By Christine Wheeler, MA

Golf is such a mental game. What are you thinking about out there ... work ... school ... worried about your kids? Or are you thinking about how you can never make this shot?  

You know that the stuff you're worrying about is distracting you from your game. But what do you do about it?

How can you keep your mind on your game if you're constantly distracted by unproductive thinking? What thoughts and feelings are you taking with you to the green? How many golf strokes do you give away emotionally? Five per round? 10? I guess the trick would be to leave your emotional thoughts behind. But how do you do that?

Keep your mind on your game -- resolve your emotional stress with EFT.

You might not have aspirations to become a pro golfer, but I never met an athlete who didn't want to improve his or her game. Few sports are more exacting than golf, and EFT is the perfect performance-enhancement tool to help you keep the strain of the day away from your game. You can learn the basics of EFT in no time and be on your way to freedom from the disruptive thoughts that mess with your game.

The same tool that drops points off your golf score can also help with the rest of your sports performance.

EFT is a do-it-yourself acupuncture technique (with no needles) that anybody can learn. You get relief by tapping with your fingertips on specific acupuncture points.

While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package on the EFT Web site. This includes a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.

Here's an example from Steve Wells, an Australian Performance Specialist who regularly uses Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to enhance his work with athletes.

Steve had been working with Jim (whose name has been changed to protect privacy) who was a very good amateur golfer with aspirations of becoming pro. They'd been working on Jim's performance issues like fear of embarrassment if he missed a shot onto the green.

After EFT, Jim's confidence in his abilities expanded significantly. By the way, you can apply the same technique to any performance issue for any sport.

But Jim was stuck because he didn't feel able to commit to achieving his goal. He was in a job that he hated and that was draining his time and energy and keeping him from committing 100 percent to developing his golf game.

EFT clears the mind of negative thoughts that inhibit your golf game.

Steve did a lot of EFT work with Jim around a series of fears ... fear of "taking the plunge" into becoming pro ... fear of failure ... fear of success.

These fears and negative emotions were constantly inhibiting Jim's performance, and his very chance at playing at the caliber of a pro. You know that much of the game is played in the golfer's mind and EFT helps clear the mind of intrusive, detrimental thoughts.

Once Jim's intrusive emotions were resolved with EFT, Steve reported, "In the past two months he has finished second in two local tournaments, achieved a top five placing in an international tournament, beaten several players ranked above him and managed to post some incredible scores."  (You can read the entire article on the EFT Web site.)

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