How to increase your golf confidence by taking control of your thoughts and actions

In order to play your best golf, you need to play from a place of confidence. This article will explore the areas of thoughts and actions that can either increase or decrease confidence depending on your choice.

1. The first area is the belief in your skill, swing to get desired results. There are unlimited ways to swing, chip and putt to get the job done. There are quirky swings like Jim Furyk and picture perfect swings like Adam Scott. Their method of hitting the golf ball are completely different yet they are both are top in the world golf professionals. Whether you think you do or not, everyone has a method/swing to hit the ball at their intended target. To perform YOUR best, it is not about how good your skill set is, but your belief in utilizing your swing/stroke to get the job done.

2. Positive self-talk is the next crucial element to increase confidence. You must choose to conduct positive self-talk for maximum confidence. It is easy to talk positive if you have just had a great hole or round, but it is more important to continue positive self-talk when you’ve had a bad round, hole or shot. How you talk to yourself is 100% your choice. Keep it positive.

3. Visualize, visualize, visualize. Visualization is a super powerful tool you can use to play with confidence. It is so powerful, there are studies that show changes in the body just from mental rehearsal visualization. For instance, subjects only visualizing doing bicep curls actually had an increase in the size of their biceps! You should always commit to visualizing every single shot in your pre-shot routine. You also need to visualize in your minds eye your intended target WHILE you are executing the shot. I’ve also instructed students to play whole rounds just in their mind. Or practice, hit balls or putts while falling asleep, instead of counting sheep. You can guarantee arriving at the golf course more confident if you do this visualizing the night before!

4. Trust in your potential. Your potential may show up and it may not in any given golf shot. However, performing with trust rather than doubt or fear, will definitely increase the chances you will play from your full potential. Doubt and fear will always hinder your potential. Trust gets you in a state of mind to be able to perform your best.

5. Set some goals and tasks. A goal by itself will not increase your confidence. Say you set a goal to win the tournament, break 80 or become a single digit handicap? You feel more confident just by saying that or writing it down? Probably not. However, setting smaller goals (tasks) that act as a road map to your goal and seeing them through, DO increase your confidence. Some ideas of task goals are:1) Take a lesson from a coach once per week,
   2) Practice putting drills 10-20 minutes per day,
   3) Hit balls 3 times per week,
   4) Spend 30 minutes chipping twice per week.

   These task goals should be focused on the process and not any result. Always evaluate your task goals to ensure they are still on the road to reaching your long-term goal. Write them down and hold yourself accountable. Try not to overwhelm yourself, start small. For instance, don’t go from never or rarely practicing to practicing 2 hours a day. Start with less than 30 min a few times a week and go from there. Always edit and change your task goals to keep in line with your long-term goals