Mental Rules for Golf

Fail Forward like Rory McIlroy, PGA Championship

Gregg Steinberg — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:28:01 +0000

Don’t feel bad about your last mistake or total mishap. Everyone has blundered–including the new king of golf, Rory McIlroy, winner of last week’s PGA Championship. In fact, his was a monumental meltdown at the 2011 Master’s.
He started the final round with a 4-shot lead, but by the time he turned for home on the final nine, Rory became a complete hacker. He hooked his tee shot on No.10 into the trees, and made a triple bogey, From then on, it just got worse, as he began to hit his shots all over the Augusta National golf course. He shot a 43 on the back nine for a score of 80 for the day, ending in a tie for 15th.
But anyone who has reached the mountaintop will admit that success comes not from your failures, but from your response to those failures. Rory is now on top of the golfing world because he learned a harsh lesson about the challenges of finishing out a major when in the lead. McIlroy sheepishly stated of his final round collapse, “I was trying to be too focused, too perfect. I was very insular instead of embracing the situation.”
Out of bad comes good-with the right perspective. Anyone following what has happened in golf in the past year knows that his Master’s fiasco was a valuable lesson. In the very next major, Rory dominated the field to win the 2011 U.S. Open, and again blew out the field at this year’s final major, winning by 8 strokes.
An ancient Buddhist proverb says, “The arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of a hundred misses”. Unfortunately, most people are not willing to take a direct hit to their ego and honestly critique their work. They avoid thinking about their failures at all costs.
The irony is that the more you fear failing, the more mistakes you will make. This fear causes nervousness, which in turn, can diminish performance. However, with some reframing, your fear about failure will diminish and so will your mistakes.
Here are a few suggestions to flip the switch and fail forward:
Depersonalize Failure
Erma Bombeck author of humorous books such as The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits, was not always a best-selling writer. Erma has stated she failed many, many times with one being a play that never saw the lights on Broadway and another was a sitcom she wrote that lasted as long as doughnuts in her house.
Erma said that one of her keys to defeat failure was to depersonalize it. She always told herself: “You are not a failure. You just failed doing something”. This viewpoint helped her to overcome life’s many challenges and bounce forward into being one of the all time great comedy writers.

Create a failing forward journal
Mahatma Gandhi was exemplary in his attitude toward seeing failures as a positive experience. Gandhi saw his life as a set of experiments with each experience helping him find his path to self-realization. He reflected upon each failure, learned from it, shared what he learned with others, and then jumped into his next action with even more vigor.
Do the same by creating your own failing forward journal. In this journal, write down five mistakes you made at an important event (for example, a sales closing, negotiation, class presentation). Then, use introspection and examine why you made those mistakes.
Ask yourself important questions such as:
Why were you nervous?
Why did you not perform at your best?
Why did you have those negative thoughts?
Why did the audience throw you off your game?
Were you focusing on being too perfect?

Just as Rory McIlroy was honest with himself to overcome a total meltdown again, you too need to look inward for a true realization about your mishaps. But this is the first step.
To hit your bull’s eye in life, you must take action. As the legendary coach John Wooden once said, “Failure is not failure unless it is failure to change”.

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Brandt Snedeker has a great mental game!

Gregg Steinberg — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 16:19:10 +0000

Brandt Snedeker is in the lead of the 2012 British Open after two rounds. He once told me that when he misses the green, he sees it as a challenge to get up and down. What a great attitude! We should always see life’s many obstacles as great and wonderful challenges.

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Mental Toughness and the 2012 Olympics

Gregg Steinberg — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:58:58 +0000

Are you interested in the technology behind making an Olympic athlete? Here is an article I contributed to for United Airlines Magazine. It is really interesting!

http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/07/01/let-the-games-begin/4/

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Tiger Woods wins for the third time in 2012

Gregg Steinberg — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:02:48 +0000

Tiger Woods is back. But more importantly, what can we learn from Tiger? Be patient. Trust yourself. Follow a learning mentality and you will be successful. Those are powerful lessons from the greatest player!

