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Learning from Tiger's Struggle

Dear Golfer,

If you watched the US Open this weekend, you know that Tiger didn't make the cut for the first time in 39 straight majors.

You also know that it was the first tournament he played since the tragic death of his father, Earl, seven weeks ago.

Tiger acknowledged how his Dad's death had affected his mindset before the Open. He said, "I was reluctant to come back to the golf course... my Dad and I shared so many memories here."

Tiger is a class act, and we all know he'll be on top again.

In the meantime, his experience is a learning opportunity for us all.

Why We Lose Confidence in our Mental Game

Have you ever heard someone say, "I've lost my confidence on the golf course?

Have you ever said it?

You don't 'lose' your confidence. It's not under your bed, in your car, or at the office.

You suppress your confidence.

Confidence is not a character trait. It is an emotion.

It is within you, and it always will be.

It's just that we don't have the luxury of being able to suppress only negative emotions.

When you unconsciously numb your feeling function to avoid pain, accessing confidence and other positive feelings is difficult.

The Law of Duality: Suppress Fear & You Suppress Confidence

Here's how it works. Emotions come in opposite pairs: a positive pole and a negative pole.

Here are some common pairs:

Love vs. Loss
Joy vs. Sadness
Pride vs. Shame
Confidence vs. Fear

Duality is the act of comparing two things in your mind to give them meaning. We perceive emotions by comparing 'good' ones to 'bad' ones.

Without negative emotions, we couldn't grasp the positive ones.*

How do you know when you are afraid? You've felt confident.

How do you know when you feel successful? You've felt failure.

How do you know when you feel connected? You've felt alone.

When we lose confidence, it's because we have muted our feeling function to avoid our negative emotions. Simply put:

Suppress the negative pole, and you suppress the positive pole too.

Suppress fear, and we suppress confidence.
Suppress sadness, and we suppress joy.
Suppress shame, and we suppress pride.

Steffi's Confidence Battle

Tiger is not the first professional athlete to struggle with confidence after family trauma.

When tennis star Steffi Graf learned her father had allegedly fathered a child in an extra-marital affair, she quickly lost her connection to the unshakable confidence that had been her trademark.

Away from the game for a couple of months, it was during her two-month recovery period that she seriously considered laying down her racket forever: 'For the longest time, all I wanted to do was to get away from everything and everyone, including tennis,' she was to say later. At the French Open final, Monica Seles defeated Steffi 7-6, 6-4.

Steffi's air of invincibility had been destroyed. She admitted that she was not her 'old self' and that her confidence had deserted her.

Steffi was blunt about who was to blame. 'In Paris and Berlin, I did not just lose against Monica Seles, I was defeated by an opponent who was not even on the court.'**

When Steffi suppressed the shame of this family experience, she suppressed her confidence too.

Mental Toughness Exercise

The concept of duality can help you in your mental game. It allows you to realize that not every confidence struggle you have is related to your skills.

When you are suppressing -- pushing away negative emotions -- your confidence may be temporarily shaken too.

The good news is that you can re-connect your confidence with a little effort. The easiest way is to awaken your feeling function by letting in all your feelings... the good and the bad. Soon, the negative ones will clear, and you will be back to your confident self.

I'll talk to you again soon.

Your friend,
Lisa B.

PS: If you haven't taken the time to go and download my online eBook, "Breakthrough Golf! Lower Your Score Now Using the Mental Secrets of Professional Athletes", then I suggest you go and do that immediately.

You can download it right now, and be reading it in literally MINUTES. It will teach you the exact mindset you need to play your best golf now. In fact, the entire first section of the book teaches you how to select the right mental focus for each shot.

You will learn how to work with yourself, not against yourself, on the golf course.

Go download it here:

www.golfgamesecrets.com/sales/

* Ruskan, J. (2000). Emotional Clearing. Broadway Books: New York, NY.
**Heady, Sue. Steffi: Public Power, Private Pain, 1995.