Mind Caddie Mental Golf Game App
The Mind Caddie Podcast is a companion to the Mind Caddie app, which is headed up by performance coach Karl Morris who has over 30 years of experience working with 6 Major Champions, PGA Tour Players and golfers of all levels.
In this podcast, we share key lessons from the Mind Caddie app to help you improve your thinking on the course as well as interviews with professional players on tour on how they work on their mental game.
The Mind Caddie podcast aims to give you real insight and actionable tips for you to go out and use on the golf course to shoot lower scores today.
Download Mind Caddie: https://mindcaddie.onelink.me/7xjx/znldwgbi
Mind Caddie Mental Golf Game App
Breaking Free from Restrictive Beliefs to Improve Your Golf Game
In the second half, we dive into practical strategies to manage thoughts and focus during play. We'll guide you on how to anchor your attention to your physical movements, a proven method to reduce competition anxiety and fear. Discover how managing your expectations and acknowledging our limitations can alleviate some of the self-imposed pressure in golf. This candid conversation is a game-changer for anyone looking to transform their relationship with their thoughts and feelings on the golf course. Join us on this enlightening journey to freedom and ease in your game.
Download Mind Caddie: https://urlgeni.us/mindcaddie
- Over 100 audio lessons
- Guided program
- Journal templates
- Scorecards to track your game
And I know from reading about some of your work the way that you kind of evolved as a coach. I think if we look back, you know you mentioned Bob and the great work that he did, but I would guess a lot of people listening to this might be under the illusion that you know. The work that you do and perhaps I do is helping people, trying to control their thinking. This idea that we watch golfers on TV and very often commentary will say you know, everything's under control and he's in the zone as though they compare in the head.
Speaker 1:Sure, why is that such a myth, this idea that we really have much control over what we think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question when I'm still baffled at how many folks still assume that there's like a right way to think. And, as you know, people don't come to see us when things are going well. It's always when stuff is going sideways. So people will come and say, hey doc, I need some help, I don't think right or I'm not thinking the right stuff. Can you give me a mindset that can help me play better golf? So that's an interesting question.
Speaker 2:Well, let me ask you something when you play your best, what is it that's going on in your head? What are you thinking about? No one seems to know. It's either I don't know or I'm not thinking about anything. Obviously they are thinking about something, but in that, to me, represents this ideal state of we're thinking, but the thoughts aren't registering Right. We're picking and choosing which ones we'd like to I don't want to say use, but pay attention to and my thought is that there is no right way to think and that you can think anything you want and feel any way you want until you think what you're thinking and feeling is incorrect. And the resistance to what it is we're thinking is what causes a lot of our issues, especially in golf that creates tension, and tension is the killer of golf.
Speaker 1:So it's actually the it's not so much the thoughts, is it Not so much the feelings and sensations? It's the resistance to those thoughts, feelings and sensations that is the issue.
Speaker 2:It is, or the judgment we place on ourselves, you know. So I use this example to that with parents. When kids start playing golf, well intentioned coaches and parents and friends will always say well, when you play golf, you can't get mad, right, and that's very, you know, general, but that's that's sort of the message that people get. You can't show any emotion, you can't get mad, or you have to forget about bad shots. Okay, great Kid goes out, plays, hits a bad shot and what do you think happens?
Speaker 2:He gets angry because he's a human being. So the anger is not the issue, it's the oh, I'm not supposed to get angry. Everyone tells me I'm not supposed to be angry. Maybe I'm not good enough for this game, maybe I need to be more like somebody else, right? So it's the judgment that comes from the anger that causes the issue, not the anger itself. It's getting mad at yourself or getting mad, and that's the example I use with kids a lot and it seems to resonate. You can get mad, but if you get mad at yourself or getting mad now, you've created a problem.
Speaker 1:And I would think for a lot of people listening, that would be a real. There's a real freedom attached to this, isn't it? I know you know for me, this belief that that thoughts are going to affect the way that we play. Every one of us have had the experience. If we play the game, there's days when we felt absolutely great but hit poor shots. Another day is when you don't think you're feeling. You don't think you're thinking well, you're not feeling particularly good, but you managed to get the job done anyway, correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's all the data we need. Right To know that our thoughts don't dictate how we play or don't have to. And that's the biggest message I try to get across to kids, because there's too much pressure, it golfs hard enough as it is, but then to think that you have to think the right way, that's tough. So, and you said the, you said the, the golden word right Freedom. It's liberating to know actually, I don't have to do anything, I can go out there and think whatever I want. This is great. Now, being humans, it's. It causes issue, because when we're uncomfortable, we don't want to be uncomfortable, we want to do whatever we can to get out of that. So it's just a, and I'm always amazed at how many folks you know, when they hear that message, that's the first thought they have oh, that's pretty, that's pretty liberating, that's freeing.
