Mind Caddie - Improve Your Mental Golf Game Why our brain tries to PROTECT us from OUTCOMES but holds us back from life– Dr Raymond Prior #383
Nov 14, 2025
Dr. Raymond Prior, a renowned performance psychologist and author of 'Golf Beneath The Surface,' shares his insights on how our brains prioritize survival over optimal performance. He discusses how evolutionary traits lead us to overestimate threats and anxiety's three stages: avoidance, haste, and habitual generalization. Learn why acceptance is a vital skill to combat anxiety, allowing us to pursue goals without fear. Prior also explores how anxiety affects decision-making in golf and offers practical steps to build acceptance for better mental performance.
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Brain Prioritizes Survival Over Performance
- The brain's primary job is survival, so it defaults to protecting you from perceived future outcomes.
- That protection often shows up as anxiety which feels aversive but is a perfectly functioning survival mechanism.
The Three Stages Of Anxiety
- Anxiety unfolds in three stages: avoid the event, rush through it, then habitually generalize anxiety earlier and stronger.
- These stages explain hesitation, rushed actions, and expanding fear across tasks like golf shots.
Anxiety Distorts Future Risks And Shuts Reason
- The brain overestimates negative outcomes and their costs, using vivid past pain to predict worst-case futures.
- Anxiety turns down the prefrontal cortex so intentional decision-making and creativity go offline.
