I have talked a little bit about visualization, but what exactly does that mean? Visualization is the process of creating a clear, sharp, emotionally charged mental movie of what you want to happen. It’s imagining events as if they have already happened. It’s a mental rehearsal of things to come. Without seeing what it is you want, you will never get it.
“Mind moves matter.”
Virgil
Great athletes have always been able to master the art of visualization. Who hasn’t heard the saying “Be the ball.” Anyone who plays golf knows that you will sink that putt more often if you can actually visualize it dropping into the cup. Jack Nicklaus once said that he never hit a shot in golf without having a very sharp picture of it in his head. As a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, Air Force Colonel George Hall endured five and a half years of grueling incarceration. Many of his days were spent in solitary confinement, leaving him plenty of time to practice visualization. To pass the time, Col. Hall played a mental round of golf from his cell. He recalled his best shots and how the ball landed in just the right spot. Every detail of his imaginary game was real to him from the Titleist balls to the blue tees that he placed in grass still wet from the morning dew. The smell of this grass replaced the musty smell of his cell, and for a brief moment each day, Hall wasn’t imprisoned. He would study the greens in his mind, climb the hills of the course, and carefully scrutinize the fairways. In his imagination, Hall played a good game of golf. Once he returned to the United States, he played in a tournament one month after his release. Hall shot a 76. His years of “practice” had not been in vain. Your mind cannot tell the difference between that which is vividly imagined and reality.
We become what we “practice” in our minds. If we imagine failure, it will come. If we imagine success, it will come. A key element in achieving success is having the ability to picture (or visualize) the exact and precise way you want things to go. There was a recent study that tested the power of visualization. The study followed a basketball team, which was divided into two groups. The first group simply went out and practiced free throw shots, while the second group sat in the locker room and visualized making those free throws. When they brought the two groups together and tested free throw accuracy, the group that had visualized the process shot a higher percentage that then other group that was just practicing. When you visualize, you never miss a shot. You see yourself connecting every time.
article written by Jason Boreyko
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