Golf Flow

Instead of obsessing on your score, do what the world’s best golfers have been taught to do. After a round of golf, focus instead on these two questions: “What did I learn from today’s round of golf?” and “How can I continue to get better?” By putting the right questions in your mind immediately after a round of golf, you can condition yourself to become a mastery golfer and immerse yourself in the process of continual improvement known as kaizen.
    Maintaining the mind-set of a mastery golfer isn’t easy, because the more popular ego-oriented thinking is difficult to escape. So prepare yourself for the inevitable—the “How did you play?” and “What did you shoot?” questions and the scorecard comparisons from those you encounter at the course. Rather than falling into that trap of following their line of thinking, be ready to respond with an answer reflecting your mastery mind-set and the mastery questions that you’ve already asked yourself. Without ego or embarrassment, add something like this to your response: “Just as important as what I scored was that I learned a lot, and I had fun doing it. I think my game is heading in the right direction.”
    In addition, start keeping a golf journal. In that journal, besides noting the mundane details of the round, include a section in which you describe the things that you learn from each round. Describe in detail what brought you to each lesson and how that lesson relates to your long-term goals in the game.
    Here’s an example of something worth noting about the journal. A golfer I worked with who was working to diminish his ego habits while sharpening his mastery habits wrote about a conversation that he had with a friend. His friend was describing his round of golf in textbook ego terminology. My golfer realized that his friend’s account was exactly how
he
used to describe his rounds, and he further realized that he did not want to act like his friend or to focus on the numbers. This experience was a vivid example of mastery versus ego golf, and my golfer recorded it in his journal. This experience served as a turning point in his development and sent him on a path to greater emotional freedom in the game that led to a pattern of much better golf over time. The fact that he wrote about it allows us to revisit this experience regularly during our conversations. This kind of touchstone experience can craft a golfer’s psyche.
    After you’ve accumulated several journal entries, review them from time to time to make sure that the lessons become ingrained and become your habits of mind. The golfer who focuses on the process more than the number of strokes taken has a better chance for long-term improvement that will lead to what he or she seeks: fewer strokes taken.
    To mastery golfers such as Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan, and Justin Rose, golf is a game of continual learning and improvement. Innate talent is only half the battle. The other half is layering the proper lessons on top of that talent. The great Bobby Jones once said that he never learned anything from a tournament that he won. We can guess that he spent far more time looking for lessons when he lost.

Bobby Jones understood that the value of any performance lies in its ability to further your mastery of the game.

    Topfoto/Action Plus/Icon SMI
    Jones’ comments aside, you can learn something from every round of golf that you play, regardless of the score. Bad scores or challenging rounds can certainly uncover areas that need improvement; good rounds can provide the platform for taking your game to even higher levels. The lessons are always present in this game, so long as you are diligent about finding them. Ultimately, chronicling your growth and development as a mastery golfer is valuable. Before you know it, mastery golf will become second nature, and you will find yourself impervious to the outcome-based orientations and comments of others.

Chapter 20
Discern Between Real and Perceived Limitations
    The whole subject of mastery orientation begs the question, Just what are your limits? Philosophers long ago and human performance specialists in more recent times have pondered the limits of human capability. During the Enlightenment, a sect of free thinkers known as the Illuminati explored the concept of
perfectibilism
—the idea that human potential has no limitations and that most limitations that people run into are self-imposed. This idea, while seemingly extreme, has been