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Happy New Year and sport psychology Predictions

Gregg Steinberg — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:33:50 +0000

As a sports psychologist, I believe we will have some great mental game stories. Will Tiger finally make his comeback official? Will a young gun become a true star and take Tiger’s Reigns?
What do you think will be a 2012 headline?

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Rory McIlroy at the British Open

Gregg Steinberg — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:58:52 +0000

Everyone believe Rory McIlroy will run away with the British Open like he did at the US Open.

The problem is that now he has the weight of expectations placed upon his shoulders. With expectations comes much more pressure-with pressure comes tension in the arms which leads to bad swings.

When you have expectations placed upon you, the world will change for you. To help get rid of expectations is to enjoy the journey and stop thinking about outcome. Expect to have fun and you will do much better-If Rory works on enjoying the journey now, he will succeed time and time again.

Dr. Gregg Steinberg is performance motivational speaker who works with Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Pacific Life, and many other Fortune 500 companies. He is also a sport psychologist who has worked with many PGA, NFL and other professional athletes Please e-mail him at mentalrules24@msn.com

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Rory McIlroy at the 2011 Masters

Gregg Steinberg — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 18:25:03 +0000

As a professional speaker this year’s Masters was a goldmine! Rory McIlroy clearly choked at the Masters 2011. He had the lead and was not ready for all those expectations of winning. This shows us that Talent is not enough, but we also need to be emotionally tough and emotionally prepared for pressure. If Rory prepared himself for this type of pressure, he would have been the Master’s champion.

If you have any comments about sports psychology , please contact me at 931-206-1328 or e-mail mentalrules24@msn.com

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Big Ben and the Steelers fail at Critical Time in Superbowl

Gregg Steinberg — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:28:04 +0000

As a motivational speaker, I always state that the test of a true champion is whether he can weather the storm under intense pressure. Big Ben in the last drive of the Super Bowl showed he could not handle the pressure.

To be great at Football or business or any venue , you must be able to be emotionally tough, and handle pressure. The secret is to learn how to make your prime emotional state your habit so that you will fall back into that habit when the pressure comes.

Dr.Gregg Steinberg is a sport psychologist to many professional athletes, motivational speaker, business keynote speaker and leadership trainer and sales trainer. To see more about mental toughness strategies and going Full throttle in your sales, business and life, go to www.drgreggsteinberg.com and see his new book, Full Throttle : 122 Strategies to supercharge your energy and performance at work on amazon.com. To see more about his coaching go to http://tinyurl.com/yemlfs8 and to see his products go to http://tinyurl.com/yjk5q6x

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Emotional Control is Essential for Football, Life and Business

Gregg Steinberg — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:37 +0000

Texans’ Johnson and Titans Finnegan were ejected from the game and both were fined for their fistfighting on the football field. Yes football is an aggressive game, and yes you need to be pumped up, but if you lose your cool, you will lose your game.

Regardless of sport, or situation, you have to have emotional control, especially in the toughest of situations. Whether you are a police office, fireman or professional football player, you need to be prepared for such situations. Johnson and Finnegan do not like each other, and they have had fights in the past. They both should have been ready for this, and if they were, neither would have been ejected from the game last Sunday.

Regardless if you play football or are a business person, you need to have a planned response for difficult situations-Then you will have emotional control.

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Melinda Gates on 60 Minutes-She is a true hero for your motivation

Gregg Steinberg — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:34:52 +0000

As a motivational business speaker, I am always looking for great stories. Here is one: Melinda Gates appeared on 60 Minutes last Sunday. She mentioned that material goods did not make her happy but rather doing good and giving back is what drives her.

The Gates Foundation is planning on giving away billions of dollars to fighting Malaria and polio around the globe as well help education here at home.

She also said that she plans on not giving her children a lot of money in their trust because that would ruin their motivation. That is so true. Melinda and Bill Gates are hopefully starting a new generation of giving as the standard of wealth.

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