#7. How Hypnosis Can Help You Shoot Lower Scores
Episode Summary:
In this solo episode of The Scratch Golfer’s Mindset Podcast, Paul Salter, The Golf Hypnotherapist, shares updates on his golf journey and discusses the powerful impact of hypnosis on improving your golf game. He offers insights into how hypnosis can help you bypass mental and emotional barriers that prevent you from reaching your full potential on the course.
Paul also debunks common myths about hypnosis, highlighting its role in rewiring your brain for success. Learn about neuroplasticity, how to unlearn destructive mindset programs, and the benefits of vivid visualization. Plus, grab a free recorded hypnosis audio to experience the benefits yourself.
Ready to shoot lower scores? Tune in to learn how hypnosis can take your golf game to the next level!
P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about how mindset coaching and hypnotherapy can help you get unstuck from the proverbial bunker of poor performance on the course and in your business, click here to schedule a coaching discovery call with me.
Key Quotes:
- “Hypnosis is a powerful tool for transformation that can change the reality and the trajectory of your life really fast.”
- “When you’re in this hypnotic state, you bypass all of that noise, negativity and nonsense.”
- “Your brain’s ability to adapt, change, rewire, form new neural pathways and connections as you accumulate new experiences and learn new information.”
- “The subconscious mind influences 95% of behavior, and hypnosis provides a shortcut to accessing and transforming it.”
- “Hypnosis allows golfers to bypass the critical judgmental voice of the conscious mind and directly connect with their subconscious, leading to rapid change and improved performance.”
Want more details and examples of how hypnosis is helping my clients shoot lower scores, as well as a free recorded hypnosis audio to help you play better?
Grab both of these free resources here.
Transcript:
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (00:02.404)
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset podcast. I am thrilled to be back to provide an update on my golf journey and to just spend some solo time mano -a -mano here on another episode. Don’t you worry though, I’ve got two incredible guests already recorded for future episodes in the month of June that you are not going to want to miss. Incredibly successful Scratch golfers.
Tournament, I mean like multi tournament winners and even someone who spent years as a caddy at the famous Pebble Beach But today we’re gonna begin our conversation on I guess fortunately or unfortunately an Incredibly brief update on my golf journey truthfully the last three weeks have been Travel galore for me and the next two and a half weeks look all pretty similar
With that said, I have not gotten out for any rounds recently. Fortunately, I’ve gotten some time in putting and chipping a little bit of time on the range, but actually I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in my mind, visualizing my swing, how I’m approaching certain situations on the putting green, practicing my chipping and even on the range. So I am excited. I’m making small.
Progress I know I’m looking forward to showing off the hard work that I’ve been putting in once I get back from this current trip I’ve already got my next lesson scheduled a couple rounds scheduled both in Florida and During one of my trips up to Ohio. So the month of June should bring some more results and updates to fruition With that said I want to move in to today’s topic talking about hypnosis and
The frame that I invite you to listen to and absorb today’s episode and information is through a lens of open -mindedness and non -judgmental curiosity. Because let me be incredibly candid. You can spend hours upon hours hitting one shot after another on the range. Inevitably, however,
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (02:26.02)
you are going to reach a point where it’s not your swing holding you back. It is one or most likely multiple aspects of your mental and emotional game. It is one of the aforementioned mental or emotional hazards of your mind that is permeating your belief in yourself, your confidence, creating spaces for doubt, uncertainty and distrust.
and your decision making and your swing, letting rampant emotions clog your clarity, your decisiveness and inevitably provide tension and tightness into your swing, which puts you down a path or a perpetual cycle of accumulating anger, frustration, and so on and so forth until you find yourself continuing to spin your wheels, stuck shooting in the 90s or if you’re stuck shooting in the 80s, feeling like…
breaking through and shooting in the 70s is a foregone conclusion never to happen. So today’s episode is going to equip you, educate you on one of the most powerful, fast and effective techniques that you can begin to leverage to take your golf game to the next level and begin shooting lower scores. And that technique of course is hypnosis. Yes, let me address the elephant in the room.
I’m biased. I’m a credentialed hypnotherapist. Hypnosis has had a profoundly positive impact on my life. When I first came across the power of hypnosis, it was to help me improve my poker game. This was a chapter of my life where I was playing poker professionally and my mindset coach and the power of hypnosis, which by the way, I still work with that same mindset coach five years later.
