Generally, It Gets Worse before it Gets Better

I am a big believer in telling it as it is.  I would rather deliver the truth of things and help people to deal with these realities than to make false promises to try and cushion the blow.

When you make a change in golf... and in life, it takes work and you may actually get worse or struggle more initially than you did before you made the change.  In our modern-day world, that is fast-paced and generally encourages us to find quick fixes for our problems, these initial setbacks can unconsciously encourage us to get "stuck" in our current strategies in what we are doing.  For a lot of us, it is just easier to deal with the lackluster results of things than invest in the cure for what ails us.

My training as a therapist introduced me to the concept of "it gets worse before it gets better".  When people come to therapy, they are generally needing help to get "unstuck".  Their strategies for dealing with the challenges in life are no longer working and they need guidance on how they can unlock this energy, allowing their abilities to be healthy, balanced and centered that they were born with to be unblocked.

At first, when you work with someone on unblocking things, the crutches that have served them to get by (which have also gotten them stuck) are removed.  This can be scary and generally clients will struggle mightily at first without those crutches.  A therapist knows that this is the work of therapy.  They are prepared for this struggle and they work with their clients to manage these pangs of change in a healthy and productive way.  The therapist has faith, having gone through this process with clients before, that they will emerge on the other side in a better place than prior to making the change.  Without this individual who can hold the faith in getting to that place, it is common for people to remain stuck.  They run up against the difficulty of making the change and they fall back into their "stuck" ways rather rapidly. 

The main job of the therapist is to hold onto this faith when the student has lost all of theirs.  A therapist offers this rock-solid faith in the natural healing process that every human being possesses as their birthright.  They support their clients, give them skills to manage the anxiety and stress of the change and help them to slowly work toward the goals that were set forth at the beginning of therapy.

All of this is true of a golf instructor as well.

When a person comes for golf lessons, generally speaking there is something major that needs to be changed.  When you make a fundamental change, all of the previous adjustments you have made to hit the golf ball will no longer work.  For example, when you change the grip, everything changes and the way you swung the club will no longer produce the same result as it did before.

Many tips that amateurs and even a number of pros give are merely band-aids for a problem.  They make things better for a short time but they do not address the fundamental issue that is at the base of things.

I do not believe in quick fixes or putting band-aids on major wounds in a golf game.  If you are looking for that, please find another instructor to work with you.  My training is in helping people make fundamental changes to their golf games and their lives and supporting them through the challenges and difficulty of making those changes.

Any change worth making is worth the struggle to make the change.  I have gone through this process enough myself and worked with enough people making these fundamental changes to have developed my own faith in the process of change.

There have been a number of times that my students have come up to me after a few lessons and said something to the effect of, "It is really tempting for me to go back to the old swing right now".  When I first started teaching, this kind of statement would freak me out.  I would think to myself, "Oh no!  I have messed them up.  I don't know what I'm doing, etc."  However, after this initial wave of freaking out had passed, I mustered enough belief that what I was teaching them was the right path that I was able to forge forward with them in the new direction, despite these initial doubts.  After doing this hundreds of times, I began to develop a stronger and stronger belief in what I was teaching.

Hundreds of successful attempts at something will do wonders for your ability to have faith in anything.

With many years of practice, I believe my skill at holding faith in the long-term success of making fundamental changes has become one of my highest skills.  My clients reap the benefit of this work I have done in that they can have their moments of doubting the change they are making and I am able to take that in stride and know that it is just part of making a significant and important change in golf....and in life.