Tips on hitting my irons

I'm having trouble hitting my irons consistently. I think I may be trying to hit them too hard, and i'm hooking them left. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they aren't. I have just started to think about it more and have noticed that I am swinging pretty hard when I hit my irons, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not? how hard am I supposed to be swinging on iron shots? am I supposed to just take a nice easy swing in rhythm, or am i supposed to be putting some muscle in to it? it just feels like a natural reaction for me to try and make sure i get enough power behind it. I notice that i can hit my short irons a good distance considering how small I am, but the lack of accuracy really bugs me. My PW goes about 120 my 9 iron about 135 or so, and my 8 iron is about 150-155.

On a scale of 1-10 though how hard do you generally swing on your iron shots? I'd say I'm probably swinging at about an 8 on a consistent basis which is what might be my problem?

I'm sure I have more than 1 problem with my swing because I know i'm not that good :) haha, but i am really curious about swing power on iron shots.

i played 2 rounds today at a local course ( you can pay and play as much as you want) shot an 86 the first round with a few mulligans. played the 2nd round completely legit, no mulligans, took drop penalties etc. and shot an 89 which is good for me, however, that was because i was getting really lucky off the tee and on the green. my putter was working a lot better then normal, and my drives were really long and straight which it normally isn't. my irons though killed me. i couldn't hit with any consistency, which is what lead me to think about what i was doing differently, and the more i thought about it, i noticed i may be trying to hit my irons harder then other shots, and that may be the problem

Thanks for any input :)

yeah, i'll try to see if i can find someone with a camera and borrow it to take a video... i feel like the problem definitely could be me rushing things and getting ahead of myself.. i feel like i'm trying to hit it too hard and possibly getting out in front of myself.. i'll try to hit the range tomorrow and practice not hitting as hard and see what happens.

I know for me personally when i slow down and get a good even tempo going and think more about my swing plane and club head release and alot less about my swing speed i hit alot better shots with my irons.....
It really doesn't take alot of clubhead speed to hit irons well, just the right shaft and good ball contact....

yeah, thanks for the advice.. i'll try to hit up the range tomorrow and focus on an even tempo and see if i'm still messing up. if i am i will work on some other things, but usually i can hit them fairly consistent. they aren't always good, but if i make a mistake it's usually a consistent mistake and i know why I did it, the last few rounds it was random, one would go left, one right, then i'd chunk it, then left again. and i noticed i feel like th elast few rounds i've been trying to muscle it i think and hit harder and swing faster for some reason. not sure why.

i know i've been working out a lot more lately, and maybe subconsciously i'm trying to hit it farther and harder for some reason.. when i need to just focus on a nice smooth swing

I had a similar problem where all of my shots were hooking left - what I had been doing was trying to increase my swing speed to gain some distance. The problem was that I ended up using my arms too much instead of my hips/body and I was turning over my wrists too early, resulting in a closed clubface at impact. My right arm had started to dominate the swing which made me want to rotate my right wrist at impact. A friend of mine gave me some advice, he talked about allowing the left arm/hand to control the swing, that the right arm/hand is just along for the ride. So, my advice for you is to make sure when you grip the club with your right hand that you hold it inyour fingers (middle and ring) and avoid holding it with your forefinger and thumb - that might make it less likely for you to try and rotate your right wrist early. Also, try to be less "armsy"; that is, let the rotation of your body and hips pull your shoulders, which pulls your left arm, instead of trying to muscle the club using your right arm.

I have exactly the same issue and worked with a pro for the first time a few weeks ago to fix the issue. As stated, work on letting the left side do the work, and get a nice easy rhythm going. I hooked everything prior to the lesson, and still do when I try to "get after" a shot. I find that just taking one club more then I think I need usually helps as well.

I have suffered from this same problem while I've been learning the game. The two things that helped me the most were a proper grip and lining up with my practice swings. I had always read differing ideas on where the ball should be placed in the stance etc.
I started using my practice swing and watching where the club hit the ground to line up where I placed the ball in my stance. The improvement was great. After doing that for a few weeks, I started to learn where I wanted to place the ball with the different clubs.
I'm sure part of it is mental as well, because I now have a confidence of where I place the ball in my stance and how it is going to affect my shot.