This is the first of 7 learning secrets that will help you unleash your best game more of the time. Some may seem obvious and others a little extreme - but if you apply these to your game you will get a breakthrough. Each lesson will appear in your inbox.

This is counter intuitive I know. But making mistakes are part of the learning cycle. If you never made a mistake you wouldn’t learn. If you don’t learn you won’t improve.

We are taught to be careful, plan everything and avoid mistakes at all costs. This thinking may be fine with bridge building or putting a man on the moon, but our golf game isn’t so much life and death.

Being afraid to make mistakes leads to a terrible mindset of over planning and playing safely. Golfers that aren’t prepared for a bad shot or two play golf with a straitjacket on – they steer the ball and never free up.

Here are the biggest problems with a “no mistake” mindset;

• Always planning (or practicing)– never playing
• Slow play
• Never confident
• Playing scared or full of fear
• Paralysis by analysis
• Distracted by conflicting advice
• Never sure when to start
• Striving for perfection
• Always learning but never playing

The bottom line is that it’s ok to make a mistake or two. No matter how long you play the game you’ll always make a few errors.

The paradox here is that when you can accept a few errors you’ll make less of them. When you have the confidence to swing freely you’ll hit better shots – not worse ones.

Ultimately the person that is scared to make mistakes is paralysed by fear. They often fail to take action and hope against all hope that a winning golf game will come their way. It doesn’t. Make mistakes and move on – don’t let a few bad shots stagnate your improvement.

Example: Imagine you hit your first drive of the day straight left and out of bounds. Not a good start to the round but what do you do? You have two options – you can panic and let that one shot destroy your self-confidence or you can choose to ignore that bad shot and accept it for what it is and move on.

Golfers like the first option. They tighten up. And are too scared to swing the club or alternatively, go searching for a cure that doesn’t exist. The problem is that a tight and over controlling swing becomes the norm. The solution is to accept the bad result, take a deep breath and let your swing fire at the next attempt – let go and let it rip.