Fortitude 365Helping Athletes, Coaches, and Teams Perform!

Rory McIlroy on handling negative thoughts

5 Oct 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:45

A short YouTube clip in which Rory McIlroy (SPEAKER A) describes how he manages negative thoughts by intentionally strengthening positive thoughts, reframing, visualization, and practice. He gives a golf-specific example—walking from the 16th green to the 17th tee—where he replaces an instinctive negative image (hitting it in the water) with a constructive visualization.

Chapters

I mentioned something earlier in the week where how do you drown out the bad thoughts and replace them with the positive ones? And I just think you have to try really hard to make those positive thoughts just a little stronger and a little more powerful than the negative ones. We all get negative thoughts, but it's how do you deal with those? And how do you reframe and replace those with what you want to see and what you want to do? Because even walking from the 16th green to the 17th tee today, I could see myself hitting it in the water. Right? That's something that crosses your mind. And it's like, okay, well, how do I replace that thought with a better one and visualize and get myself into the moment? And I've practiced hard at that and definitely getting better at it.