Pavlov and Golf???

In 1901, Ivan Pavlov stumbled across a major breakthrough in human behavior called classical conditioning. Ironically, this discovery occurred not by studying humans, but by studying dogs. This breakthrough paved the way for new fields of study and research into human behavior. Don’t worry I am not going to break into a dissertation on conditioning, but if you are interested I included two youtube clips at the bottom of the page on the subjects.

This week’s blog is just going to be a brief introduction into conditioning and how it affects your golf game. This is going to be a topic which is going to be expanded upon in the weeks to come because of its importance to peak performance. You can literally condition yourself to feel confident in any situation, to replicate the best swings and shots of your past, to stand over the ball with absolute focus, and this is just the beginning. The conditioning techniques I will share with you over the next few weeks will dramatically improve your performance if you take the time to apply them. After implementing these techniques into my game I went from shooting in the high 90’s/low 100’s to consistently scoring in the mid 80's, and I even broke 80 several times. This is how powerful conditioning is and I am excited to share with you how to do it for your game too.

Without even knowing it, you have already conditioned yourself to feel, think, and behave certain ways on the golf course. These conditioned responses are either positive or negative, and can unconsciously dictate the way you perform on the golf course.

Since this is just an introduction this week, let me give you a quick illustration on how conditioning occurs and how it can negatively affect your game. In future blog posts I will show you how to positively condition yourself, but for now let me provide you this personal example.

When I first started golfing I struggled putting the ball. Unless it was a tap in or a gimmie, every time I stepped over a putt I lacked confidence in my ability to make it. Here is what would happen. I would get my ball on the green and when I reached for my putter I immediately started having thoughts of self-doubt. By the time I walked on the green, I had already convinced myself that I wasn’t going to make the putt and I should just try to get it close to avoid a 3 putt. When I would read the green I would second guess myself and doubt my line. Then I would stand over the ball and hope for the best. More often than not I would proceed to hit a bad putt, either too short or way too long, and then I would criticize myself and reaffirm my inability to make a putt. With all this negative energy and doubt, I would step up hit another bad putt and the start the negativity all over again. When I finally got the ball close enough to tap it in, I would walk off cursing the greens and my putting ability which only increased my frustration and detest for my putter. I repeated this cycle of behavior again and again when I had to putt until it became second nature.

It didn’t take long for my mind to link up negativity to putting. It got to the point that even if I was striking the ball sweet and feeling good that just taking my putter out of the bag would make me feel awful and change my state. What had occurred was I had unconsciously conditioned myself to feel that way and my putter became a trigger for negative thoughts and feelings in me.

Once I became aware of this conditioned pattern of behavior I knew I could change it. I started doing pattern interruptions (refer to last week’s blog) every time I grabbed my putter and forced myself to think a new thought, “Put it in the cup!” After consistently interrupting my pattern, feeding my mind this new thought, and making several nice putts things really started to improve on the greens. Now I am putting the ball better than ever and full of confidence.

If you notice that you have negatively conditioned yourself to have doubts with a particular club be sure to use pattern interruptions immediately when pulling the club out of the bag. If you do this consistently I guarantee you will break that old flow of negativity and start making nicer shots. This works. It worked for me, many of my clients, and it will work for you as well.

There will be much more on conditioning in the future but if you want to jump right into a mental development program check out the Mental Caddie available for immediate download at www.hypnosisaudiomall.com . Happy Golfing!

Classic Experiments in Two Types of Conditioning: