I was inspired to write this article by a quote I come across from a friend of mine, Melinda Harrison, a former Olympic swimmer who specializes in helping athletes transition from the world of sport to their next great venture.

“If you do not see the wave coming, it can smack you down and pull you under leaving you feeling tossed around, upside down, gasping for breath and picking out sand from areas you never knew existed,” she wrote.          

I knew this feeling well in my golf game. I was tossed around often. In fact, these waves were blind spots that eventually derailed a golf career that had promise. I found myself metaphorically picking sand from areas I never knew existed (far too many times), and I wasn’t understanding how it was happened.

What are the blind spots in your game? Those waves you don’t see coming that leave you tossed around and falling short of your capabilities.

Right now is a great time of the year to roll up your sleeves and reflect on what happened during the year — and what you might do in 2017 to get more enjoyment and make some positive strides in your game. How was your golf year? Happy with it? Wanting more?

In a reflection exercise, I highly recommend you consider your own blind spots, and what might be unconsciously holding you back from moving forward and getting more out of your game.

Blind spots damage performance

Working with world-class performers every day, I can assure you that understanding blind spots is important in performance. Almost every performer I have worked with has them, and I expect you do, too. Part of my job is to help these world-class performers identify their blind spots, making sure they have a clear view of what’s beneath their awareness and might therefore be holding them back.

Let’s highlight the idea of blind spots by using my own professional golf career as an example. This may help you start thinking about your own blind spots and get the wheels turning. I had a few tendencies that were constantly beneath my awareness that kept me on the treadmill and not striding forward on a steady, consistent career path.

A few examples:

• Spending far too much practice time trying to perfect driving when I was a solid, consistent driver of the ball.
• Focusing too much time on the long game, obsessing about it and not allocating more effort to the game from 100 yards and in from the green. I neglected to keep the object of the game in mind (shooting the lowest score possible!).
• Failing to develop my self-awareness. I had limited awareness how my emotions were knocking me around and creating a blurry focus, especially under the pressures of professional golf.
• Not fully understanding the critical impact of expectations on my day-to-day performance.
• No clear path forward. I did not have a well-defined vision or detailed steps in place to guide day-to-day progress and development.

You can imagine how these blind spots could make sustainable progress in the game difficult. Each of the areas above needed attention in order to have a better opportunity to reach new levels.

What are your blind spots?

What is holding you back that may be beneath your awareness? This offseason, I encourage you to think about your own blind spots, and also consider some help from others who may know your game. Chances are an honest assessment of your blind spots, and some outside feedback, will shed some light on the factors that are limiting you.

To help you further, here are a few common golf blind spots that I have seen in players I work with at a variety of levels. Could any of these apply to you?

• Spending a large percentage of your time on the long game (constantly “fine-tuning” your motion) and a small percentage of your time on the scoring areas, when that ratio should be reversed.
• Getting far too caught up in the science of the game and neglecting the art component.
• Having trouble taking your game from the practice tee to the first tee and not understanding why.
• Your practice is not functional, meaning your practice has no real relationship to creating a score on the course.
• Losing focus over poor shots and not being able to get it back on track the rest of the round.
• Scores on your nines are often wide apart, i.e. you play great on the front nine and stumble on the back nine (or vice versa) and you don’t know why.
• Not enjoying the game as much as you should and not knowing why.

These ideas should help you get started on your own assessment. Take some time to think about it in the off-season. Reflection is an important characteristic in high performers and a key to improvement. Identifying your blind spots is a great first step in understanding what may be holding you back in your game.