Thoughts Don’t Hit Shots

You step up on a hole. There’s trouble all down the right. The thought immediately pops in your head “don’t go right”.

This FEELS like a problem. Because you think that it’s going to make you go where you’re thinking. We’ve all heard things like the brain doesn’t know the word “no”. Does thinking about something make you hit it there? Let’s break this down.

The reason why you FEEL like thinking one thing leads to doing that one thing is because it has in the past. But just because that’s happened in the past doesn’t make it true. Have you ever had the thought “I’m going to make this”? well did you make it? Almost never. But because you’ve thought “don’t go right” and you went right after thinking that, you made an association with the two things. One must cause the other.

This isn’t necessarily true. The reason why it CAN make you go where you’re thinking is because when you start to fear a certain outcome, it leads your brain to engage in a fear response.

This means tight, guidey swings. Think of a time when you got startled by something. Were you perfectly relaxed? No. Your body involuntarily tightened up to get you out of there. That’s because your brain is trying to help you survive. Same goes for a perceived threat on the golf course. So when you tell your brain “don’t go right” that signals to your brain that over there on the right is something scary. So we must avoid it at all costs. So let’s tense up to save you from the threat, which means making a tight guidey swing. And this is almost never a good swing. You might get a straight ball. You might go way the other direction to save it. Or you might hit it where you’re trying to avoid. Therefore, your brain makes the association “thinking about not going right leads to going right”.

So we should just vow never to utter the dreaded phrase. Or anything negative. We should say things like “what water” or what trees”. We should ignore all the trouble right? I suggest no.

In fact, I think this causes more problems than it solves. Instead of focusing on the shot at hand, you’re more focused on trying to think perfectly. And because now you’re trying to lie to yourself about the trouble, this undermines your own trust of yourself. And because you’re trying to cover negativity with positivity you’re covertly telling your brain that it’s even scarier over there because you’re scared to even talk about it. And building this threat even higher will make the fear response even stronger. Like shaking up a closed soda bottle, eventually it’s going to explode in the form of more bad shots or even full on yips on that hole or holes similar to it.

So no, the solution is not to ignore the trouble or vow to never mention the naughty words.

Here’s the solution: let yourself have random negative thoughts and hit the shot anyway.

Yeah, I said it’s ok to have negative thoughts. I’m even saying it’s possible to hit good shots while having negative thoughts. You know why? Because thoughts don’t hit shots. You do. You think pro golfers have perfect thinking at all times and are completely clear headed and perfectly positive over every shot when they’re trying to close out a major championship? No, I promise you they’re not.

What pros are really good at is having a better relationship with their own thinking. They allow themselves to have thoughts without letting the thoughts take them with them. The ones with the BEST relationship with their own thoughts realize that just having a thought doesn’t mean anything.

Here’s the bottom line. Thoughts are just random things that pop up in your head based on past experience or trying to predict how the future will go. Thoughts are your brain trying to help you survive uncertain or potentially threatening scenarios. You often don’t even intentionally think things like “don’t blow this round” or “don’t screw this up” or “don’t go right”. Sometimes those thoughts just pop in unsolicited.

So when you give them truth and credit you let the thought dictate your actions. But you can allow the thought to be there, let it be there, and still be present and focused on the shot at hand.

So let’s go through our scenario while having a better relationship with our own thoughts. You step up on the hole with trouble down the right. Because you’ve gone right before, the random unsolicited thought “don’t go right” pops in your head. Because you’re working on your awareness of random thoughts like this, you notice it. And instead of fighting it or trying to ignore it or cover it with positive thoughts, you say “ok there’s that same old thought. Yes, right isn’t where I want to go, but the fear of right isn’t relevant right now. So what’s relevant right now? The conditions of this shot and hitting this shot to the best of my ability.”

Notice how this isn’t negative or positive. It’s coming back to the neutral factors of the shot that actually matter.

Try this next time you play. Notice your habitual thoughts in certain spots on the course. And decide to have a better relationship with those thoughts. You won’t be perfect right away. But you’ll improve with practice.