‘Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.’ Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America.

Just over a week ago on Sunday 9th April, 2017, a new US Masters Maters champion, Sergio Garcia, donned the victor’s green jacket after 73 previous attempts in winning his first ‘Major’ – a record in itself.

Garcia was from an early age a prodigious talent who at just 19 years of age demonstrated this when he burst onto the world stage by playing an audacious recovery shot from behind a tree in the style of his mentor, Seve Ballesteros, in a head-to-head battle with Tiger Woods for the 1999 USPGA Championship. Woods won and Garcia finished second.

Garcia’s career has been described as one of ‘not quites’ and ‘might have beens’. To watch Garcia play can often be an emotive and frustrating rollercoaster experience, for his body language can quickly indicate what is going on in his mind that externalises itself in bad behaviour and the unravelling of his game.

Garcia withdrew from golf for a while in 2010 as he wrestled with his demons. It appears far easier for him to think negatively rather than positively with these words from a press interview that Garcia gave in 2012 revealing the low state of mind he can get into: ‘I’m not good enough. I don’t have the thing I need to have. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to play for second or third place.’

Fellow golfer and nine-time ‘major’ winner, Gary Player, advises that: ‘In every situation in life you have two choices: you can be positive, or you can be negative.’ Player’s proposition is logical but as Garcia has demonstrated he is just human and consequentially far from ‘logical’ - overcoming negative thinking is far more difficult than the simplicity of Player’s words.

That Garcia clearly possessed the talent but not the mindset to be a champion is not perhaps surprising (see previous blog, ‘What Good Talent Can Be Poor Talent’, 3rd April, 2017) but his dismissal of help over the years preferring instead the course of ‘trial and error’ is the opposite approach to that of many of his fellow professional golfers.

Each of us experiences some 50,000 thoughts a day of which some 40,000 are negative. These thoughts are beliefs we ‘process’ unconsciously. However, they can surface in our consciousness by our ‘inner critic’ that ‘feeds’ upon the negative beliefs we experience. These negative beliefs ‘distort’ our reality thus decreasing our capability to make rational decisions – what psychologists refer to as ‘cognitive bias’.

Cognitive biases are psychological phenomena that present themselves in a number of differing forms but in the hands of the ‘inner critic’ they can produce feelings of shame, deficiency, self-doubt, low self-confidence, and self-esteem.

Sports psychologists and journalists who have watched Garcia’s career unfold have thought that he is often caught in the grip of ‘confirmation bias’ where people only seek out information that confirms their existing negative beliefs about themselves overlooking or ignoring any information that may refute these beliefs.

Over the years, Garcia would blame others for the position he put himself in on the golf course such as a missed putt or a hooked drive. He would blame his caddy, his fellow player, anyone or anything other than himself. The drive at this years’ Masters on the 13th hole could have been a ‘melt down’ moment as he hooked his drive into a bush. In the post-championship press conference he said: “You know, in the past, I would have started going, you know, at my caddie, and oh, you know, ‘Why didn’t it go through?’ And whatever...”

Garcia later revealed that: “Lately, you know, I’ve been getting some good help and I’ve been thinking a little bit different, a little bit more positive.” He said that it had taken a lot of work to reach the happier place he is now in. Credit goes to Angela Atkins, his fiancée of some three months. Atkins as an ex-collegiate golfer and TV broadcaster knows the game and its many challenges from personal experience and it transpires that she has of recent been leaving him motivational messages and telling him to believe in himself.

Garcia is not alone for many of those at work in organisations as leaders, sales people, team members, in customer service etc., could benefit from similar support in building the positive mental attitude that gave Garcia the freedom to perform and succeed under pressure. It requires those at the top of organisations to change their mindset and recognise the crucial importance of beliefs and attitudes in the building of engagement and performance.