Ignite Talk

 I did not use any notes for my presentation, the only thing I used was my umbrella (golf club). And my only thought during the presentation was to speak in a poetic tone and to pace myself. Although I moved too fast and messed up a couple things I still feel like I did a good job.

Final Blog (improvement of project 3)

I have chosen to do the final project on Golf Psychology as a whole along with how to apply it to everyday Psychology. If someone does this they can become more mentally sound in ALL areas of life not just in golf. I intend to talk about my personal experience to give a real life example of the ideas I bring up. 

“Confidence is a player’s belief in their ability to perform well in any situation, practice or game. Confidence is derived from a baseline assessment of past performances, training, and preparation. As competency or skill mastery grows, your confidence becomes proportionately stronger. In order for players to develop high levels of confidence, they must have a clear understanding of the factors that boost and undermine their confidence, such as high expectations. Confidence is a core mental game skill because of its importance and relationship to other mental skills.” This was a quote that I used in an earlier project, by Dr. Gio. What does this quote mean? Basically, Dr. Gio is stating that confidence is drawn from your memories. If a golfer has made a 10 foot long putt thousands of times in practice, he will be likely to succeed in an actual round because he can remember back to all of those times that he has made that exact putt. People ask why practice makes perfect, well THAT’S WHY RIGHT THERE!! This concept easily translates into everyday life or everyday psychology. It applies the same way in everyday life; we build confidence through preparation. For example, if you study for a test for 10 hours you will be successful because you prepared yourself well. The next thing that Dr. Gio was asked to explain was control. He broke control down into three separate thoughts known as “The Three R’s”. The Three R’s are as follows: Recognize–Regroup–Refocus. What I took from his explanation of these is that one must “Recognize” that he or she has lost control of their emotions. After that one must “Regroup” by interrupting their current train of thought. And finally, “Refocusing” on something positive, such us, all of those 10-foot long putts that were made during practice. This can be a great way to control yourself when life is throwing seven different kinds of smoke at you. You can use that same 3-step process to calm yourself down and then focus on the new task at hand. I have implemented this into my personal life by taking 10 minutes when I get flustered to gather myself, what I do is put my headphones on and listen to classical music while I go through the 3 R’s. Doing this really allows me to focus and think effectively. The final part of the conversation with Dr. Gio was focused on commitment. When one is committed to something they usually have an interest in it for some reason, this is applicable to golf and also life.  When one is playing well during a round of golf, they are engaged and interested in it (therefore they are committed). When you are not playing well it can affect how interested in it you are and how engaged you are in doing well, which will result in you not being as committed to playing your best. It’s the same way with life, if you are committed and interested in something than you have a lot more fun doing it. This is why I personally try to do things that interest me when it comes to school. Being interested in my school subjects makes class a lot more enjoyable and less of a strain. Sports Psychology From Dr. Gio Valianti: “Many influences occur in a golfers life that can affect his or her performance, they can be physical or mental influences. The priority in sports psychology is to overcome negative mental influences.” According to Dr. Gio, six main elements are necessary for good concentration habits: knowing what things to focus on, staying focused on those relevant things, keeping a narrow and external focus, the ability to shift attention when needed, the ability to refocus when distracted, and controlling your thought process. Conquering all these elements will make any golfers mental game much more superior compared to a golfer who hasn’t mastered the elements of concentration. This is also a part of my golf game that translates to my everyday life. I use these 6 things as a guideline on how to live my life and ever since I started doing so I have become a more relaxed and more organized person.

In sum, human psychology is a very interesting topic and it was very fun to relate golf psychology to everyday human psychology. Everyone who reads this can see how important his/her psychological state of mind is and everyone should try to take a piece of this to implement into his or her personal lives. It worked wonders for me and I know it will for you too.

Mini Project 3

Last week I wrote about sports psychology and how it plays a hand in golf. I tried to play around with this idea of doing a rant and I think I have made some improvements on that idea this time around by trying to be more conversational. Last week I talked mainly about how Dr. Gio Valiante breaks golf psychology into “The four C’s”. I spent most of last weeks post talking about concentration (one of the four C’s) and how it plays into golf. Well this week I am going to talk about the remaining three.

Dr. Gio was asked to define confidence and he answered this way, “Confidence is a player’s belief in their ability to perform well in any situation, practice or game. Confidence is derived from a baseline assessment of past performances, training, and preparation. As competency or skill mastery grows, your confidence becomes proportionately stronger. In order for players to develop high levels of confidence, they must have a clear understanding of the factors that boost and undermine their confidence, such as high expectations. Confidence is a core mental game skill because of its importance and relationship to other mental skills.” What does this mean? Basically, Dr. Gio is stating that confidence is drawn from your memories. If a golfer has made a 10 foot long putt thousands of times in practice, he will be likely to succeed in an actual round because he can remember back to all of those times that he has made that exact putt. People ask why practice makes perfect, well THAT’S WHY RIGHT THERE!!

The next thing that Dr. Gio was asked to explain was control. He broke control down into three separate thoughts known as “The Three R’s”. The Three R’s are as follows: Recognize–Regroup–Refocus. What I took from his explanation of these is that one must “Recognize” that he or she has lost control of their emotions. After that one must “Regroup” by interrupting their current train of thought. And finally, “Refocusing” on something positive, such us, all of those 10 foot long putts that were made during practice.

