How do we Learn and Improve?

How do we learn? Do we learn through perfect performance? Or do we learn and improve our golf game through our ‘mistakes’, ‘mishits’ and ‘failures’? If we expect perfection in our golf game we’re doomed to frustration. If we expect to learn from perfection we’re delusional. We must accept our ‘mishits’ with grace and patience, and have an intention to learn something from them. It will be much easier on our delicate psyche and it will be much more productive in the process of improving our golf game. We must accept that it requires conscious attention and intention to learn from our ‘mistakes’…….but it will be so worthwhile and productive!

We can still expect excellent performance, but we need to be willing to accept that it will not always happen. We must not treat imperfection as ‘failure’, but learn to trust in the natural human learning process. I’m brought back to the concept of how a child naturally learns to walk (see the April 2022 Instinctive Golf Blog, Learning to Golf is Like Learning to Walk, on this site). A child doesn’t expect perfection, it basks in the play, the fun, the curiosity and the simple joy of learning something new!

We must be inquisitive and work on developing our child-like curiosity to learn something new while playing and practicing our golf game. We must be open to ‘mistakes’ and ‘mishits’ as opportunities to learn. It will be much gentler on our psyche……and it will likely make us much more pleasant to play golf with!

The learning process can, but doesn’t have to, happen in the immediacy after a ‘mistake’ or ‘mishit’ while playing golf. The social aspect of playing with other golfers may not allow the self-reflection and attention required. The learning can happen later on when we have the privacy to self-reflect, or during our next practice session. After all, isn’t the real purpose of any ‘practice’…… to learn?!?