Golf_ The Mind Game - Marlin M. Mackenzie [25]
Anchor and stack the feelings of accomplishment and confidence associated with each successful shot by using a normal gesture, such as scratching your chin, as your anchor.
Practice firing the anchor (repeating the gesture) until you can access your state of confidence within a few seconds.
Fire the anchor prior to the start of a tournament and when you feel overly uncertain during competition.
Personal Power
Playing a successful fantasy round of golf before a tournament and anchoring feelings of confidence may not overcome more pervasive feelings of insecurity. Sometimes anxiety starts hours or perhaps days before a tournament begins, manifested in stomach discomfort and headaches. Sometimes insecurity begins to gnaw at a player’s mind toward the end of a tournament when he or she is on top of the leader board. For those who haven’t developed ways to cope with their fears, bogeys and double bogeys often crop up on the last few holes, further increasing feelings of insecurity and lack of confidence. These feelings sometimes carry over to subsequent tournaments and infect other parts of their lives.
Similarly, uncomfortable feelings that limit effectiveness crop up from time to time whenever some people are faced with doing their best—not only during golf tournaments but during job interviews, sales presentations, and school examinations as well.
There’s a way, however, that I’ve developed to tap your resources of powerful effectiveness; it’s a process that keeps you in touch with your reservoir of competence and confidence so you can perform comfortably at the peak of your capacity when the chips are down. It’s a Personal Power Anchor—an anchor to be used sparingly and for only the most significant events in your life.
I hit upon this idea of anchoring personal power after thinking about what Carlos Castaneda wrote in his book Journey to Ixtlan.* Don Juan, Carlos’s sorcerer, talked about the importance of being prepared to face fear and death gracefully and courageously. He said that each person should identify a personal place of power—an actual geographical place where he has experienced a sense of awe combined with exhilaration, strength, and confidence.
Whenever that person reaches a goal of utmost significance, he is to return to his place of power, either in actuality or in fantasy, and “deposit” the feelings of powerful effectiveness there. Then, according to Don Juan, when death approaches over his left shoulder, he is to return to his place of power, either in actuality or in fantasy, gather the deposited power into his being, and dance the dance of death—that is, face death courageously, replacing the feelings of fear with power.
Don Juan created a process to deal with death; I have converted it to deal with living. My process, the Personal Power Anchor, consists of identifying your place of power, “storing” the feelings associated with your own experiences of competence, and eventually tapping those resources of power when you’re faced with events of utmost significance in your life that are sometimes frightening or anxiety provoking. Essentially, the process is an anchor that you fire to empower yourself to make living full of rich experiences instead of anxious ones. Here’s how it works.
Identify a Personal Place of Power. In your mind go back to a specific time and place—a place that overwhelmed you by its beauty, where you were at one with nature and the universe, where you experienced a sense of excitement and confidence. That place may be close by or hundreds of miles away. It could be in the mountains, near a lake or the ocean, in the midst of a forest or a field of grass, under a majestic tree, next to a cool stream, in the rain or snow—no matter—just a very special place for you.
Go inside and see, hear, and feel what you saw, heard, and felt when you were in that place. Notice the light, shadows, and colors; listen to the pitch, volume, and tone of the sounds; and especially feel the sensations of awe, excitement, and confidence that you felt while in that special place. That