Hey Fellow Golfer -

Thank you for reading this week’s More Pars Than Bogeys Newsletter.

You can click here to read the online version of this week’s newsletter.

Click here to download my free hypnosis audio recording to help you play your best round.

That quote is from PGA Professional Cam Davis after his recent victory at the Rocket Mortgage Open.

His 2024 had been anything but spectacular thus far.

He’d missed four cuts to date, and his highest finish was tied for 12th.

In his own words, Davis realized he was sinking into what he described as “being in a poor mental headspace through the first six months of 2024.”

To get himself “right” and cultivate the winning mindset he knew lay deep within him, Davis sought help from a Mindset Coach and Hypnotherapist.

And, he’s not the only tour player capitalizing on the immense power mindset coaching and hypnosis can have on…

• cultivating a winning mindset

• improving focus

• creating confidence on-demand 

• enhancing emotional resiliency,

• performing under pressure

• effortlessly find flow (and fun) 

Wyndham Clark credits much of his success to working with a hypnotherapist, and golf legends Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, and David Toms have also credited hypnosis for their tremendous tour success.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll discuss what hypnosis is and what it is not - and provide a foundational understanding of the science and how it works.

Then, we’ll discuss how hypnosis can help you get out of your own way to shoot more pars than bogeys. 

If clucking like a chicken and feeling sleepy come to mind when thinking about hypnosis, then this article is for you. 

Let’s tee off!

To listen to a deep dive into how hypnosis can help you shoot lower scores, check out episode number seven of The Scratch Golfer’s Mindset Podcast.

Listen in.

Hypnosis: What It’s NOT

First, let’s debunk what hypnosis is not.

Hypnosis is not:

• Mind control

• Brainwashing

• Shouting the word “sleep” at you

• Making you cluck like a chicken

• “You are getting very sleepy,” with a clock watch

The hypnosis we’re talking about - the technique I use to help entrepreneurs scale to seven figures and golfers take home club trophies - is not entertainment or like some stage show performance you’ve seen in Vegas or on late-night TV.

It is a powerful tool for transformation that can change the reality and trajectory of your life - FAST. 

Think of hypnosis as a shortcut to unlearning the emotions, beliefs, and behaviors keeping you stuck by serving as a tool to unlock direct access to your subconscious mind.

Why is this important?

Your subconscious mind influences 95 percent of your behavior.

Through hypnosis, we can reach the origin of the learned emotions, beliefs, and behaviors (destructive mindset programs) keeping you stuck. We can rapidly unlearn these programs and upgrade them to help you thrive rather than survive. 

So, what is hypnosis, exactly?

Hypnosis Defined

Hypnosis is “a state of deep relaxation aimed at effecting positive change.”

Think of it as a one-to-one, intimate, guided meditation in which we collaborate to uncover, unlearn, or upgrade emotions, beliefs, or behaviors that hinder your progress.

When in hypnosis, you’re awake, alert, conscious, and in control.

Hypnosis is a natural state of mind. 

Depending on what time of day it is when you’re reading this, you’ve already been in a hypnotic state at least a few times.

This hypnotic state, which is characterized by the primary production of theta brain waves, is the state you’re in when:

• You transition from sleeping to waking in the morning

• You’re lost in a good book or TV show

• You’re deeply focused on a project at work

• You’re immensely present - in the zone - on the golf course

• You transition from waking to sleeping at night

I share this to highlight that hypnosis is safe and that anyone, yes, even you, can be hypnotized. 

Remember, it’s simply a state of deep relaxation, and you’re awake, alert, conscious, and in control every step of the way.

For a more detailed breakdown of how indescribably powerful it is to use hypnosis to help you defuse toxic emotions, check out this article:

Defuse The Toxic Emotions Keeping You Stuck: Release repressed energy and tap into a surplus of energy to speed up success.

Click here to open a new tab to read next.

How Hypnosis Works

Hypnosis uses the power of neuroplasticity and intentional time spent in a theta brain wave states to unblock stuck emotions (anger, guilt, shame, grief, and more) and reprogram your limiting beliefs.

When you can unblock these emotions and unlearn the collection of beliefs that no longer serve you, you can have a powerful, positive effect on your actions, results, and identity.

How Hypnosis Leverages Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is the brain's remarkable ability to rewire, grow, and reorganize itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. Your brain constantly responds to and updates based on your positive and negative experiences.

When you expose yourself to a new way of thinking and doing, your brain creates neural pathways, which serve as efficient routes to execute behavior. 

The more time, energy, and emotion spent experiencing a particular belief, the more ingrained and efficient this behavior becomes. 

The challenge you come up against, however, when attempting to change your way of thinking or doing, is non-stop communication from your inner critic, which is the voice that says things like:

• “That will never work.”

• “What a stupid idea.”

• “Why would you even think that?”

In hypnosis, we can bypass our conscious mind's critical, judgmental voice, making it easier to tap into creativity and connect with our highest selves. You can freely think and create without doubt, fear, and limiting beliefs. 

