Podcast Transcript
How do you stop playing with fear on the golf course? When I was a junior golfer and a college golfer and early on as just an amateur golfer trying to get good enough to turn pro, I played with so much fear on the golf course. And full honesty, I still play with a lot of fear on the golf course. But why? Why is that so? Why do I still play with fear despite the things that I know and the things that I’ve learned and the people that I’ve talked to.
And why do you play with fear on the golf course, despite what you know and despite the logic of it, of there is nothing to be afraid of. And I think that we still play with fear because of what we’re afraid of on a deeper level. Us as humans have core things that we fear and because it’s a human thing, they really have nothing to do with golf.
Thus the whole point here is we can play golf without fear because the things that we are truly scared of don’t have anything to do with golf. There’s nothing about golf inherently that causes fear. So I want to go through the six or seven things that actually cause fear, that humans fear on a base level, and maybe we can see where golf is a source of those different things.
So I look it up, I found a list of the core sources of human fear. So let’s just go through them one by one. The first core source of human fear is a threat to survival. And by definition, that would mean a fear of physical harm, illness, pain, or death. And this is the most primitive layer and it underlies those fight or flight responses. And some examples would be like danger, injury, disease, aging, mortality.
And maybe you can hear it in the words that I’m using. None of these things actually have to do with golf, but our brains, our human brains have this deep core need to survive. So when something is a potential threat to our survival, then we respond with that fight or flight response. So we say fear of physical harm, illness, pain, or death. There’s nothing on the golf course that actually represents these things.
Other than maybe you’re playing with a guy that has the shanks. So you fear physical harm, pain, or death by standing out to the right of them or to the left of them, depending on which direction their shank goes. That might be the only real scenario is getting hit by a golf ball. But otherwise on the golf course, there’s no threat of physical harm, pain, or death.
But on the golf course, what there is a threat of is psychological harm, psychological pain, and the perception of our brains of death. So when we make things really, really important on the golf course, what we’re doing is communicating to our brains that this is a life or death situation.
So let’s take an example. You have your career round going, you’re two under through 17 holes or you’re on pace to break 80 for the first time. And you’re going to the 18T box or whatever it is. Maybe you can imagine a scenario that you have gone through recently or in your past golf career, but you’re in a situation that’s really, really important to you.
You recognize the importance of the situation. So as you’re walking to 18T, your brain is perceiving the situation as life or death because of how important you are thinking that this is. And something I like to say is, for however much you need something to go a certain way is on the other side an equal and opposite amount of how afraid you are of it not going that way.
Let me say that again. However badly you need something to happen is also however much you will fear it not happening. So if you feel on the 18T box, I need to make par in order to break my record, in order to shoot under par for the first time, in order to break 80 for the first time, whatever it is, in order to win this golf tournament. However badly you feel like you need that to happen is also how much you will fear it not happening.
And our whole theme here is the core sources of human fear. So when you set up this kind of scenario, this need fear scenario, that’s to your brain. It’s interpreting the situation as if this doesn’t go the way that we need it to go, then we die. And I know that’s a dramatic jump. That’s quite a leap for our brains to make.
But our brains don’t really know that we’re playing golf. Our brains know that we’re in a situation that we deem as super, super important, a situation where we need an outcome to happen. So despite threat to survival as not a realistic thing that can happen on the golf course, we can create that kind of scenario through the way that we choose to define the situations we’re in.
And of course, the natural way to counteract that would be to decrease the need for it to happen. If we want to decrease the fear that we encounter as we play that 18th hole, we need to proportionately decrease how badly we need it to happen. And of course, this is where acceptance comes in.
Acceptance of the outcome. Acceptance of it’s okay if I make bogey. It’s okay if I don’t break par. It’s okay if I don’t break 80 for the first time. And that decreases the need for it to happen, which therefore decreases the fear of it not happening.
And that acceptance needs to not just be talk. It needs to not just be words that you use because you heard someone talk about the concept of acceptance. It needs to be based on something real. A really good source of acceptance is the journey of long-term improvement.
