Visualization a Powerful Tool for Reaching Goals

Visualization is a powerful personal growth tool that is key to achieving your goals! 

Just as affirmations are beneficial for motivation, focus, and effective goal setting, so too is visualization or mental imagery. 

Although mental imagery has only become popular as a personal development technique since the late 1970s and early 1980s, humans have been using it since the beginning of time.

Whenever we have an idea or notion to do something, we visualize it first. For instance, if we're hungry and want to eat, we picture different food possibilities: if we wish to cook a meal or go out to eat, and whether or not we want company at our meal. When we have a function to attend, we picture what outfit to wear and where we might shop for it.

What is Visualization?

It is the use of imagination through pictures or mental imagery to create visions of what we want in our lives and how to make them happen. Along with focus and emotion, imagination becomes a powerful, creative tool that helps us achieve our goals. 

Used correctly, it can improve self-improvement, maintain good health, help you perform well in sports, and accomplish your life goals. 

In sports, athletes often use mental imagery to improve their skills by picturing the achievement of a specific feat, such as hitting or shooting a ball, skiing a hill, swimming, or running a race.

Using it as a technique invariably results in a much better performance and outcome. This also holds in business or life, such as in delivering a speech, asking for a raise, or any other situation requiring preparedness and forethought.

How does it work?

Visualization or mental imagery works because when you imagine yourself performing perfectly and doing what you plan, you physiologically create neural patterns in your brain, just as if you had physically acted. The thought can stimulate the nervous system in the same way as the actual event does.

Performing or rehearsing an event in the mind is akin to training and creates neural patterns to teach our muscles to do what we want.

In the case of competitive sports, not only are exceptional physical skills required, but so is a solid mental game. Most coaches preach that sports are 90% mental and only 10% physical. That's why many athletes train in visualization (mental imagery) in addition to their physical routines.

Like any skill, mental imagery needs to be practiced regularly to be effective. Its four elements are relaxation, realism, regularity, and reinforcement.

When To Use Visualization

• For successful outcomes - See yourself performing skills at a high level, achieving your goals, being who you want to be, and living the life you desire. 

• To motivate - Envision yourself achieving your goals vividly to remind yourself of your objective and what you must do to reach it. Many athletes, actors, and singers "see" and "feel" themselves performing a routine, program, or play several times perfectly in their minds before they do it. 

• To familiarize or set the stage for a performance/event - You can use mental imagery effectively to acquaint yourself with the surroundings before an event, such as a competition site, racetrack, stage, or difficult play or routine before a competition. 

• To do a run-through - Athletes and performers often do a complete mental run-through of the critical elements of their routines. Doing so helps them to focus and eliminate some pre-performance jitters, thus making them more comfortable when the time comes to compete or perform. It also serves as a warm-up or mini-rehearsal. 

Visualization is an excellent tool for preparing for anything and everything. It invariably results in a higher level of performance.

How to Visualize What You Want:

1. Go somewhere quiet and private where you won't be disturbed. Close your eyes and think of the goal, mood, new behavior, or skill you want to acquire.

2. Take several deep breaths and relax.

3. Visualize the object or situation you desire in your mind as clearly and with as much detail as possible.

4. Add emotion, feeling, and your senses to your vision.

5. Practice it at least twice a day for about 10 minutes each time.

6. Persevere until you succeed.

7. Maintain positive thoughts and a good attitude throughout.

The Benefits of Visualization:

 ✔ Helps you focus better to achieve your goals 

 ✔ Inspires and motivates you 

 ✔ Helps you improve in a sport or skill 

 ✔ Can be used to rehearse and then acquire new, positive behaviors 

 ✔ Can boost your mood by using positive, pleasant imagery to alter negative emotions 

 ✔ Helps build self-confidence