What is Your Swing Thought?
Did anyone else enjoy watching The Masters like I did this weekend? Every time I watch major golf tournaments, I am struck by the nerves of steel that the best golfers possess.
What is running through their minds as they stand over the ball while what seems like the entire world watches? Within seconds, they will strike the ball and have no one to blame but themselves for the ensuing ball flight.
To cope with this pressure, many world-class golfers attempt to narrow their focus to a single thought. These are referred to as "swing thoughts." Here are a few examples:
Stay over the ball
Swing through
Keep my hands below my ear
Swing a foot in front
These may seem like an odd collection of thoughts given the complexity of a golf swing. Clearly, there are a lot of mechanics that golfers must practice in order to hit pure shots, but they have found it useful to boil it all down to a singular thought when they are performing. I think we can learn something from this.
What is your swing thought? I find that many of the patterns in my day repeat themselves frequently. I check my email, make calls, do some writing, and work on a project. There are a wide range of skills required to effectively complete all of these tasks. Especially when they relate to a variety of interests in my life, there does not appear to be an obvious thread connecting the tasks.
That being said, the golfer's mentality might be useful. This is still a theory, but I have begun trying to apply swing thoughts to these patterns. For instance, I sometimes focus on the thought, "Be encouraging."
This might seem like it is much too broad and has little application to some of the tasks that I am working on, but that is also true of many swing thoughts that golfers focus on. There is a magic to focusing on one thought. I am not sure whether it is because our minds struggle to deal with complexity, the thought becomes familiar to us, it clears our minds, some combination of all them, or something entirely different.
Whatever the reason, it works. Try it out this week and let me know what you think. I am still experimenting with it, and I cannot decide if it is poorly developed self-help advice or a useful insight.
I have one last request to make. A friend and I are working on a new project that I am hoping to share with you within the next couple months. As we develop the product, we are seeking input from potential users. We have a 5-minute survey linked below that I would be very grateful if you took. Thanks!