The final part of the conversation with Dr. Gio was focused on commitment. This section can be summarized shortly because it is a fairly simple concept to grasp. When one is committed to something they usually have an interest in it for some reason, this is applicable to golf. When one is playing well during a round of golf, they are engaged and interested in it (therefore they are committed). When you are not playing well it can affect how interested in it you are and how engaged you are in doing well, which will result in you not being as committed to playing your best.

In sum, the four C’s of golf psychology are the best way of understanding the mental side of golf or any other sport. Dr. Gio is a very respected sports psychologist and released a video series from which I quoted him and gathered information for my projects. I hope you have enjoyed reading my projects and if you have any questions please leave them below.  

Golf Psychology (mini project 2)

For this project I have chosen the topic of sports psychology in golf. I will describe the topic and then apply the topic to an example. I selected this topic because I play golf and I have always wondered what a sports psychologists view on golf is. The style in which I will present this project will resemble the rant activity we did in class today. When we did this activity it gave me this idea so I figured I'd give it a shot. 

Sports Psychology From Dr. Gio Valianti:

“Many influences occur in a golfers life that can affect his or her performance, they can be physical or mental influences. The priority in sports psychology is to overcome negative mental influences.” According to Dr. Gio, there are four main mental qualities to help golfers perform at their fullest. These mental qualities are known as the four C’s: concentration, confidence, control, and commitment. Concentration is the ability to focus on a certain task or goal. Different sports require different levels of concentration. Some sports such as golf, baseball, shooting, and cricket require short bursts of concentration. In tennis, distance running, cycling you have to sustain concentration much longer.  Golfers have to overcome distractions that effect concentration; including mistakes, fatigue, anxiety, weather, coaches, opponents, negative thinking, and many others. Strategies to improve concentration depend on the individual and sport. In golf, the mental side of the game is very crucial. Each round requires concentration to be turned on and off multiple times. When walking up to a shot the golfer must turn on full concentration, when walking to the ball the golfer can relax concentration temporarily. According to Dr. Gio, six main elements are necessary for good concentration habits: knowing what things to focus on, staying focused on those relevant things, keeping a narrow and external focus, the ability to shift attention when needed, the ability to refocus when distracted, and controlling your thought process. Conquering all these elements will make any golfers mental game much more superior compared to a golfer who hasn’t mastered the elements of concentration.

Mini Project 1

PHOTO ESSAY ON LEARNING IN GOLF AND LIFE

THE 5 AREAS OF GOLF THAT RELATE TO LIFE

1. Putting- When somebody is about to putt, no matter if it’s Tiger Woods or just your average weekend golfer, they will always analyze the “break” of the putt before actually hitting the ball. The break is the curve that the ball will travel on during the shot. When one is analyzing the break of the putt they are determining what direction to hit the ball is the best choice, this can be related to life simply. This is similar to when you are in school and you are taking a test. You will never answer a question without reading it first, so you analyze the question and answers to make the best choice, just like reading the break of a putt.

2. Short Game- The short game is widely known as the most vital part of a golfers arsenal. The short game is considered shots from 100 yards and in; it is so because golfers very rarely take full swings in this range of distances. To have a good short game one must have good vision and selection skills. What this means is one must be able to envision the best path to the hole, sometimes that can be a high shot that stops when it hits the green or a low shot a rolls a long way once it hits the green, and then be able to select which one of those paths is best option. This can be seen in college when someone is trying to major in something. They have many ways to get to their end goal, but it is up to them to determine the best option on how to get there.

3. Long Game- The long game is the hardest part of golf. It takes the most time to prefect and is usually the thing golfers pay the most attention to. It takes a lot of practice to develop a solid long game and mistakes are bound to happen from time to time. The lesson you can take from this is to have the ability to learn from your mistakes. Even the pros hit bad shots every once in a while, but what makes them better than amateurs is their ability to learn from their bad shots. In life we all mess up, we all make mistakes, and we all fail. We can learn something from golf that can help with this, that is to learn from our errors and use that knowledge to try and keep it from happening again. Experience can never hurt, failing multiple times can help you realize what you are doing wrong and having the ability to use that experience will take you far in life.

4. The Mental Game- All great champions associate their success with their mental toughness. The way you mentally approach something in golf is similar to how one should do it in real life. You need 3 things: A decision on what you want to do, a plan executing that decision, and the ability to move on if your plan fails. In golf you decide on what kind of shot you want to hit, you create a plan supporting that shot, and then if it doesn’t work quite as planned you accept it and move on. This is a GREAT way to mentally approach life!! Make a decision on what you want to do, make a plan supporting your decision, and if things don’t work out accept it and move on.

5. Physical Skills- You need discipline and determination to get into good shape. Being in good shape allows your body to perform better. This puts you in a position to succeed on the golf course.  In school it’s not so much physical strength that you need, but you need to do physical things to succeed. An example of this is studying hard so you know the material and that puts you in a position to succeed and do great things.

Meeting with the High School Students

We got to meet some of the high school students that we wrote letters to last Thursday. It was a really nice experience getting to know them and answer any questions they had about college. I remember when I first came to college and how nervous I was, so being able to tell these kids about my experience was fun and helpful for them. Being able to talk to these kids about college readiness was fun and really tied together our class discussion on college readiness.

Response to Class Discussion

In class the other day we looked at some quotes and this is my response to them. I agreed with the quote about how if someone is forced to do something they learn to dislike it. People should be able to choose what they want to do. The other quote was on mental activity and further education and I agreed with it because I believe that a further education is needed to be able to sculpt your own thoughts and ideas.