It helped me tremendously, not only on the poker table, but in my professional and my personal life as well. It had such a profound impact on my life that I left my 14 year nutrition coaching career to go all in on mindset, mindset coaching, performance coaching, and using hypnosis to help golfers, entrepreneurs, and poker players break through their upper limits and reach their full potential. So now that we’ve got the bias out of the way, I want to share facts.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (04:50.34)
I want to share stories and relatable examples to open your mind to just how powerful hypnosis could be, just how wonderful of an addition and compliment hypnosis can be to your mental toolkit to help you stop self -sabotage on the course and start shooting lower scores. Now, the way that I like to begin.
talking about hypnosis and actually I don’t want to get ahead of myself I do want to mention one thing real quick if you as you move forward listening to this episode if you’re picking up what I’m putting down and you want a little bit more information about hypnosis want to hear firsthand accounts and testimonials from some of my golfing clients about their experience with hypnosis I’ve put together a free PDF resource I think it’s like 15 pages giving you even more detail than what I discussed in today’s episode.
and I’ve included a free recorded hypnosis audio that you can use before your next round that I promise you if you use consistently will absolutely help you to experience shooting lower scores effective immediately. You can get both of those resources absolutely free by visiting the link below in the show notes. Okay. With that said, let’s get back to the topic at hand, which is
Hypnosis and the way that we have to begin this conversation is debunking what hypnosis is not. Hypnosis is not mind control. It’s not brainwashing. It’s not me swinging a pocket watch at you yelling the command sleep. It is not me making you cluck like a chicken. It is not me digging into and capturing your deepest, darkest secrets.
You likely have an idea of hypnosis that you got from either Hollywood, you know, movies, TV shows or stage shows and performances alike in Las Vegas or across the country. Otherwise, hypnosis again, it’s not mind control. It’s not brainwashing and it’s not me putting you to sleep. Hypnosis is a powerful tool for transformation that can change the reality and the trajectory of your life really fucking fast.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (07:12.26)
So the way that I encourage you to think about hypnosis is as a shortcut to unlearning the emotions, beliefs, and behaviors, keeping you stuck by serving as a tool to unlock direct access to your subconscious mind. Now, you may be wondering, why is this important? Well, I’m gonna tell you. Your subconscious mind influences 95 % of your behavior.
So through hypnosis, we are able to get right to the origin of the learned emotions, fears, beliefs, and behaviors, what I collectively call destructive mindset programs. We’re able to get to the origin of these learned behaviors that are keeping you stuck and do some incredible rapid work to unlearn and upgrade them so that you can begin to thrive. Which now begs the question, okay, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, Paul.
But what exactly is hypnosis? Well, I define hypnosis as a state of deep relaxation aimed at affecting positive change. It’s getting really relaxed with the intention to make positive change in your life. It’s literally that simple. Another way to think about it, which will be much more relatable and understandable if you have any background or experience with either yoga or meditation,
is thinking of hypnosis like a one -to -one intimate guided meditation where we collaborate to uncover, unlearn, or upgrade emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that are hindering your progress. Now, incredibly important for me to convey and you to understand, when you are in hypnosis, you are awake, alert, conscious, and in control.
every step of the way. And what I also find valuable in making clear is that at this very moment, you have already been in a hypnotic state, likely multiple times today. It is a natural state of mind.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (09:29.412)
This hypnotic state is characterized by a change in certain types of brain waves being produced. And the hypnotic state is associated with producing primarily what are known as theta brain waves. And you are in this theta brain wave state immediately when you transition from a sleeping to a waking state, when you are lost in a good book, caught up in your favorite TV show or movie,
deeply focused in a flow state, whether at work or even on the golf course, and again in those final moments before you transition from wakefulness to sleeping at the end of the day. So I share that just to reiterate, hypnosis is a natural state of mind, absolutely safe, and again, it is not mind control. You are awake, alert, conscious, and in control every single step of the way. Now,
Let’s talk about some of the true benefits or better yet, where hypnosis kind of gets this allure, this magic, if you will. There are two main magic powers, benefits, if you will, of hypnosis. Number one, when you’re in this hypnotic state, you are able to bypass or sidestep that critical judgmental voice of your conscious mind. That voice that says, you suck, why bother?
