Get Out of Your Own Way – Chapter 5, Part 2.

The Price of Meta Cognition

In the previous chapter I mentioned that there is a cost for the obvious evolutionary benefits that self-reflective meta cognition has given us. (If you are familiar with the Old Testament, this cost is acknowledged in the fable of Adam and Eve)

Along with the ability to plan, it means we also have the capacity to worry about what life might have in store for us.

As well as reflecting on and learning from past events, we can regret them. We can fantasize how things might have happened differently and beat ourselves up for the mistakes made or the way we behaved.

Contemplating contingencies is a useful ability. But with it comes the potential to catastrophise and sabotage our peace of mind with imaginings of a future far worse than the present, and to paralyse ourselves through procrastination.

As alluded to earlier, a self-aware intellect is a powerful tool, but it is one with a double edge. It can be a blessing one minute and a curse the next.

Most golfers will be familiar with the more troublesome patterns of thinking that meta cognition makes available to us. All the more reason for a wise golfer to invest some time and energy understanding how the mind really works.

The Game of Golf and the Game of Life

So, let’s see how a more accurate understanding of the nature of our experience ties in with the competing theories of the nature of reality explored in Chapter 4, and how they relate to the game of golf

Attachment to belief in a fundamentally material reality comes with implications. One of which is the reasonable assumption that the feeling of happiness is dependent on what happens in the physical world – on the situations or circumstances of our lives.

After all, in this paradigm, my subjective experience (consciousness, thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc) is dependent upon and derived from the material substance that makes up my body and brain.

The belief that for me to feel happy, the ‘physical’ world of my environment needs to be arranged in a way that meets my expectations – is an apparently logical assumption.

Therefore, seeking and resisting are powerful driving forces in our activities (such as golf), in dealing with objects (money and possessions), in relationships, and in states of mind that arise from these activities and objects.

We believe that hitting a good golf shot will make us happy. And that hitting a bad one will make us unhappy.

We believe that a birdie will cause us to feel better than a bogey.

We believe that winning a championship will bring us satisfaction and fulfilment, while missing the cut will cause disappointment and frustration.

The patterns that play out in a game of golf seem to be a microcosm of the patterns that play out in the game of life.

We pursue outcomes we think will make us happy. And try to avoid outcomes we think will prevent happiness.

For anyone who has played golf for more than a few weeks, these outcomes and the feelings that accompany them indeed seem to be borne out in our experiences.

This reinforces our belief that golf that fails to meet our expectations leads to suffering, while golf that matches or exceeds them equals happiness.

As a result, we become addicted to seeking happiness and resisting unhappiness on the golf course rather than playing golf because we find enjoyment in the challenge of it. This means accepting that the downs are the inevitable companions of the ups.

Golf becomes a habit that is hard to break despite the frustration and disappointment it brings. Time and effort spent playing are seen as an investment that must lead to a tangible reward.

The possibility of relief from that frustration – a few solid, well flighted shots or a decent round, dangles like a carrot in front of a hungry donkey.

This golfer is trapped in the same loop as a gambler chasing his losses.

A Case of Mistaken Identity

In the preceding paragraphs, I have tried to explain in simple terms how and why our mental and physical systems have become confused about what constitutes a threat to our well-being.

A system that was beneficial for our biological safety in the earlier stages of our evolution has become a liability now that the risk is of a different nature. Imagine an alarm system in your house that is impossible to switch off, and that cannot distinguish between an intruder and a friend or family member.

I hope this represents a credible explanation why a fully grown adult might experience the symptoms of a panic attack when faced with the simple and essentially meaningless task of stroking a small, white ball into a hole from a short distance away.

This account is nothing new in the world of performance coaching. The key difference between the mainstream approach and what I will suggest in the pages that follow is what constitutes a logical and skilful response to the problem.

Most strategies and techniques offered by performance coaches and psychologists are focused on trying to override or mitigate the results of this faulty threat assessment.

Techniques such as positive thinking, visualisation, deep breathing or relaxation exercises are all useful tools and might work for some people some of the time. But the problem is that all just deal with symptoms.

These strategies are intended to be applied after the feelings of fear and anxiety have arisen. But in these moments, you are unlikely to be in a state of mind to think clearly enough to apply them.

They also predicated on a questionable perception of the threat – the situation or circumstances that seem to be causing a golfer to feel the way they feel. But we already know that feelings don’t arise from the situation or circumstances. Feelings come from your thinking. And attempting to reframe your thinking about them just feels like deceiving yourself.

It’s hard to pretend you don’t care about missing a putt when your emotions are screaming that you do.

Wouldn’t it be better to employ the tool of meta-cognition – our highly prized capacity for self-reflection, to adopt a more harmonious relationship with our thinking, rather than pushing it away or trying to fix it?

Let’s tap our potential to use rationality and reason to get ahead of the game and to make a more logical assessment of what is really going on. To try to make the alarm system more intelligent and discerning.

Rather than focus on the perception of the threat, might it not be more helpful to understand the nature of who or what is really ‘being threatened’ when faced with a delicate pitch over a bunker to a tight hole location?

To answer the question ‘What does this mean for me?’ you need to have made an accurate appraisal of the situation (what is ‘this’).
Are your perceptions correct, or are they obscured by your beliefs?
And then you need to then have assessed the possible potential consequences (what it might mean).

But before you can make a judgement on either of those, you need to know who or what really is the ‘me’ or the ‘I’ that will benefit from or suffer those consequences.
What do the words ‘me’ or ‘I’ in that sentence refer to?

Only then can you start to consider what anything really means to you.
What value an event, situation, object, or relationship has in your life.

If you believe that who or what you essentially are is a limited, finite, vulnerable ‘physical’ entity, then the instinctive response of fight or flight when threatened makes a good deal of sense.

But is that the case when you are playing golf?

You know intellectually that a three-footer to win ten quid off a mate isn’t a life-or-death situation. So why are your hands shaking and your bowels have tightened as if a bear with a grumpy look on his face has just wandered out of the bushes and onto the putting green?

Something in the consideration and assessment of the question ‘what does this mean to me?’ has gone badly wrong. A misjudgement or a wrong assumption has been made somewhere along the line.

And once that wrong assumption has slipped through, a cascade of further misunderstandings and irrational, illogical decisions and actions follows.

As described in Chapter 4, that misjudgement or assumption was made so long ago that you have probably completely forgotten or overlooked the fact you ever made it.

In Chapter 6, we will retrace our steps to establish exactly where we took the wrong turn and find out how to get back on track.

Thought Experiment:

Think about the last time you were successful, or when you attained something or achieved something?

What did it feel like? What did you do?

Now try to remember how long the feeling lasted for?

What does that tell you about what we are really looking for in life?