Get Out of Your Own Way – Chapter 5, Part 1.

Chapter 5 – What Does This Mean for Me?

Let’s pause for a moment to recap and summarise the first four chapters.

In the Introduction, we acknowledged the internal dialogue that many golfers experience when they play.

We asked whether understanding the nature of that narrative – investigating who is talking to whom and why – might help us enjoy a better experience of the game, rather than analysing and trying to change the content.

In Chapter 2, we explored the intuition of many golfers that learning and understanding something new is a logical step to become a better player. But does acquiring more and more information about golf bring the fulfilment and satisfaction being sought?

If not, perhaps investigating the nature of the golfer rather than constantly picking apart and trying to rebuild your game might be a more productive line of enquiry.

Chapter 3 identified a factor in the innocent suffering of many golfers. Instead of closely examining and trusting our own direct experience of reality, we subscribe to beliefs acquired from the prevailing culture and from other golfers.

And in Chapter 4, I suggested that one such belief – in an outdated and disproven model of reality could be the major obstacle preventing many golfers from realising their potential.

In the chapters that follow, I will explain why these matters are relevant for golfers. Why understanding the nature of experience might help you get your handicap moving in the right direction. How some philosophical thinking could help you overcome the challenge of improving and allow you to enjoy your game more often.

So What?

When I speak to groups of golfers or coaches, I usually begin by summarising the current state of the game as I see it. I outline the challenges faced by golfers in the way I have tried to do in the first four chapters of this book.

Typically, I get some nods of agreements and some requests for clarification of key points, suggesting that people are starting to connect the dots.

But then comes a momentary pause. And then, invariably, a statement followed by another question.

OK Sam, I can see that we might be trying to solve the wrong problem in the wrong way.

But, so what?

Well, here we come to the crux of this understanding. The game changer. A new perspective that has the potential to revolutionise the way you experience the game of golf.

The ‘So what?’ question appears in many different guises, dozens of times every day. It is the question that underpins every internal dialogue, every struggle that we face both on and off the golf course.

And for reasons that are well founded in the light of the ideas I have shared so far. It’s a question that may well have contributed to human beings evolving to become the most-successful species on the planet.

The question you come to when all the mental noise and conjecture is stripped away is this:

What does this [situation, event, occurrence, change] mean for me?

Survival of the Smartest

Back in Chapter 2, I suggested that our capacity for conscious metacognition – the ability to self-reflect and think about our thoughts and thinking – is the aspect of our mentality that sets us apart from other species. It has given us a crucial evolutionary advantage.

This question is an example of that potential in perhaps its most basic form. The ability to perceive our environment, ask this question, make a judgement then act on it, and to do this quickly and efficiently has been a key factor in our domination of the planet.

The ability to meta-cognize, to reflect on our memories, to imagine the future, to predict patterns and regularities in nature, to recognise habits and biases in our own thinking and behaviour, and to make symbol associations allowing communication through language has given us a huge advantage over creatures who seem not to have developed those abilities to the same level.

Of all these facets, perhaps the most important is the ability to interrogate our own thinking and consider contingencies.

If this, then that. If not this, then what?

The ability to think about your own thinking gives you the scope to learn more efficiently from experience and, crucially, to plan for different potential events that might arise.

It reduces the likelihood of repeating the same mistakes. (Although if you are a golf coach, or a frustrated golfer you might question this statement.)

For the first hundred thousand years or so of human existence, survival and reproduction were the overwhelming priorities and consumed most of our energies.

You don’t need to be an anthropologist to appreciate how the capacity for self-reflection and to make contingencies for what might be ahead has moved the species ahead of rivals and brought us to where we find ourselves.

Most golfers are fortunate to now live in an environment where technology has made the environment much safer and more comfortable. Survival is more assured and less taxing. We are so successful in navigating the process of reproduction that we have developed ways and means to control and limit our populations.

Fulfilling basic needs takes less time and less energy. Instead of hunting and gathering, we have dinner delivered to the door. We have come to take survival for granted.

With more time available for contemplation, our desires have become more sophisticated and refined. We want more than mere survival. We want a richer, more satisfying, more fulfilling experience of life.

We want to experience a wider range of feelings. To anticipate, to enjoy, to learn, to realise our potentials.

Perhaps this is why we play.

Maybe games evolved once the essentials of life had been taken care of.

What Do You Really Want?

When someone in a relatively secure modern society (like the ones in which most golfers are fortunate enough to live) is asked what they most want in life, the most common answer is:

To be happy.

Even if they don’t realise it at the time, most of what human beings do from moment to moment is in pursuit of this feeling of well-being, peace, freedom, contentment, and belonging commonly referred to as ‘happiness’.

This feeling is universally known, although we have different words for it. If I was engaged in a conversation about the feeling with a Chinese-speaker or an Inuit tribesman, they would each use a different term. But they would certainly recognise the feeling.

Where does this intuition that happiness is the purpose of life come from?

When we are in this feeling, we stop wanting, needing, and seeking. We could say that our purpose has been fulfilled. The potentials of the moment have been realised. (Again, please don’t take my word for this. Try to relate to your own experience.)

The pursuit of happiness is why we work to earn money, start relationships, play games, create and build, and want to achieve things. We associate a feeling of happiness with success in all these activities.

When we are not searching for happiness, many of us spend considerable time and energy struggling and fighting against things that we think might stop us from being happy.

Seeking and resisting are two sides of the same ‘coin of unhappiness’.

These two motivations, seeking happiness and resisting unhappiness, are the two main motivators for a wide range of human activity.

Including the game of golf.

As we indulge in these activities the question ‘What does this mean for me?’ is being considered in the background at a subconscious level. It takes on many different guises and variations as life unfolds and things happen.

What might this [situation, event, occurrence, change in circumstances] mean for me?

Remember that in the past this continuous monitoring and assessment was highly relevant to survival – of the individual and of the species.

But now, at least from a survival perspective, in modern, safer times our wants and needs are different. Our priority is happiness, well-being, peace, freedom. It could be said that the nature of our desires is evolving to become more spiritual rather than ‘physical’, as seen from the materialist standpoint described previously.

So, the question ‘What does this mean for me?’ has a different emphasis. It is asked in a different context.

Does ‘this’ mean I’m going to be happy? If so, how can I encourage or prolong it?

Does ‘this’ mean I’m going to be unhappy? If so, how can I prevent or overcome it?

This dilemma is the cause of all the feelings we associate with pressure or stress, both on and off the golf course.

Unfortunately, our biological systems have not evolved at the same pace as our rapidly changing psychological ones. A negative assessment of the query ‘What does this mean for me?’ still leads to a fight-or-flight response.

Heightened arousal and tension in the body. The release of powerful stimulants into the limbic system. Feelings of anxiety, insecurity, or fear. The shutting down of all non-essential processes.

This was a crucial survival mechanism in a more dangerous environment. An asset when it comes to taking down a prey animal, self-defence or running for your life. But these bodily sensations are an unwanted complication in the process of holing a three-footer for par, or nipping a delicate chip shot off a tightly mown fairway.

A tee shot sailing out of bounds or a short putt missed, events that could impinge on our imagined future happiness, are mistaken for a threat to our survival.

Psychological peril is confused with an existential one.