Visualization - imprinting patterns of success

Visualization is a fabulously powerful technique well known to top performing athletes and other professionals at the “top of their game”. It is the process of visualizing in your mind what ever it is you want to achieve. So for example a sprint runner would visualize himself winning his race, he would view his success in his mind, he would experience in minute detail every aspect of the race, from a perfect start, to a perfectly timed finish. By the time he gets to the real race, he’s already won it several times, in his mind he has already successfully executed every aspect of his race perfectly. The pattern of success is firmly imprinted in his mind. When the start gun fires, everything will run to his internal script automatically. This gives a powerful advantage.

I think anyone can see the power of this mental process. Visualization is all about achieving things. The interesting thing for us is that this technique works for anything that we want to do, visualizing yourself achieving success at whatever it is you want to achieve, dramatically improves your chances of achieving it. These benefits have been proven by many experiments.

Visualization techniques can be applied to almost every aspect of human endeavour, from goal setting, sports performance, self-healing and memory improvement, to problem-solving and decision-making.

You can visualize virtually anywhere but a quiet, safe place where you will not be disturbed is best. Simply focus your mind on what you want to do, keep replaying the internal film of yourself actually doing it. The amazing thing is that it has been proven that the benefit of visualizing the events is actually the same as if you had actually done it!

Think of something you might want to try this technique on… concentrate and imagine yourself in the situation, be realistic about the experience, keep it true to how you expect it to be, see yourself doing everything right, imagine yourself through others eyes, seeing yourself succeed.

If you have problems visualizing a successful outcome, run through your internal picture again, step into the bodies of others observing you, what do they see, what do they think. Visualization can not only super-charge success it can also give you insight into potential issues. Many of these can simply be overcome by repainting your inner picture others may simply highlight a basic reality that may help you realign your immediate goals or expectations.

Remember even seemingly impossible goals are achievable, thousands before us have reached for the impossible and achieved it; there is no reason why you can’t. When you can visualize the path to what you want, you must of course be prepared to actually walk it in the real world.