The Struggle
Something that I’ve struggled with for a long time is “panic practicing”.
“Panic” is probably too strong of a term, but it’s something along those lines. And it could even be expanded out beyond just practice to more generally “going into fix mode”.
You might be able to relate: At the first sign that my swing isn’t dialed I will immediately launch into fix mode, and I’ll try to find it. If I’m on the range, then I’ll take the rest of the session (which I planned to use for putting) and just keep rifling 7 irons and drivers until I feel like I’ve got it. Or if I’m on the course, and I hit some uncharacteristically bad shots early on, I’ll spend the next 7 holes trying to make a change and find it.
Now I’ve gotta question my motive here. What am I actually expecting to get from doing that?
A quote from Golf Beneath the Surface by Raymond Prior really stuck out to me on this:
“Practicing with the purpose to make ourselves feel better instead of practicing to get better is panic-practice that goes past the point of diminishing returns.¹”
And I realized that’s exactly what I do. I go into fix mode not to actually get better. I do it to make myself feel better. It feels like going into fix mode would help. But only very rarely does it result in finding it and actually make me feel better. The vast majority of the time I just get frustrated, tired, perfectionistic, harsh and self-critical, and ultimately worse golf and much less fun.
So what I think feels better, doesn’t actually. And that’s exactly what we have to work on paying more attention to.
The Solution
As we’re practicing or playing, and we start to go into fix mode (or whatever we habitually do) we have to “prompt ourselves to pay attention²” to the behavior as its happening to notice when it goes from helpful to hurtful. We need to monitor how it actually feels and what we’re actually getting from what we’re doing.
For me, it would mean having a plan going into my practice, using timers or ball count to hold myself to the plan, and monitoring how I feel as I practice. And as I’m playing, using a bad shot as a trigger to start monitoring where my mind wants to go, and asking myself how it would feel to go into fix mode, and if that would actually help me get better or just lead to frustration and more bad swings. I have a hunch it’s usually the latter.
One thing for you to work on this week:
Do those behaviors that you know you tend to take too far, like overworking, overeating, getting overly frustrated, going into fix mode, getting overly aggressive, or whatever, but this time pay attention to how you feel as you’re doing them. Catch yourself if you’re doing it to feel better, or actually be better.
To-do: Step out of overdoing behaviors through doing them mindfully.