The Impact Bag Golf Blog

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear after being recommended it in several golf podcasts. What I really liked about the book is that it outlines how to make new habits easy to achieve. For example the creator of WordPress Matt Mullenweg said on the Tim Ferris show that his goal for each day is at least 1 press up. Now that is an achievable goal, that leads to more, but it’s about achieving goals that slowly help us build in habits.

Atomic Habits goes on to highlight the power of getting 1% better everyday and how these tiny gains build into long term improvement. In golf we are all looking for that quick fix, the magic YouTube tip that will solve all our problems. Looking for a 1% gain each day is a more sustainable model. It also mentions a technique called habit stacking that I also found helpful.

After reading the book I decided to put some simple new habits into play. During the last season and at the tender age of 48 my swing speed had dropped from 107 to around 98mph. This was making it more difficult to get on par 5s in two and leaving me too much club into the green so over the winter I needed to get my swing speed up. I have many golfers coming to me who want to increase their swing speed, who wouldn’t, but I firmly believe that the best way to do this is in a gym and with speed training (see my old post about this). So I needed to create an exercise habit that would last. I needed something easy and achievable so I found a training app called 7 minute fitness.

7 minutes exercise a day should be achievable and it was. For the first week I trained everyday and then the second week I decided to do two sessions so I did 14 minutes. Within the app there was a custom workout section where I could add my own exercises and I eventually created 5 different work outs that were more golf related, taking exercises from different instagram posts. I can recommend Mike Carrol and Fit-for Golf and Jordan Baker Blanc at fairwaygolffitness. Both have excellent plans I have done in the past.

After 2 months of 14 minutes or more a day, with a minimum of 7 on some days I increased my swing speed to 104 which gave me considerable gains going into this season. It was all achievable because of starting a habit that was simple and achievable.

The next area I started a new habit with was putting at home on the carpet. Having a 6 month winter in Sweden takes you off the putting green for some time and this can sprinkle the confidence with rust. I set the simple goal of hitting three 3ft putts a day. Pretty easy goal. I have stuck to this and end up doing about 10 minutes a day from different distances and even hitting 15ft chips as I have a long hallway. Having played twice already this season I feel great on the greens and have a system and routine in place. So due to a simple habit of 3 putts a day there is no rusty uncomfortable start on the greens. In contrast my playing partners commented, “it take a while to get use to the pace of the greens again!” Not for me.

The book also talks about a method called habit stacking. This is a method where you associate one habit you already have and then you associate a new habit with that, to create a new habit. I wanted to work on my mobility and flexibly for injury prevention and movement. So I stacked 5 minutes of yoga or stretching into the half time of any football match I was watching to improve my mobility and flexibility. This worked very well and I look forward to my halftime stretching session. It doesn’t take long to create a new habit. This is classic conditioning just like with Pavlov’s dog.

So a small change can have a big affect and make a difference in how we use our time. Think what we want to achieve, if we look at them as massive projects then the mountain sometime seems too steep to climb. Break this down into tiny achievable steps and eventually you reach the top. We already have many habits that we do daily, identify these and stack other habits onto them. Using these two techniques can be super effective and create lasting change.

I can recommend Atomic Habits as an insightful read for golfers who want to implement changes and gradually improve over time. It will also help you with your daily life and help you be more efficient and achieve your goals and complete your daily tasks. So start improving today by 1% and eventually the impact on your game will come to fruition.

For online swing and performance lessons contact me via the skillest app and we can get together and help impact your game!

Michael Parry. Stockholm April 2023