact that you have lost your focus. You have labeled your situation in such a way that you become the victim. This is not the case, but it is the case if you look at it like you have previously done and you keep looking at that way over and over.
Don’t run from this experience, I am not suggesting that. But do not also continue to beat the drum in these situations and act like you are the victim of your circumstance.
Do not continue to feel bad and stay in your pre-conceived thoughts of limited potential. Be committed to find a way to change the way you are thinking and looking at the situation. Find a way to change how you label these situations, and then work toward finding better and better thoughts and feelings to help you here.
Suggested Exercise:
The next time you play a round of golf notice how many times you do actually label situations you face? Consider what this may look like:
- When choosing a club for a shot, you probably label one club a favorite and one not so much.
- When approaching a hard hole after leaving the previous putting green do you state; "Oh, I hate this hole, it is so hard to play".
- When leaving the practice range after warming up before your round and you noticed you were not hitting it well do you state; "Well this will be a interesting round (or crappy), I am slicing every tee shot on the range".
In fact I would bet you make it over 50 in a 4:30 minute round of golf. At some point early in the round you will notice it is almost Comical how much you do label your situations as you play.
Notice how many times you label situations you have when you play the next time you are on the course.
Have fun with the exercise, learn from it and try to improve the next time you play.