So you can credibly say I don’t need to break 80 today because I’m on a journey of improvement. Maybe I’ll break 80 down the road someday. Maybe I won’t, but either way I’m on this journey of improvement and my results on the golf course are simply a factor of my journey of improvement. And I don’t need to break par today because I believe that I’ll have another chance because I’m on a journey of improvement.
So that is a credible source of acceptance, which reduces the need for it to go a certain way right now, which reduces the fear that you encounter on that hole as you play. So that’s a threat to survival. That’s that kind of life or death scenario, fight or flight response that we can go through.
Our second core source of human fear is a loss of control or uncertainty. And this could be defined as fear arising from unpredictability and lack of agency. So this is like a really strong one on the golf course because golf has a million variables that can change the way things go.
There are so many things that are out of our control that are unpredictable that can cause a golf ball to not go where we want it to go. And it could be exterior things of course, like weather, course conditions, other people, distractions, things like that.
Or it could be internal things like the sheer difficulty of making a coordinated golf swing, of swinging the stick with a tiny head on the end of the stick around your body and hitting this tiny golf ball with the exact right ball contact conditions, swing path conditions, face to path conditions. All these things need to line up for a golf ball to go where we want it to go.
So that is an extreme unpredictability. And it can feel like a lack of agency. It can feel like no matter what I do, I can’t make this golf ball go where I want it to go.
So that uncertainty is a core source of fear because when we don’t know what lies ahead, when we don’t know what’s on the other side of this golf swing, when we don’t know where this ball is gonna go, that sense of uncertainty can be a real source of fear for us.
So again, and like I said, this will be a theme throughout this episode, the response to this uncertainty or this loss of control is acceptance. It is being okay that things are uncertain. It’s realizing I can’t control everything and I’m going to release control of so many of these things.
What I can control is my process. I can control the practice that I have done up to this point. I can control the practice that I will do after this round. I can control how I respond to this golf shot. But there are such a long list of things that I cannot control during a round of golf, during a single golf swing, during a single putt, that I simply need to let go of these things.
And paradoxically, when you let go of this control, when you let go of this need for certainty, you actually gain a sense of control. You actually feel more in control.
Because now instead of trying to juggle all of these balls at the same time, instead of trying to grab and possess all of these things all at the same time, all of these factors and variables, you decide to let go of 90 percent of them and you take hold of the 10 percent that actually matters.
So by letting go of control of all of these things, you actually gain control and you gain an even higher sense of control when you decide to focus on just this small set of things.
So acceptance that you cannot control everything and instead focus on the things that you can control. That reduces that uncertainty. It reduces that need for certainty, first of all, which reduces this uncertainty and reduces the fear that you encounter as you’re about to hit a golf shot.
So we’ve got, as a response to both these things so far, acceptance as our solution. So let’s go to number three.
The third core source of human fear is social rejection or a loss of belonging. And you could also loop into this kind of a loss of status, stature, a loss of kind of being dropped down a notch on the hierarchy of being a good golfer or who you are in the group that you belong to.
That is one of the strongest sources of fear that we can encounter as humans. This is an incredibly normal feeling for us to encounter. I need to hit this shot well so that I can be accepted. I need to hit this shot well so that I am not outcast from this group. I need to shoot a good score today so that I am seen as one of the good players.
And on a personal level, this is extremely relevant because one of the driving factors across a golf career can be wanting to be in that conversation, wanting to be in that group.
And for a moment, being part of that group can feel incredible. It can feel like you actually belong for the first time ever. But what is fleeting about that is when you have a sense of needing to belong, then you are going to hit every golf shot out of the fear that your reputation rests, lives, and dies on this golf shot.
Your reputation, your sense of belonging, lives and dies on how you played today, on your score, on your finish in this tournament. And that is an exhausting way to play golf.
So what’s our solution? It is acceptance. It’s an acceptance that I might not always belong. It’s an acceptance of other people’s opinions. I don’t know how they are going to think of me. And in fact, they’re probably not thinking of me. They’re probably thinking more about themselves, their golf game, their sense of belonging, their identity and status.
