by: John Kenworthy
Have you ever thought about how you influence yourself? Are you like a thermometer, reacting to changes in the environment, or are you a thermostat, ready and willing to change yourself according to changes in the environment?
In golf, there are only two things that affect your game. Yes, sorry, just the two things. The first is physics. The golf ball, your clubs, how you swing your club, the course, are all subject to the laws of physics.
You might say that the weather changes the way the ball behaves. Yes indeed it can and does, cool air temperatures effect the turbulence of the air and hence the flight of the ball... just physics.
You might suggest that your swing technique changes the way you strike the ball and hence its direction and distance - yes true - just physics.
The only part of golf that is not directly about physics is the "you" part - not your technique, strength, everything physical is, well physics. No, the only non-physical part is mental. There are those that will scientifically argue that this too is physics - after all, the mental part is about electrons, neurons etc that obey the laws of physics. Yes this may be true, however, there is an important distinction, you can do nothing about the laws of physics. Not a thing. Rien. Zip. Nada. Naff all. Zero. You can't change it - you can use it - because the laws of physics don't change - knowing what physics is at work and how to use that knowledge to increase distance, improve direction and so on - now that's useful knowledge - see, you now wish that you'd paid more attention in school! The distinction is that the mental part of the game is something that you can change. Yes the neurons and so on that carry the messages and inform the parts of the body to do what they do will do so, because they obey the laws of physics. It is the message that they carry that you can change. Now, since this actually applies to everything in your life it could be a revelatory moment for you in everything.
So, we come back to the basic critical decision point. Are you at cause or effect? Do you cause your golf ball to fly in a particular direction? Yes, of course you do. Does the bahaviour of your playing buddy effect the way you play? Do you allow the weather to effect your playing? The answer is that all things going on in your surroundings will effect your playing - because they effect your mental attitude, they effect the message that you send to your muscles.
How much you allow external events to effect your playing is your choice!
It's important to preface this section with a reminder that everyone, every single human being has a choice to do something, or not do it. To learn something, or not to. Everything we do in this life is a choice. Yes, there are many many (far too many) people on this planet who do not have a good choice - or a 'real' choice. There are, too many people who's struggle for life overwhelms their choices in life. The choice to live or die in such circumstances, is however difficult or impossible, still a choice. You will understand that I am not suggesting that this is not difficult, only reiterating that we always have a choice. I simply want to ensure that you have a mindset that you can be at choice. Improving the opportunities for choice for the millions of those with little real choice is another matter entirely.
So, if you are at choice, which frequency do you listen, cause or effect?
How you influence others is somewhat obvious, but how you influence yourself is perhaps a little more obscure. We will take the obvious route first and then apply it to self. Leadership development and golf development work best when we are very strongly focussing on your self-leadership - how you lead yourself to greatness in golf, in business, in life. Leadership, unlike golf though, should pay much more attention - because leadership is pretty much all about influencing others.
Influence is a two-way street. Everything you do and say has some influence on others - you are part of their external environment. You even exert a small degree of gravitational force on others, indeed, you exert gravitational force on the planet! Not a lot admittedly, but your mass does attract other mass. You knew that you should have paid attention in science class now. Just as an aside, it's quite a useful factoid for use when you have gained a few pounds of weight - you do so in order to become more attractive! That's put paid to the glamour magazines!
The same is trues for other people exerting their influence over you. Your external environment is, in part, made up of everything that other people say or do, and this exerts an influence on your behaviour.
The external environment beyond other human beings, also has some influence over you. The weather for example - when it is raining, it is quite likely that you would alter your 'normal' behaviour by carrying an umbrella, or wearing a rain-proof coat. You know for sure that the weather can have a major influence over your golf. When there is lightning, you would wisely move away from the fairways under the trees or into the clubhouse. Being struck by lightning is one influence that everyone can do without.
The problem with influence is that human beings have a tendency to assume that there is little you can do to change the way something influences you. Well, let me put this straight. You can and you do!
Let us take an example of something that influences us and we do something about it - almost fight its influence on our lives. One that affects us all and that is our friend gravity. You see, gravity is ever present in our lives - there are a few exceptions but since that involves travelling into space I think I can safely assume that does not include you. If, by chance you have travelled into space - my question is - how far can you hit a drive out there? Must be awesome.
Back to earth. Our bodies are constantly under the influence of gravity. We consume food to produce the energy to run the muscles that spend most of each day pushing back. Only when we are physically damaged - break a leg, twist an ankle, suffer paralysis and so on, do we truly appreciate how much effort is involved in keeping our body upright and moving. When we are reasonably fit and well, we think little or nothing of getting up from a chair and walking, and most of the time, we do all this unconsciously. We have programmed our brain to take care of operating the correct muscles, keeping balance, walking, and all the while supplying those muscles and cells with energy through breathing and circulating our blood. Now, if you had to consciously work out how to do all this stuff that we simply take for granted, you'd not have a great deal of time to think about much else - at least, not consciously.
What's the point of this? Well, it's simple really - there are many many things occurring in your life, including when you practice and play golf, that influence your behaviour. Some things we cannot change - gravity, weather, daylight, animals etc. and to what extent we allow such to affect us and our behaviour is our own choice. We can choose to be at cause for ourselves or at the effect of the environment and others. In other words, I'm disabling your potential for 'excuses'.
In my next article I'll share how you can change the way that you influence yourself and choose to be at cause.
Copyright (c) 2008 John Kenworthy
