Visualise your goals!

You may have heard about the power of visualising and manifesting your goal? Perhaps you aren’t quite sure how it works, or even if it works?

Visualisation techniques, in theory, can be used to imagine a desired outcome and help you achieve that outcome. The idea seems like a super-power, helping those using the technique to create their dream lives by accomplishing their goals one at a time. But perhaps this concept isn’t so fanciful after all…

Visualising has been a technique used in elite sport for a while, and recent research from Glasgow University concludes how impactful it can be. The study investigated the effects of motor imagery training on the performance of professional basketball players. It showed that the physical performances of the players significantly improved after they regularly rehearsed training strength exercises in their mind over a 6-week period, whilst the control group did not. The results showed a marked difference in the performance between the two groups. The physical performance of the group using this technique improved between 2% and 9% which was measured through a combination of vertical jumps, throwing capabilities, countermovement jumps and seated medicine ball throw tests.

If visualisation can have such a powerful impact on our muscles and strength, then perhaps it can be used for other parts of our lives too?

There is some logic to the idea… Not only does visualisation allow you to articulate and understand your goal, but it encourages you to imagine getting there or living the outcome of that goal. So, we are taking time out of our busy lives to understand how we might get to the place we want to be, whether that’s throwing heavier weights, or becoming a billionaire! By meditating on the steps that it would take to achieve a desired outcome, we are thinking through our options and understanding the most realistic way for us to get there. Thus, making the outcome more realistically within our grasp.

Using visualisation techniques to focus on your goals and desires yields four very important benefits:

1.) It activates your creative subconscious which will start generating creative ideas to achieve your goal.

2.) It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you will need to achieve your dreams.

3.) It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

So how about setting aside a few minutes a day to give visualisation of your goals a try? According to practitioners, the best times of day are when you are most relaxed, so when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, or before you go to bed. The whole process should only take 5 minutes and to get started, try following these steps:

STEP 1. Imagine sitting in a movie theatre about to watch a movie of you perfectly achieving your desired outcome. Take your time and imagine as much detail as you can create; what are you wearing? What is your body language? What expression do you have on your face? Where are you? How does the environment feel around you? Who else is around you? What sounds can you hear? What can you smell, see and taste? And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.

STEP 2. Now imagine getting out of your chair in the theatre, walking up to the screen, finding and opening a door in the screen and entering into the world of the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.

STEP 3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theatre, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Now you will imagine yourself taking that tiny screen inside yourself by eating it. Let it become part of you so that you can live it. Each bite is a tiny piece of the entire image of you performing well and achieving your goal. Swallow it down and let each small bite form part of you from the inside out. Let it permeate every cell in your being and then imagine each of your cells being lit up by the movie of you getting your goal.