Previous Articles by Glen Pattison

Article 1 - The Importance of Balance

Article 2 - Sharpen your attitude, reap the rewards

Article 1 - The Importance of Balance

I'd like to introduce a new idea to Women in Golf - a performance coaching column that looks at motivational ideas and information. The column has been put together with the thought of helping you direct your life and get the results you want.

We'll take a look some of the main areas of life including health and fitness, goal setting, communication, relationships, time management, financial management, leadership and stress management, and the importance of balancing and fine-tuning these areas for a happy and successful life both on and off the course.

With the pace of things today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve a balanced approach to life. Work is becoming busier, the family is demanding more of your time, money doesn't always stretch as far as you'd like, and developing your relationship with your partner can sometimes be difficult.

This of course means that we find ourselves spending much of our time and energy focusing on one or two areas of our lives, and neglecting other areas that are equally important. We all know people who have excelled in a certain area of life but at the expense of other areas. Take a quick look around and I'm sure you'll find a friend or co-worker who's ability at managing their finances is nothing short of outstanding. In fact, there probably isn't anything they can't afford, there isn't anywhere they haven't been, and money just keeps finding it's way to them.

The sad thing is that this financial wealth often comes at the expense of poor health, miserable relationships and real problems with managing stress. The time and effort put into reaching such a level financially takes away from the time needed to foster relationships with a partner, friends and family. It also means that very little time, if any, is spent looking after themselves - exercise tends to come last on the list and good nutrition is often set aside for convenience. And it's not only the people around us who have excelled financially who have challenges balancing their lives.

As you can imagine, anyone who is at all serious about being a professional athlete must have an amazing level of both health and fitness, and the hours needed to develop to such a level are gruelling. On any given day, they would spend between four and six hours training, and this is often in addition to working a full-time job. When you add up these hours you can see that there is a real shortage of time available to do the every-day things that you and I take for granted.

So in what areas of life would you expect a professional athlete to excel? Obviously with their health and fitness, and also with their goal setting in recognising that they want real success from their sport. However, problems can begin to surface within their relationships because they have no time to devote to them. Financial management is also a real concern - most of their money is eaten up buying new equipment to give them a strong chance of succeeding. Time management can also be an issue - outside of prioritising their time for training it can be a real challenge knowing how to allocate what time they have left.

So what is the relevance of these examples? Simply to illustrate that being outstanding in one or two areas of life at the expense of everything else is not a real measure of long-term success or happiness. Take a moment to think about how balanced your life is. How much energy do you devote to your health & fitness, financial management, relationships, leadership, goal setting, communication, time management, and stress management. Are you paying attention to each of these areas, or are you focusing your resources on just one or two? Ask yourself this question : what is true success and happiness really about? I would suggest that the answer lies in achieving a balanced and finely-tuned life.

Article 2 - Sharpen your attitude, reap the rewards

Why is it that some days your golf is outstanding - great weather, great friends and a great score card to hand in at the end of eighteen holes - yet on other days you play like it's your first game ever - you're playing with the same friends, on the same course, in the same conditions, but you have a lousy result to show for it?

Think back to a day when you played terribly. Was it because you were injured, sick or unfit, or were you having problems motivating yourself and concentrating for the entire game, or lacking enthusiasm and self-confidence? More often than not it is a mental block or obstacle that stops you from performing at your best.

If you hit a rough patch in your playing and just can't seem to get it together, what do you do? The first thing most golfers do is to sign up with the local golf pro for a few refresher lessons and immediately set about working on their physical game. This is great if their physical game needs improving. But what if taking some extra lessons doesn't help? Well, most golfers at this stage are told to take a break from playing, or worse still to sell their clubs and find another sport. But what about the mental side of golf? Have you considered that how well you perform in any area of life, including golf, is directly related to the thoughts going on inside your head?

Ask yourself this : how much time do you spend conditioning your body for a great game, and how much time do you spend conditioning your mind? Although you probably recognise the benefits of mental preparation, the problem lies in actually doing something about it. To peak perform in sport you have to prepare both mentally and physically.

Golf is a mind game. In fact, life is a mind game, yet despite this the mental side of performance is usually left to chance - it accounts for less than 10% of an elite sportspersons training, and the figure is even less when you look at amateur sportspeople - anywhere from zero to five percent.

However, with the level of competiton increasing in sports today it is not surprising that professional athletes and trainers are realising just how important it is to develop mentally as well as physically. Why? Because everything you do is affected by your thoughts. In fact, if you take two athletes with similar physical abilities and have them compete, the winner each time will be the athlete with the stronger mental conditioning. Peak performance is about recoginsing how connected your mind and body are, and using that knowledge to bring out the best in your game.

So how can you make sure that you have more good days than bad, and that you consistently play well rather than just happening to play well? The answer lies in learning how to develop your mental ability. You need to work on your concentration, confidence, motivation, determination, self discipline and focus, all of which have a great impact on your attitude. Top sportspeople are both mentally and physically tough and they recognise that attitude is the most important thing that determines their level of success in any area of life. It's been said that success is 85% about your attitude and 15% about your aptitude. How's your attitude shaping up?