They’re probably not thinking about me that much. But we all want people to be thinking about us. It’s crazy and ironic that none of us are thinking about each other, but we all want others to be thinking highly of us.
So our response, our solution, is acceptance that I cannot control other people’s opinions. I cannot make someone believe something about me that I want them to believe. People are going to believe what they’re going to believe. They’re going to feel how they’re going to feel. They’re going to have opinions that they’re going to have.
There’s this really cool concept called the let them theory. People are going to think what they’re going to think, so let them. Other people are going to do what they’re going to do, so let them.
You can finish a golf tournament, you could win, you could finish fifth, you could finish 50th, you could finish last, and people are going to feel how they’re going to feel, so let them.
That let them feeling is so powerful because now you are releasing control. Again, back to the second core source of human fear. When we accept that we cannot control other people, we actually gain control of ourselves.
So again, acceptance. That is our key solution to that kind of fear of social rejection, that fear of a loss of belonging.
Now our fourth core source of human fear is a loss of identity. And this one is much deeper. Identity, or fear of loss of identity, could be defined as fear that the story that we tell about who we are may collapse.
Some examples might be identity shifts, retirement at the end of a career, injury, meaning you can’t do the things that you once could do physically. So who am I if I can’t do these things? Or you lose your role in work, or you’re abandoned by people. So who am I without these people? Or you underperform. So who am I if I am not able to perform up to the level that I think I could?
So that potential loss of identity as a golfer, when we believe that we are the good golfer, or when we believe that we are the guy who is accurate off the tee, and we go through a bout of hitting terrible tee shots, we feel our identity is threatened.
When we see ourselves as a thing, when we have this story built up of who we are, and something threatens that story, that is a threatening scenario.
So if you’re the good player who always breaks 80 and you’re going down 18 needing a par to break 80 again, a bogey feels like a threat to your identity. And that bogey on the last hole becomes a threat to who you are.
So our solution this time is a little bit different. The word that comes to mind is detachment.
We aren’t a golfer. We are a person playing golf. We aren’t a good player. We’re a person who likes to work hard at this game.
This detachment allows you to encounter any result. It allows you to shoot an 80 and be okay because golf is not your primary identity. Your primary identity is a person.
Your life is made up of many pieces. Family, faith, golf, hobbies, work, pets. And when you detach from any one of those pieces being everything, you can encounter struggle in that area and still be okay as a person.
So detachment allows you to stand on 18 knowing that you could make a bogey, shoot 80, and still be okay.
So those are the core sources of human fear. And it’s no wonder that when we’re on the golf course as humans and we encounter things that represent these fears, our nervous systems respond. Our higher-level thinking shuts down and we react.
But when we accept these things, when we see them as not fear-worthy, we can proceed through our rounds how we actually want to proceed.
We’re no longer avoiding things. We’re pursuing what we want. We’re not avoiding bad shots. We’re pursuing good shots.
So practice acceptance. Get out on the golf course. Notice the things that cause fear. Feel that fear rising up and address it.
Ask yourself what you’re afraid of. Address the worst-case scenario. If the worst-case scenario happens, can you handle it?
If you can credibly say you are on a long-term journey of improvement, then you can say you can handle that scenario. And when you can handle it, you can play with freedom.
I put out a digital course called the perfect pre-shot routine where we actually go through this. We talk about acceptance as part of your pre-shot routine. So every single golf shot, you are doing some level of pre-accepting the result, kind of encountering, noticing, recognizing the unhelpful things that you’re feeling and then responding to them with acceptance. And that digital course walks you through exactly how I think about it. The kind of evidence-based way to do it.
If you play with any kind of fear while you play golf, dialing in your pre-shot routine is, I think, essential. So to check out that digital course, go to joshnicholsgolf.com/courses and you can find The Perfect Pre-shot Routine digital course there.
All right everyone, thanks for listening to this episode of The Mental Golf Show. Get out there, notice your fear, play with freedom, and I’ll catch you guys next time.
