The Masters - How Great Athletes Start With a Productive Mindset

The Masters is only a couple of weeks away! That really kicks in golf season.

Arguably, the Masters tournament is the king of the Four Major tournaments at the professional level. However, anytime we are out on the course, we can view that round as our own personal Masters experience. That is true whether we are playing competitively on our Youth, High School or College team, or simply playing a friendly competitive round with friends.

Awareness is an important first step in putting our minds in a productive starting point, so we can then move to plan and trust. We have to become aware before we can enhance. That is true for any aspect of our lives - classroom, boardroom, personal lives and the competitive environment.

We have roughly 60,000 thoughts per day, over half of which are negative. Becoming Aware of thoughts is the critical first step towards dealing with them in a more productive manner. If we can get better at Recognizing when those throughs are going through our minds, we can get better at Regrouping and redirecting those thoughts into a more meaningful process.

One strategy that I like to use with athletes is the Traffic Light exercise, borrowed from Dr. Ken Ravizza and Dr. Thom Hanson. The process is simply using the Green, Yellow and Red to understand where your thoughts/emotions might be in the moment of performance.

GREEN LIGHT –

•     Focused

•     Confident

•     Positive Self-Talk

YELLOW LIGHT –

•     Rattled

•     Nervous

•     Negative, Doubt

RED LIGHT -

•     Scared

•     Tense

•     Can’t Focus

As an athlete, you can practice getting into the habit of checking in with yourself on a regular basis, perhaps even using this as part of your pre-play routine, to see where you might be as it relates to the Traffic Light. Once you can become aware and recognize, you can move forward.

If you are in Green, then keep going.

If in Yellow, then it's time to get into a Regroup process, to help focus back on what is important right now. Only focus your attention on the cues to execute that play at hand. Get into a simple breathing process (Like a box breathing exercise) to help this as well.

If in Red, step away and go through the Yellow Light routine, especially breathing. Experiment with different breathing techniques that you feel comfortable with that can lessen the stress in the moment. Find a focal point in the venue to take your mind away from the moment (sign, light, picture). If this happens regularly, then there are some other mental game challenges (Confidence, Self-Doubt, Trust among others) that need to be addressed.

Awareness is a key step number one. Once Aware, you can now start to do a better job of Step number two - Planning. We will talk about that in our next article.

Enjoy the Masters and enjoy getting out on the course!