Why Positivity is Actually Making You a Worse Golfer
We’re told to “stay positive.”
Keep our heads up. Think good thoughts.
But what if that’s actually what’s making your confidence fragile?
Mark Manson said it best in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*:
“This fixation on the positive—on what’s better, what’s superior—only serves to remind us over and over again of what we are not, of what we lack, of what we should have been but failed to be.”¹
When you keep telling yourself “this is gonna go great” — and then it doesn’t — your brain doesn’t thank you for being optimistic.
It just throws the failure back in your face: “See? You said it’d go great, and it didn’t.”
So what do we tend to do in these situations?
We double down on the positivity. We tell ourselves, “No, no, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I got this.”
But all that does is widen the gap between reality and what we want reality to be.
And that’s when that fragile confidence starts to crack.
Fragile Confidence
You’ve felt this before.
You’re 3-under with a few holes left. You start thinking to yourself, “Just keep it together. Stay positive.”
Then one swing goes sideways. You tug a drive left.
And suddenly your brain goes: “Wait, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Now you’re steering shots. Over-correcting. Trying to force the round back into being positive again.
And the more you try, the worse it gets.
The Lesson
That’s the trap of positivity — it makes you brittle when things go wrong. And as difficult as we all know golf is, something wrong will happen eventually.
That sounds pessimistic, but truly that’s neutral.
So instead of trying to stay positive, try staying realistic.
Expect mistakes. Expect tension. Expect bad bounces.
Then when they show up, you’re not surprised — you’re ready.
That’s real confidence.
Not “everything’s great,” but “I’ll be fine even when it’s not.”
One thing for you to work on this week:
Instead of trying to “stay positive” after mistakes, practice staying realistic. Expect bad breaks and off-shots, and train yourself to respond with acceptance instead of forced optimism.
To-do: Stop forcing positivity—expect mistakes and use acceptance to stay steady when they happen.
Sources:
- Manson, M. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*. p. 4
You don’t need empty positivity, you need a process.
Most golfers try to stay positive during a round — telling themselves “you got this,” “just play great,” or “this is gonna go fine.”
But that kind of thinking usually makes you tighter, not freer.
Because the more you need everything to go well, the more fragile you become when it doesn’t.
A better way to play is to stop chasing perfect outcomes and start trusting a solid process.
That’s what a good pre-shot routine does — it gives you something real to focus on when things feel uncertain.
If you’ve ever tried to “think positive” and ended up steering shots instead, I’ve made a course just for you.
It’ll teach you how to build a reliable routine you can return to — no matter what your emotions, swing, or score are doing.
Check out The Perfect Pre-Shot Routine digital course — it’s about learning how to play solid golf even when things don’t go perfectly.