Many golfers who explore mental coaching for golf think that improving their Pre Shot Routine, Self Talk and Focus is all they need to do to make long lasting improvement to their mental game and get better at coping with pressure in golf. But there’s a lot more to it…
Although these are important, these more “cognitive” in the moment mental game strategies, will only get you so far. The problem is that when we encounter high emotion, it hijacks the thinking brain, making it harder to use these strategies.
If you are to become your very best, you must go deeper into the “subconscious” and change the automatic programming that determines how good you are at coping with pressure in golf.
Most of our processes are Subconscious
Neuroscientists say that over 90% of our mental, emotional and physiological processes are subconscious, or automatic. In other words, we don’t have conscious control over most of our thinking and feelings, in the moment. Day by day, we are running programs that human nature thinks is best for us, based on our past experiences and conscious decisions up to that point (what we’ve allowed ourselves to think). The reason for this is that the subconscious mind is much faster and uses less energy than the conscious mind, so if we put these “thinking patterns” to memory, we are more efficient, especially when threatened.
The subconscious is where all our automatic programs live and it’s continually evolving and adding new ones every day, by taking new information on board. Its primary role is to keep us safe and alive, which it does by running our physiological (bodily) processes and reminding us of where danger could lie, by triggering the “Fear Response”.