How Hypnosis Harnesses the Power of Theta Brain Waves

When you're in a hypnotic state, your brain produces what are known as theta brain waves. This is a magical, powerful state of mind - the same state children live in constantly for the first seven years. 

This state allows children to have vivid imaginations and immense creativity and believe they can do anything and everything. They’re directly connected to the power of their subconscious mind.

Additionally, when in this hypnotic state, you’re highly suggestible and open to new perspectives, beliefs, and changes.

Researchers estimate that 95 percent of your beliefs are formed before age seven.

During this period, your programs around money, success, love, winning, and self-worth were created and your beliefs about how worthy, deserving, and capable you believe you are. 

And everything you have is a byproduct of what you believe you are worthy and capable of at this very moment.

Read that again…

Your parents, upbringing, society, and environment influence these beliefs and programs. In turn, they form the lenses through which you see the world, and, as a child, you begin to accept this way of thinking and feeling as truth. 

As you go about childhood, these beliefs and their associated behaviors are practiced repeatedly, reinforcing and strengthening these pathways. They eventually become automatic, unconscious reactions. 

Without even knowing it, you begin practicing:

• playing it safe

• people pleasing

• anxiety

• fear of failure

• scarcity

• perfectionism

• overthinking

• low self-esteem

• self-doubt

• procrastination

…and other self-sabotaging behaviors for decades.

Important to know is that these learned behaviors are designed to keep you safe. 

They’re designed to meet your childhood needs of feeling loved, accepted, validated, and like you belong. These are core human needs; your subconscious will do whatever is necessary to meet them. 

So, after decades of thinking a certain way, your brain has created a hard-wired signature, “a way of thinking.”

The collection of your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors forms the blueprint of your personality - your identity. 

In reality, however, you must learn to identify and undo highly memorized behaviors.

At first glance, erasing beliefs and behaviors designed to protect you may seem impossible and daunting. That’s because the common mistake and where most people go wrong is that they try to change their behavior - they attempt to solve a deep-rooted issue with a surface-level solution. 

This is like trimming the top of a weed in your garden every morning rather than digging deep and plucking the entire root system.

If you want to change your behavior, you must change your beliefs. Your beliefs reside in your subconscious mind, which is why you must reprogram it.

Hypnosis provides a safe, effective, and influential path to changing the beliefs that no longer serve you because it allows you to re-enter the theta-brain wave states in which these destructive mindset programs were created. 

In turn, you can begin to unlearn and eliminate them and create new, empowering beliefs that align with your desired future. 

How Hypnosis Can Help You Improve Your Golf Game

As a mindset coach and hypnotherapist, I use hypnosis to help golfers… 

• improve focus

• cultivate confidence on-demand

• enhance emotional resiliency

• perform under pressure

• effortlessly find flow (and fun) 

• learn how to experience a sense of ease in letting go of past mistakes

Even more, I help defuse the toxic emotions that arise when encountering any one of the countless triggers on - or off - the course so that they can consciously respond rather than unconsciously react. 

As we both know, golf is much more of a mental and emotional game than a physical game.

When your mind is filled with doubt, worry, and distraction, you cannot bring the necessary focus and presence required to execute your routines and hit the shot you know you’re capable of making.

You tense up when anger, frustration, and excitement permeate your body. Your muscles tighten, impairing your ability to execute a smooth and fluid swing, which produces more anger and frustration. 

These emotions and mental states are learned.

They can also be unlearned. 

Below is a graphic representing some of the most common mental and emotional hazards golfers face that, if not addressed, keep them stuck in the proverbial bunker of poor performance. 

Through hypnosis, we can get to the core of when, how, and why these learned emotions, beliefs, and behaviors came to be and then do the necessary work to unlearn them so you can play to your potential.

Take my client, Luke, an avid golfer with a five-handicap who feared three-putting when we first met. 

He used to experience crippling pressure and anxiety when standing over any second putt outside of three feet. This not only, of course, led to more three-putts but was hurting his score and sucking the fun out of the game for him.

Through our work together, we created a new belief and attitude about putting. We also worked to eliminate the pressure and anxiety he felt so he could feel more focused and confident in his putting.

The results?

• Bye-bye three-putting

• Dropping his handicap from a five to a two in less than 60 days

• Competing in - and winning - a 45-hole tournament with zero three-putts

Well, you can see for yourself:

Your Next Step

Every newsletter will conclude with a suggested action step and further resources on the topic we discussed.

Today, I invite you to check out my complimentary hypnosis recording, which is designed to help you lock in the confidence and focus you need to play your best round. 

Click here to download your free hypnosis audio recording.

Questions about hypnosis? 

DM me on Twitter, drop a comment below, or email me. 

Thank you for reading today’s newsletter.

If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow golfer ready to take their game to the next level.

Until next time,

Paul

P.S. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Reply back / drop a comment below to let me know.

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