At some point most golfers find their game plateaus. Also most golfers think that a major technical swing change is the only solution to keep improving. WRONG! The answer lies in golf psychology.

The reason why you have got to your current level is your love of the game and willingness to learn. Golf psychology research shows that as you develop your physical game, you expect your mental golf game to keep improving along side. However this is usually not the case. At some point the body’s progress gets limited by out of date thinking. These self imposed limits, often led by our beliefs, expectations of ourselves (often our handicap) stop us from finding new ways to improve. We then think we need to go outside to find golf tips giving technical answers. The problem with this is that the answers are usually on the inside, not the outside. As a result, one way or another we end up staying on the plateau.

If you can relate to any of this, here are a series of mental golf tips that will help your golf psychology catch up, find the zone again, and then get ahead of your physical game. Remember that in order to change your game you need to change your thinking, so be honest.

The two most common reasons we plateau are

1. Motivation
2. Belief

1) Motivation

Start by asking yourself what are your goals for your game? By goals I’m not asking you what you would ideally like, but what would you honestly settle with? Honestly? If the answer is your current level – well there’s your reason for your plateau! If you’re not hungry to learn, you won’t! If you’d love to go for the level you’d ideally like, then ask yourself:

• Why is it important to you to play at this new level?
• What would you get from playing at this level?
• What would you enjoy about it most?
• What bad habits that you enjoy would you have to give up to play at that level?
• What new habits that you’ve been avoiding would you have to start to play at this level?
• What would it take for you to not settle for less that what you’d ideally like?

2) Belief

Beliefs underpin our motivations, limiting or empowering us. Common limiting beliefs are thoughts such as “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t deserve to reach my potential”. They will cause your progress to stop as soon as you are on the border of becoming “good enough” or “reaching your potential” – they set the barrier to whatever’s beyond! So consider now what limiting beliefs you hold about yourself and your game. Now ask yourself the following questions. Consider them fully even though you might find them confusing:

• What would happen if you carried on thinking this way?
• What wouldn’t happen if you carried on thinking that way?
• What would happen if you didn’t think that way any more now?
• What doesn’t happen now when you don’t think that way any more?
• What do you know about yourself now that now that you used not to?
• So what do you believe about yourself now instead?
• How do you know?

Changing old limitations brings your golf psychology up to date, changing your emotional state and commitment to shots. It also reduces the need for mental golf tips as you find more answers within. So how do you now experience that old plateau you were experiencing? How is it different now? Developing your golf psychology also allows your physical game to find new ways of learning, so how would you like to learn differently now?

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Love every shot

Adam Sprackling

Mental Golf Coach