this will never work. You can’t do that. Yeah. When you’re in that hypnotic state, you bypass all of that noise, negativity and nonsense. And number two, you’re able to directly connect again with your subconscious mind. And this is important because your subconscious mind is home to your imagination, intuition and creative powers, your problem solving abilities, as well as home to your emotions, your memories, your beliefs.
your habits and your values. It is here that we’re able to uncover the origin of all of these destructive mindset programs, all of these toxic emotions that are keeping you stuck in the proverbial bunker of poor performance. And through hypnosis, we can get straight to the core.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (11:45.444)
rather than trying to apply a surface level solution to a deep rooted problem to release these stuck emotions and unlearn the behaviors and beliefs that are keeping you stuck. One of the mistakes that so many golfers make, including likely you, is you think that your problem is how you hit your nine iron, how you approach your short game, how you use your driver. And the truth is there’s merit. You need to constantly work on fine tuning and evolving your swing technique.
But most of the time, once you reach a certain point and have put in a significant number of swing repetitions, it becomes a mindset problem. And constantly thinking it’s a problem with your swing is like putting a bandaid over a bullet wound. It’s a short term fix to a long term deep rooted problem. Hypnosis is the deep rooted solution you need to conquer and stop the deep.
rooted problem that continues to permeate into your word choice, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors and plagues your performance. That’s what hypnosis allows you to do. And there are two main principles or concepts in which hypnosis capitalizes on to help you achieve rapid change. Number one is it capitalizes on the concept known as neuroplasticity, which is your brain’s ability to adapt.
change, rewire, form new neural pathways and connections as you accumulate new experiences and learn new information. Your brain is dynamic, always responding, changing and adapting to the sensory input you take in. So we can capitalize on that and upgrade and rewire your brain for peak performance, confidence and resiliency on and off the golf course. The second principle that hypnosis really capitalizes on,
is the fact that we allow you, through hypnosis, to touch base with that state of deep relaxation when you are primarily producing theta brain waves. Between the ages of zero and seven, you are primarily in this theta brain wave state. Remember, back then as a child, you thought you could do anything. You were fearless. You had an incredible degree of belief.
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (14:10.148)
confidence and trust in yourself. And through the wear and tear of adulthood and your peers, your upbringing and your environment, you lost some of that confidence, belief, capability, trust and worthiness in yourself. So hypnosis helps you return to that state to harness and tap into the incredible limitless amount of confidence, grit, persistence, belief and trust. That’s all.
ready within you. Hypnosis can help you re -access that easier than ever before, so you can access it on demand to play your best golf and shine your brightest both on and off the golf course. And I like to kind of dig into some common examples here. You might have heard me say this before, but it’s absolutely worth mentioning because it’s so frequent. Golf is much more than just a physical game. It is a mental and emotional game.
When your mind is filled with doubt, worry, and distraction, you’re unable to bring the necessary focus and presence you need to execute your routines and hit the shots you need to and know that you’re capable of making. And when emotions such as anger, frustration, even excessive excitement begin to permeate your body, you tense up. Your muscles tighten.
And this impairs your ability to execute the smooth fluid swing you need, which in turn only produces more anger and frustration. And on and on the perpetual cycle of self -sabotage and stuckness goes. So it’s important that we get to the root of this. We learn to better manage and regulate our emotions. We help diffuse and unstuck some of those toxic emotions that plague you on the golf course.
and ultimately work to unlearn the associated set of behaviors that plague you and keep you from playing your best. And I always love to ask this question, like how many unfocused, distracted shots do you think you take on a round of 18? How many emotionally charged, rushed shots do you feel you take on a round of 18?
