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Decay  Email this Article to a Friend
Psychologists call this process of a gradual decline of behavior, due to an inability to produce positive change, extinction. The inability to produce positive change may be about anything from hitting a golf shot to waiting in heavy traffic. The resulting behavior is frustration, irritability, and an inability to focus your thoughts on what you are doing for any length of time. Mental toughness is the ability to persevere, avoiding frustration and anger, or to express "PATIENCE." Instead of extinction, I refer to this process of frustration, anger, and loss of concentration as decay. When we behave in ways we believe should result in some change and nothing follows, we try again, and again, finally giving up with anger, loss of concentration, and frustration. Muscles tense and physical arousal follows as part of this decay. We lose PATIENCE. The person who lasts the longest at the soda machine or who can hit several bad shots or experience repeated "bad breaks" without aroused aggression, loss of concentration and performance deterioration has low arousal, high frustration tolerance and PATIENCE. How long would you last at the soda machine? How many bad shots or bad breaks does it take before you experience a deterioration in performance? Do you have a high resistance to decay? How many three footers do you need to miss before you lose your concentration during putting, or you consider changing putters or making some mechanical change? Most of us expect perfection in performance. We expect to make most putts from five feet. We expect to hit most fairways off the tee. We expect to hit most greens in regulation and so on. The reality is that the best players in the world don't meet the expectancies you have for yourself. Nicklaus says that when he and Hogan were playing their best game, they expected to hit only a handful of shots in a round exactly the way they wanted to. He further says that even at the highest levels of golf, perfect shots are mostly accidental and extremely rare.v Walter Hagen reportedly expected to hit seven bad shots in a round. When Walter Hagen hit a bad shot, he just "chalked it up" to one of the seven bad shots he was going to hit that day. What a nice way to fend off the emotional and physical consequences of decay. Expect to hit every shot perfectly, but when you don't, talk to yourself about realistic expectancies. Consider Hagen's, Nicklaus' and Hogan's strategies for yourself. These will help you be patient and maintain your focused concentration. Jack Nicklaus said that he "took the little bit of patience that came with the blessing of having a disciplined disposition, and worked it up into a lot of patience through conscious and hard-willed self-control."vii If you are striking the ball well on the range, expect to strike the ball well on the course, one shot at a time. If you expect to score well just because you are striking the ball well, or you expect to hit every shot perfectly, one of two things will likely occur: LPGA Tour player and former US Open Champion Meg Mallon says: "You're just going to have those days when it isn't there. But more often than not, if I'm practicing before I play and I'm comfortable with how I'm hitting it, I'll go out on the course and spray it all over the place because I've lost my focus and concentration and have relaxed too much."viii
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