Dr. Mac Powell - Inner Game: Breaking Golf’s Unbreakable Barriers

2004 Dark Bird Press

PO Box 4762 Culver City, California 9023

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfiliming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

The publisher and author are not engaged in rendering psychological services (e.g., counseling or psychotherapy). If legal or professional psychological advice is required, the services of a competent licensed professional should be sought.

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Layout and illustrations by Daniel Rhone.

Edited by Heather Noggle.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004093223

First Paperback Edition

ISBN 0-9755212-0-9

IX

PROLOGUE

Personality rules performance in all athletic mediums, yet the paramount importance of personality in golf remains largely unnoticed and unaddressed. The significance of per- sonality in golf is due to the individual stand alone nature of the game and its timing. In a four-hour round, a golfer is in the process of swinging the club less than five min- utes. The rest of the time should be devoted to mastering the mental game, overcoming the limits of personality, and maximizing physical assets. Golfers regularly fail to see the limits of their personality and become patterned, repeating inconsistent performance after inconsistent performance.

Optimizing performance requires understanding your per- sonality and its tendencies, and recognizing that there is no room for mental preparation once youve addressed the ball. You must have prepared for the shot well before you begin your pre-shot routine, before youve entered the course, before youve finished your practice at the range.

The problem is not that personality determines behavior, but that people are unaware of their personalitys impor- tance. All personalities have strengths and weaknesses, and all personalities have unique tendencies that make slipping into the zone easier if you are aware of the mechanisms.

Enhanced performance in any sport, but particularly golf, requires understanding and mastering the way personality and mental processes determine particular outcomes. This

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book addresses personality in terms of Types, unique char- acteristics that form the what of who we are. Once you have a grasp of who you are and what particular tendencies you have in performance, the book offers a set of Basic Skills and Skills for Mastery that will assist golfers of varying abil- ities with mastering the mental game. Exercises in the back of the book offer practical technical solutions, drills and practice aids, personality inventories, and worksheets to assist players to maximize their mental and physical efforts on the course.

At its core, this book is a spiritual endeavor drawing from the wisdom of my teachers, many of whom were tremen- dous golfers, but all of them were tremendous people. My thanks to all of you who have assisted in the development of this book and to those of you who will grow by reading it.

The following section describes the Types, illustrating each with historical examples, and how aspects of the self and personality affect performance. Subsequent sections address more practical skills and offer Type-specific exer- cises designed to maximize optimal performance.

INNER GAME : BREAKING GOLFS UNBREAKABLE BARRIERS

One of the assumptions of this book is that our unique strengths, weaknesses, barriers, and roles are familiar. Weve grown accustomed to repeating them. The patterns we create have meaning, particularly in our relationships and in our passions. Some of us repeatedly compliment other people, receive positive feedback from those compli- ments, and unendingly repeat that cycle. From this pattern we might assign the belief that we are considerate and thoughtful, and yet this is not all of who we are. The truth is that we are both considerate and inconsiderate, empa- thetic and selfish. Unbeknownst to you, your personality has established the limits of who you are and how far youll go in life: whom youll marry, how high and how fast youll climb the corporate ladder, and whether youll ultimately be satisfied or disappointed with your life. This highlights an underlying assumption of my work, that you will go only as far in golf as you go in your life .

The link between worldly success, golfing ability, and spir- itual fulfillment is found in how we use, develop, and learn from our personalities. This link has a tremendous amount to teach you.

For this book, I have identified nine distinct personalities, or Types. The model is based upon the Enneagram, an ancient system for understanding personalities rooted in Jungian Psychology. The basics are quite simple. There are nine Types, all with strengths and weaknesses that manifest in consistent and habitual patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Our Type makes us predictable, but often only to the people around us. We are the last to see how our per- sonality hinders our progress.

The Types

The Types are unique expressions of who we are. Each of us has a dominant Type, a particular lens that we see the world though, and each of us has traits and tendencies that cause us to identify with other Types of people in very spe- cific and predictable ways. Early in our lives, we adopted particular Types, almost always as a reaction to what was happening in our families. Over the course of our lives, we incorporate the positive traits of other Types, but remain, almost without exception, an expression of the dominant Type developed in our childhood.

My hope is that you will identify with each of the Types, but that you will choose one that exemplifies your own person- ality and idiosyncrasies as a golfer and person. It will be helpful for you to remind yourself, your friends, and your playing partners of your tendencies, to tell them who you are so that they can assist you with monitoring your growth. It is my hope that you can begin to see movement, and that you can begin to alter your perception of yourself and others. Each Type can thrive in any setting, and mastering how you react to situations and people in your life will assist you both on and off the course. The game has much to teach, and students are rewarded as much for attitude and approach as their actual performance.