Maintaining Your Motivation Level in Golf
Do you lose motivation when you can’t shoot lower score in competition or lower you handicap?
Goals can direct your focus and efforts on a target in the future.
Since long-term goals are typically at the end of a season, losing sight of that goal is quite common.
By adding short-term goals into your goal plan, you can maintain motivation for extended periods.
Long-term goals can lose their motivational power. Training can be a grind. When you practice more than you compete, keeping your eyes on the prize can be difficult.
You can quickly become frustrated when you don’t shoot lower scores or hit bumps in the road. Most golfers are short-sided and need a boost of motivation to maintain their level of effort.
Short-term goals provide intermediate targets. When you accomplish a short-term objective, you feel confident and motivated to move towards the next target.
Short-term goals help you gauge your progress so you can make necessary adjustments to your training if needed.
Short-term goals have several benefits:
- Provide more manageable targets.
- Generate positive emotions with each achieved objective.
- Help create momentum and motivation.
- Keep you focused one task at a time.
- Help you to stay on track.
- Boost your self-confidence.
- Provide you with feedback to measure your progress.
Let’s look at the example of Isabella McCauley. McCauley is a teenage golfer who has qualified for the U.S. Open. In 2021, McCauley became the first woman and youngest ever to win the Minnesota Golf Champions tournament.
McCauley, 17, was the top-ranked high school girls’ player in Minnesota in 2020 and will play for the University of Minnesota Gophers next year. McCauley’s long-term goal is to play professionally, but she focuses on accomplishing one task at a time.
“I would love to turn professional. That’s the goal. But I always take it step by step and never really look too far ahead. I’m committed to playing for the Gophers, and I’m super excited about that, she said.”
Long-term goals are more easily accomplished when broken down into more manageable series of sub-goals.
Each step forward provides feedback, generates positive emotions, sustains motivation, and increases the probability of achieving long-term objectives.
Setting Short-Term Goals
After you set your long-term seasonal goal, break down your goal into smaller chunks. What do you want to improve with your long game, putting, and chipping. How will you measure progress? Good goals measure your improvement or progress.
Identify 3-4 short-term objectives, such as improve touch on the greens, which can bring you closer to your ultimate goal of better putting. In addition, what’s the plan everyday in practice to help you get closer to your goals?
You want to keep in mind your long-term goal but stayed focused on goal getting or accomplishing each smaller goal along the path.
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