Speaker 1:But it's actually counter to a lot of messages that are still out there, isn't it about? You know, mind mastery and things like that control your thoughts. A lot of the sort of headlines and the sort of writing about this area would tend to leave people down this path of of controlling everything. And is it the case then, greg, that people people sort of dip the toe into that world find it becomes even more frustrating because they end up thinking about the thinking and then kind of and then kind of dismiss psychology and performance coaching as a as a means to get better? That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:You know, and there's that I can't remember I think it was from the movie the Natural. It was a movie about baseball, which we were talking about before, and they bring in a sports psychologist but he's a hypnotist and he's staying there in front of the room and he's, he's holding his little thing and they're all looking. I'm like what a nut job. This guy is right, yeah, and that's, I think, sometimes the, the perception, and there's still a stigma attached to it. I think, because it's so difficult. Nobody wants to or think that they can change what they think, and the message always being that I give the back, I can't tell people what to think. We can't tell people what to think or how to think, but helping them relate to their thoughts in a different way is, I think, what a lot of this work is all about.
Speaker 1:So what would your suggestions be then in that direction, Greg? To help people develop the ability to have a different relationship to the thoughts and feelings. So that's the hard part, right, Because?
Speaker 2:it's not very tangible, there's nothing to write down, there's nothing to do, necessarily. So it can be difficult and some people, especially in golf, want what's black and white, they want something to do, especially golf, fix, fix, yeah, exactly, and that's. Or you could just something to do. And I work with a good friend of mine who's a swing instructor and he always jokes with me that we do clinics together and he'll say here's Dr Carton and people pay him money to help them do nothing or to tell them to do nothing, which in reality is a very difficult thing, which in reality is the hardest thing to do in golf. So you know, I know you do a lot of work with it's Jane story, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's been on the podcast Fantastic in a writer book and I think you know mindfulness practices.
Speaker 2:You know just this our ability to become more aware of what it is we're thinking, because we can't step away from what we're thinking if we don't know what we're thinking. Right, and humans, you know, it separates us. We have this ability to think about what we're thinking, this metacognition. We use that to pay attention, consciously sometimes, to what it is we're thinking and to remind ourselves that what we're thinking doesn't matter. I may be uncomfortable, but the less I try to change my experience, the more freedom I'll create. And, like you said, everyone has examples of being able to play good golf and be uncomfortable. Right, and I don't like a lot of people throw around this phrase of getting comfortable with discomfort. I don't necessarily like that. I think it's more observing the discomfort. You don't have to be comfortable with it, because there's a sense even in that message that you have to do something about it. Right?
Speaker 1:And it's that very act of observation, isn't it? I think it was it. Ram Dass said that when you can observe the mind, you realise that you're not your mind. I think we had Fred Shoemaker on. Oh yeah, fred's been on a couple of times.
Speaker 2:He's fantastic. That's another book I read, I think when I was in high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, extraordinary Golf and Extraordinary Grating. And you know I've related this story before, but I think it's so relevant to our conversation here that you know Fred's, who's been steeped in this for 25, 30 years, hundreds of thousands of golf lessons and golf schools, a great player himself, and he said to me I think it was on one of the podcasts, but he certainly said it to me personally said, said just about the only thing that he's been able to work out about the mind after 30 odd years or 40 years of coaching is the best thing that he could do is just leave it alone.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic, right, just leave it alone. It's a great mantra.
Speaker 1:Just leave it alone. So then you know people sitting in the car listening to this Greg and going along and thinking, oh my God, I've got to leave it alone. What do I do then? What do I put my attention on when I'm on the golf course?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and I think there are things where we can, you know, with people that really want something to do. You know, you use your awareness as a signal, right? A signal that, well, I'm spending too much time focused on what I'm thinking and not enough on what I'm doing. So we shift from thinking to what we're doing and it becomes the external focus, right. And so, you know, we suggest an anchor or something to focus on, a feeling in your feet or feeling in your hands, or just something to place your attention for a split second, and it's really all you need. Now, again, I'm not a huge proponent of these distractions. I think sometimes they can tire us out and it's adding thought. But if it happens organically, I think it's great. That's for the people who really want something to do, right. But even they will see after time like it's, they don't work. The anxiety and the fear doesn't go away.
Speaker 2:We're human beings before we're golfers. We're not immune from being overwhelmed by our thoughts, and I think sometimes it's nice to let people know that whether you're engaging in this type of work with people like you and I doesn't mean you're not going to be overwhelmed by thoughts and hit that golf shot. Sometimes it's not all or nothing and I think that's an important message to get across to. You can only do so much is one of my favorite things to say, and it takes some of the heat off and that's a hard message to get across to athletes and competitors. But there's a lot of things in golf that are very counterintuitive to being an athlete, like trying less, not caring as much. You can't beat somebody. All these things that don't apply in other sports, but in golf they do ring true.