Golf Flow Read Free Page A

Fortunately, research suggests that flow is universal (with very few exceptions, everyone can experience flow). My ultimate goal is for you to simplify and refine your thinking so that you can channel your skills and knowledge into simple, effective, repeatable processes that lead to winning golf.
    My quest to understand flow, and to apply that understanding, has spanned an entire stage of my life, accompanying me through marriage and the birth of a son, and it has introduced me to a group of athletes with whom I have shared many personal and professional milestones. Learning about flow has not only made me a better golfer, it has provided me with a framework and a perspective that has markedly improved the quality of my life. I hope that this book will bring you the same sense of enthusiasm and excitement that I feel when listening to people describe their flow states and helping my clients get into flow. I also hope that by helping you understand flow, the book not only gives you a clearer view of the game and opens up new ways to improve your play, but also provides some insights that will help you to live a more meaningful and more fulfilling life.

Part I
The Golf Flow Experience
    Peak experiences provide a window into an alternate universe that we visit beyond the covenants of our normal lives and, bound by nothing, are able to sample the energized freedom of our potential. The high that we feel when we are in peak states is like the high that accompanies a moment of courage or important self-discovery. Peak states flood us with the type of joy that teenagers feel behind the wheel of a car as they master the basics of driving or that first-time parents feel when they hold a newborn baby. Athletic endeavors offer myriad opportunities to perform beyond the norm and unleash untapped potential. The common theme of all such experiences is the overwhelmingly positive feelings that emerge from the sense of personal growth and the potential for this breakthrough accomplishment to help us to achieve even greater things in the future.
    Researchers studying these peak experiences have found that people consistently use the word
flow
to describe them. Furthermore, they reported feeling no sense of doubt, fear, or distraction; they were completely immersed in the moment.
    The past quarter century has brought about a remarkable amount of research on flow states. Two key findings from this research have revolutionary implications for the sports world and beyond. The ability to generate flow states is invariably tied to the overall quality of a person’s life, and this ability can be cultivated.
    I have found that people often think about flow in the same way that they think about love or luck—as something that happens to them rather than something they do. But just as with love and luck, psychologists have found that people can control many of the factors that improve the opportunity to find flow. Because the factors that determine flow states are things over which people have a measure of control, flow need not be an experience that merely happens, something to wait and hope for. People can learn to identify its characteristics so that they can go with it effectively, nurture it, and get the best out of it when it begins to appear. They can help generate flow!
    Aristotle once observed, “We are what we do every day. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” Flow is a habit that emerges from a way of thinking about experiences and the meaning that we assign to those experiences. And people who habitually generate flow in other areas of their lives are more likely to generate flow on the golf course.
    Now we need to explain in more detail this state of optimal functioning called flow. Flow has been a buzzword for decades, yet it is either poorly understood or, more frequently, misunderstood—even by athletes who know what a struggle it can be to generate flow! But everyone knows it when they’re in it. You often hear