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (16:28.324)
If I had to wage an estimate, I’d say that number’s in the double digits. So what if you could cut that in half? What if you could cut that by 75 %? How many strokes would you begin to gain without spending hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours on the practice range? How delighted, ecstatic would you be if you could drastically reduce your score?
by four, six, eight, even 10 strokes by simply releasing some of the stuck emotions, uncovering and unlearning some of the associated beliefs and behaviors that plague your golf game and have nothing to do with your swing and course management strategy and so much more to do with your emotional awareness and management and the mindset, attitude and effort you bring to the game. Your ability to focus and manage your emotions is crucial.
to reaching your potential as a golfer. And hypnosis is a fast, powerful, research -backed, effective way to help you shoot lower scores and have more fun playing golf. Win -win fucking situation if I do say so myself. Now, one thing I wanna share to help clarify one of the, I guess,
misconceptions or misunderstandings about hypnosis. A lot of people think when they think about hypnosis, they think about intense visualization. And that is absolutely an incredibly valuable aspect of hypnosis. Spending time before your round visualizing your pre -round routine, your pre -shot routine, visualizing and really engaging every one of the sensory elements.
into every single shot, the challenges you’ll face, the different lies and degrees of difficulties of situation, doing all of that with intense, vivid visualization, with an intense sensory experience before you even play your round, wildly effective at helping you play better golf. In addition to that, like I’ve been alluding to this entire episode, you…
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (18:45.284)
also get indescribable value and power to shoot lower scores by being able to diffuse some of the toxic emotions, anger, frustration, and dismantle some of the destructive mindset programs. So, I mean, complimenting one another, you get to capitalize on the
deep healing and release -like work that hypnosis provides alongside the power of vivid imagery and an intense sensory experience. Together, when doing hypnosis the right way with a credentialed hypnotherapist, it is a potent combination to help you shoot lower scores fast. And again, in the show notes of this episode, I’ve put together a very intense visualization focus.
recorded hypnosis audio for you to get a true taste of what a vivid visualization practice that truly engages all of your senses feels like so you can have the experience and get a taste of this potent mental game strategy yourself and, hey, begin playing better golf. Now, one thing I want to make abundantly clear is hypnosis is something you can do on your own.
Yes, you can hire a coach, but it’s still wildly effective on your own. It’s just taken to a whole nother depth of effectiveness when you’re working with a coach. So my challenge to you, my recommendation is utilize that free recording I’ve shared below every day, once per day, preferably in the morning, definitely, definitely on the days you are playing around. So the ideal setup here,
would make this a morning practice and it’s between I think 15 and 18 minutes. It’s not too long and make this a daily practice. Do it for 21 days and let me know how your golf game improves. I would love to hear from you. Just shoot me a message on Instagram, but which by the way, brand new Instagram purely dedicated to golf mental game strategies and coaching techniques and tips at scratch golfer mindset on Instagram and at
Paul Salter | Golf Mindset Coach (21:01.028)
Paul Salter Coach on Twitter. And of course you can always email me paul at unstuck yourself mindset .com. I’d love to hear from you. I would love to hear about your experience putting this hypnosis recording into practice and letting me know how much of a positive improvement you see and experience on the golf course. So with that said, I’ll wrap up today’s episode and leave you with these few reminders. Hypnosis is not mind control.
It is not brainwashing. It is not losing control, surrendering your secrets or being put to sleep. It is however, a powerful transformational tool that can change the reality and trajectory of your life. And you can think of it as a shortcut to beginning to unlearn, uncover, and upgrade the emotions, beliefs, and behaviors that are keeping you stuck. And really the way that I see it, if you’re serious about improving your golf game,
You have two choices on your path to playing to your potential. Number one, repetition. And this path, it’s long, it’s painful, and oftentimes you won’t ever find the correct root cause of your problems. Thus, it might not really be that effective, and you just spend countless hours on the range over and over and over. Yes, there’s merit to that to some extent, but it shouldn’t be the only way. There’s a faster way, and that faster…
Way is through hypnosis, which is a fast, direct and highly effective strategy system and protocol to upgrading your beliefs and behaviors to align with your potential so that playing your best becomes your reality. Well, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset Podcast. Grab more information on the power of hypnosis to shoot lower scores and that free
recorded hypnosis audio at the link below. Let me know how the experience is for you. And as always, if you haven’t done so already, it would mean the world to me if you took 30 seconds to share this episode and then to leave a genuine rating and review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’re listening to today’s episode. Thank you again for being here. Have a wonderful round this weekend and I’ll speak with you in the next episode.
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PAUL SALTER
Paul Salter - known as The Golf Hypnotherapist - is a High-Performance Mindset Coach who leverages hypnosis and powerful subconscious reprogramming techniques to help golfers of all ages and skill levels overcome the mental hazards of their minds so they shoot lower scores and play to their potential.