Professional athletes have been using the power of visualization for years and with great success!
Jack Nicklaus (arguably the greatest golfer to ever play the game) said:
"I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head first. I 'see' where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I 'see' the ball going there: its path, its trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there's sort of a fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality."
When you use your mind to create compelling and vivid pictures you greatly increase your abilities to succeed in 3 powerful ways.
- You activate the creative powers of your subconscious mind
- You focus your brain (specifically the Reticular Activating System - RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but were previously unnoticed
And - Visualization magnetizes and attracts to you the people, resources, and opportunities you need to achieve your goals.
Scientifically it has now been proven that when you perform any task in real life your brain uses the same identical procedures it would as if you were to only vividly visualize that activity.
Meaning - Your Brain Cannot Tell the Difference Between Whether You Are Just Visualizing Something or Whether You Are Actually Doing It. So Leverage This Advantage. Visualize Yourself Succeeding at Your Given Goal.
Take a look at this basketball study and the effects visualization had on the results:
A study conducted by Dr. Blaslotto at the University of Chicago was done where he split people into three groups and tested each group on how many free throws they could make.
- Group 1: Were asked to physically practice shooting free throws every day for an hour
- Group 2: Were asked to just visualize themselves making free throws
- Group 3: Were asked to do nothing around free throws; No physical practice nor mental visualization
After 30 days they were all retested and here's what they found:
As was expected the group that physically practiced improved by a margin of 24%. And also as expected the group that did neither physical practice nor mental visualization showed no improvement.
However, what was surprising was that the group that only used visualization also improved in their free throw shooting, and by a whopping 23%!
Is it really that simple?
Yes, it is really that simple in that you already possess all the tools you need to visualize - Your Brain.
And No, it's not that simple because most of us are pre-conditioned, by past associated memories, to see negative imagery.
But check this out:
Motivated by this study a high school coach wanted to try out this experiment on his basketball team. He asked them to all go home and visualize shooting 10 free throws before they went to bed.
Listen to what he said; "He asked them to all go home and visualize shooting 10 free throws."
This Is Important. Read below to find out why.
At the next practice when he asked "so how many did you make" only 2 players said they made 10/10. The rest reported they made 7 or less.
Why didn't they all make 10/10? Was the experiment a bust?
No. What the coach forgot to mention in his instructions to the players was to have them "visualize 'MAKING' every single free throw."
This is key, key, key. When visualizing be clear to "See What You Want" because you will "Get What You See." Imagination is everything. Statistics report unfortunately as high as 80% of the time we visualize ourselves failing not succeeding (ie. Not making the free throw and focusing on the shot that was missed not the one that was made)
So set clear intention for what you want to achieve, and then visualize yourself achieving it. Include sounds and colors, smells and feelings to further deepen your vision making it more real and lifelike. Remember your brain cannot differentiate between real and imagined so the images you produce will be accepted by your brain as real.
So take your grey matter on a full blown "10/10 Visual Experience" by starting your vision inside and you'll have performed your own "20/20 corrective eye surgery."
No muss no fuss. Just more of you seeing what you want and getting more of what you see.
Now that's what I'm talking about!!
