Where Is Your Attention?
It was a beautiful day in Virginia, and Doctor Bob Rotella and I were headed to a beautiful golf course that neither of us had ever played. After the golf, he was going to give a talk at this particular country club, and I was lucky enough to have been spending a couple of days learning how to better my mental approach to the game of golf. If you are not familiar with Doctor Bob Rotella, he is golf’s most famous Sports Psychologist. He has worked with players such as Phil Mickelson, Keegan Bradley, Fred Couples, and Tom Kite, to name just a few. I arrived in Charlottesville the day after three time major champion Padraig Harrington was there.
Spending one on one time with Doctor Bob was a totally uplifting experience. He has such a great perspective on golf and more importantly on life in general. He really inspired me to look inward and to see things differently than I ever had before.
Today, I want to discuss with you the power of your attention. During our round of golf, we found ourselves standing on the fifth hole which was this course’s number one handicap. It was a par 5 that appeared to have many obstacles, but Doctor Bob didn’t want to see it that way. The man who was playing with us began to describe the hole to us as we stood on the tee. He said, “Well as you can see, there is a lot of trouble out there. Watch out for the water on the left, the out of bounds markers far to the right, and if you hit too far then…” Right at that moment, Doctor Bob stopped him and said laughingly, “Would you just tell me where I should hit it so I can focus on that?!” The man turned back to Bob and said… “Left side of the fairway is perfect.” Bob remarked… “How about I take the line of the red tree in the distance?” “Even better!” The man commented back to Bob. Then Bob got up, went through his brief routine, and knocked another beautiful drive down the left side of the fairway. He only missed his target of the red tree by less than five yards but because he picked such a small target, he was perfectly positioned in the fairway.
After the round, I thought a lot about the significance of Doctor Bob’s mental approach to that particular shot. His approach to that shot was really no different than his whole outlook on life in general. His perspective has to do with making the conscious choice to give most of your attention to an image of what you are trying to achieve. There is no harm in seeing obstacles, and acknowledging them, but it is far more important to give the majority of your attention to what you are trying to accomplish rather than being caught up in undesirable results. Now, we can’t always control what thoughts come into our awareness, but we certainly have a choice as to how much attention we give to any one of our thoughts. The best golfers in the world focus on what they want the shot to look like and feel like, they do not waste their energy thinking about what they do not want the shot to look like or feel like.
You may have found yourself on the course noticing some sort of obstacle and focusing all of your attention on the shot you don’t want to hit. The result that often follows when you get absorbed by that type of thinking is a shot that goes exactly where your attention was. The mind was doing its job; we just have to remember to give our fullest attention to the images that we want instead. The power of your attention is amazing. When Fred Couples met with Doctor Bob, he told him that before he hits any shot, he intentionally thinks about the best shot he ever hit with that particular club. What a great way to get set for any shot on the course!
Golf is such a great game because it leaves the player with a lot of time to practice the principle of watching what kind of thinking they indulge in. So next time, be the watcher of your thoughts instead of being the thoughts that arise in your mind. Only give attention to what is helpful to you in reaching your goals on a shot, on your game as a whole, or even in your life in general. Enjoy!!!