Battling Frustration on the Golf Course
How I'm learning to use my senses to stay sane between shots
As many of you know, I started learning to play golf about six months ago. Recently, I’ve started to see signs of real improvement meaning that instead of hitting only bad shots, I hit mostly bad shots. On a few rare occasions, my boyfriend has even described some of my drives as “bombs.” This is a BIG compliment coming from him. Most of the time, I get something along the lines of, “At least you advanced the ball!” That’s not exactly the validation you’re looking for when you’re trying to become the Nelly Korda of women’s recreational golf (aka rules don’t apply, you pick up the ball whenever you want, and your idea of practice is going to the driving range for 30 minutes approximately twice a month).
Unfortunately, what I have learned is that getting better at golf does not reduce your frustration with the game. Instead, you begin to have higher expectations for yourself and, hence, obtain plenty of new opportunities to be frustrated. To make matters even more complicated, the more frustrated you get, the more you overthink things, and the worse you play. This game is torture! Needless to say, I now understand why the internet is filled with millions of memes making fun of people who are angry on the golf course. I am now one of them.
The thing is, I actually do want to get better at golf, and I want to enjoy it. My recent challenge to myself has been to figure out ways to stay calm on the course and to practice letting my swing happen, instead of overthinking it into oblivion. Fortunately, research I’ve been leveraging in my coaching practice also has use on the golf course.
Enter Norman Farb, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and Zindel Segal, a clinical psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Farb and Segal have spent years studying how we get stuck in maladaptive habitual thinking patterns and behaviors. They’ve done in-depth research on practices like mindfulness and meditation to unpack the question: What exactly do those practices do for the brain that allows individuals to break up negative thinking habits and behaviors?
Farb and Segal’s research centers on understanding the “Default mode network” also known as the DMN. This is the part of the brain that supplies conceptual information about the world around us so that we don’t have to expend energy thinking about every little thing we do throughout the day. For this reason, Farb and Segal refer to the DMN as the “House of Habit” because it supplies the “off-the-shelf responses” that are foundational to everyday life. For the most part, the DMN serves us well…until it doesn’t. In their book, Better in Every Sense, Farb and Segal break this down:
“…There’s a cost to maintaining a full range of automatic responses at our fingertips: the need to quickly match situation to habit to ensure survival often keeps a ‘resting’ brain as busy as a striving brain. Given that our default is to try to solve problems, to compare ourselves to others, to ruminate over the past, and to plan for what the brain anticipates in the future, the closest we come to mental rest is usually through mind wandering. But even when the mind feels free enough to wander, it doesn’t do so randomly. Instead, it follows well-worn paths that can become counterproductive, exhausting, and debilitating ruts.” (p.20-21)
Effectively, you are likely to default to the same mental patterns and habits because the DMN is trained to be as efficient as possible at exploiting our existing knowledge and, thus, help us manage the complexity of day-to-day life. Unfortunately, the DMN is not trying to figure out how well that knowledge is actually working!
What is it, then, that practices such as mindfulness and meditation have to offer?
Segal and Farb’s research has shown that these practices are not effective because they cause us to lose a sense of self, detach from negative thoughts, or even“turn-off” thinking. Rather, practices such as mindfulness and meditation enable us to “turn on” parts of the brain related to sensation. I know what you’re thinking: What’s so special about sensation? Put simply, paying close attention to our experience of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing opens up our brains to new information and, therefore, gives us the ability to update our mental models. Engaging in this sensory work is what Segal and Farb call “sense foraging.” Here they are again with the ‘science-y” speak on how this works:
“In this magical moment when condition stops striving and sensation floods in, disrupting the DMN, all the habitual patterns and strategies are diminished if not displaced. What becomes salient is no longer the familiar, intellectual attempt to analyze one’s way out of the problem. Instead, this disruption of DMN dominance allows for new representations, a network responding to sensory inputs…” (p.103)
In other words, sensation allows new information to flood in and creates the space for us to consider how we want to proceed, rather than defaulting to action and what we’ve always done. Do we want to explore new strategies or exploit existing knowledge?
Back to my golf game - where exactly does “sense foraging” fit in?
Picture me on the first tee having just hit a terrible first shot where I barely make contact and the ball flies off into the woods. The “House of Habit” is ready to serve up my standard off-the-shelf responses as I try again: Immediate frustration, think about every single thing anyone has ever told me about the golf swing, and repeatedly reminding myself to “stop sucking.” I’ll let you decide how well the “House of Habit” has been working for me in these situations…
Luckily for me, I’ve been practicing my ability to sense forage, and I live in Florida. There are no shortage of sounds to tune into outside. Normally, they fade into the background, and I barely notice what’s there. But not this time. Today, I pick out what I hear: The cicadas buzzing in the summer heat, a bird chirping, the mating call of a frog, the sound of cars driving by the course, and expletives from other frustrated golfers. Tuning in gives me the ability to pause without immediately reverting to the well-worn patterns of my House of Habit. After a few moments of paying attention to the auditory sensations around me, I return to try my first shot again with some newfound perspective. I’ve created the space to recognize that I play my best golf when I don’t try so hard - frustration isn’t serving me well at all. I want to explore a different way. I take a deep breath, focus on the golf ball logo, and empty my brain of thoughts. I tell myself, “Golf isn’t that a big deal.” This time, I make good contact, and the ball lands in the fairway. Not too shabby! Maybe this game is fun….
I’ll leave you with this: Sense foraging is not going to change your whole life tomorrow. Just like anything it takes practice. It also doesn’t mean that your “House of Habit” is always bad or wrong. If you’re about to get hit by a car or need to flee a burning building, please do not stop to sense forage. Your off-the-shelf responses are probably going to serve you well! However, in those moments when it makes sense to pause, I invite you to practice tapping into sensation. Maybe like me, you’ll find something new and maybe, just maybe, you too will have a reprieve from frustration on the golf course.
Curious to learn more about the research mentioned in today’s piece? Listen to an interview with Farb and Segal on this episode of the Ten Percent Happier podcast.