Fore Thought
By: Bob Skura on 09/28/09 04:52 PMPut yourself in the position of having just lost the Tour Championship, and the Masters in the same year after holding leads on the last day. The two shot margin you blew on the 72nd hole of the 1996 PGA is also lurking in the back of your mind. Of course you’ve had a great 14-win career on the PGA Tour but the fact that the big ones have always slipped away haunt you. What to do?
Kenny Perry says that while he’s been disappointed he’s also been blessed with a great career and a lifetime of rich experiences. While that down-home attitude is admirable it doesn’t prepare him to close the deal should a major opportunity arise again. What he needs is what I call Equilibrium Therapy - a concept based on psychological principles and one that can be molded into a skill to handle a wide variety of issues.
Here are Kenny’s essential ABC’s:
A. Notice the difference between how he felt in the pressure of events that he has not handled well and those that he's been able to handle effectively. B. Pick a number on a scale of one to ten, with one being a feeling of total composure and ten being a feeling of total anxiety with respect to how he felt at the time when his game started going south on Sunday. This is called calibrating. C. Walk away. Make no decisions. When the situation reappears recalibrate each time. That’s all. A suggested course of action will be apparent in due time.
Why does Equilibrium Therapy work?
Our bodies and minds are designed to find peaceful equilibrium in order to sustain healthy physical and mental lives. They will always seek this out given the chance. Physically for example, our bodies rally white blood cells to repair a skin cut, Similarly our minds will sort through its catalogue of tricks to solve threats to our mental health.
How does Equilibrium Therapy work?
A. The first of Kenny’s ABC’s is to simply create awareness. High performers are always acutely aware of the conditions surrounding them as well as their own internal responses. Trauma however, blocks one’s sensory perception leaving one in shock and unaware of the conditions that caused the accident. So Kenny needs to retrace his steps.
B. The value of calibration is based on lessons learned from B. F. Skinner, the famous behavioral psychologist. Whatever one measures tends to get better. That’s why better golfers measure greens hit, birdies and putts. The very act of doing so improves performance and in this case the performance Kenny wants to improve is his response to stress.
C. Figuratively speaking Kenny’s final step is to walk away. Why? Well, everyone knows it’s bad to pick a scab. Walking away after calibrating the stressor allows the mind to heal its mental scabs over time. Simply do the calibration each time the stressor shows up and one’s inner mental resources will do their behind-the-scenes work to mend the problem.
Of course you may doubt the validity of this advice. That’s fair enough, but can you afford to pass up this technique and fall behind competitors who do decide to use it? You can’t. So here’s a low risk way to test Equilibrium Therapy and satisfy your curiosity.
Pick any issue you want to deal with. It could be work or school anxiety, shyness, anger, irritability or even pressure putts. Go through Kenny’s essential ABC’s recording your responses over the course of at least six to ten incidents. Ideally those incidents should take place over a few weeks. In time you’ll notice that your calibrations are moving in a positive direction, which is a reflection that intuitively your mind is finding a way to solve the issue you presented to it. When that happens and you understand the process you’ll have an invaluable skill that you can transfer to your golf game whenever you need to.
Bob Skura is the author of the award-winning book, How Great Golfers Think – Perfecting Your Mental Game. For more information visit: www.howgreatgolfersthink.com
