The Key to Effective Visualisation

Learn how to make visualisation work for you 

I have to be honest, I’ve always struggled with sitting down and performing visualisation. It wasn’t until I heard a Tim Ferris podcast with Arnold Schwarzenegger that I realised visualisation is very personal, and that’s ok.  

Schwarzenegger said that he too struggled with visualisation until he realised that he was just doing it differently.

Each time he worked out he would imagine, as he was lifting weights, the blood pulsating into his muscles, the breaking down of the muscle fibres and how they were rebuilding stronger.

He realised that every day when he worked out he was actually practising the perfect visualisation because he was seeing it in his mind and feeling it in his body. 

Experts say that effective visualisation is multi-sensory. In other words you need to feel, see and hear everything, making it as real as possible in your mind because your mind can’t tell the difference between imaginary and real.

In this way, when you practice feeling everything in your mind, it’s as good as practising for real. 

When I heard Schwarzenegger talking about his method of visualisation whilst carrying out the actual doing of his sport it made total sense to me that this had to be incredibly powerful.

Everyday Visualisation

I realised that a lot of my visualisation happens at different times of the day in different situations. For example  I don’t listen to music when I run. My mind tends to wander to all sorts of problems that I’m experiencing. Often, afterwards, or even during the run, solutions come to me.

Likewise, when I’m driving long distances, I don’t listen to the radio or music. I allow my mind to wander, to visualise, and again some of my best ideas have come to me whilst driving. The annoying thing is sometimes I forget them if I don’t break my visualisation and record the the great idea immediately on my phone (hands free) or stop and write it down. 

I work with several athletes who meditate every day and whilst this is not pure visualisation, if they are seeing good images whilst they are in a state of meditation this could be a mixture of relaxation and visualisation by default. 

I’m convinced that visualisation works best when it is personalised to work for you in a way that makes sense to you - it does not have to be a purposeful sit down or lie down event.

We all daydream about the future and how things might turn out. This is visualisation. 

What makes this powerful is if you have a goal and in your daydreams it recurs over and over again becoming more real as you work towards the goal. 

Equally, I do not discount the fact that it is incredibly powerful to lean into an uncomfortable situation and visualise overcoming that situation over and over again in your mind until it feels familiar and comfortable. 

Visualisation in Sport: A Case Study

I worked with a professional cricketer who had a problem facing Jimmy Anderson, one of the greatest bowlers of all time. Effectively, he felt that he couldn’t play against him.

I explained to him that Jimmy was actually his best friend and that overcoming this obstacle was what would make him a great batsmen.

He needed to hear that if he played against England and he did well and Jimmy wasn’t playing then there would always be a question mark over his achievements.

So rather than fearing Jimmy, he should embrace every chance to play against him and conquer the fear.

It is equally fair that it was unreasonable to think that he could do well every time because that would be disrespectful of Jimmy’s skills. He only had to do well some of the time, which also alleviated pressure. 

This shift in mindset allowed him to begin the process of visualising exactly what happened when he was batting against Jimmy. I encouraged him to see every detail of balls that had beaten him and to visualise solutions against the same deliveries, executing perfect defence or attack against them. 

I also encouraged him to go out and practice against similar balls delivered specifically to him mimicking Jimmies deliveries.

Whilst nothing can prepare you totally for the real experience of the pressure of a match, it’s extremely helpful to have seen it many many times both in your mind and in reality and gotten totally comfortable with it. 

This takes down anxiety levels and builds some confidence and if it translates into more success when facing that difficult moment, it becomes gold dust. 

I didn’t stop there. I asked the cricketer to imagine that he was in a calm bubble where everything slowed down and he felt totally at peace and confident and to see himself smiling (a pleasant non teeth type smile) at Jimmy as he ran towards him, secure in the knowledge that he was ready for anything he bowled at him. 

I asked him to go to this place often and to name it. He used his name. Since the cricketer wishes to remain anonymous let’s use  “Tom’s Place”.

This technique has worked very well for many athletes to find a calm place in the face of extreme pressure. The All Blacks use their famous Bluehead place.

You can get very good at visualising this place as the place where you are at your best. You, like an any athlete can then say in the heat of battle that it is “Tom’s (Your Name) Time” and your mind and body know exactly what that means and feels.

Lessons learnt:

• Find a way to visualise that works for you. It needs to be something that is both comfortable and effective.
• Find  “Your Place”, the place that is your zone where you know you are at your best and how it feels and use it often as a way to re-focus or calm nerves. Know this place intimately. 
• Have a mindset of "when I'm in “My Place” it is so tough for opponents. From this place I can dominate!

The 3 Key Elements of Effective Visualisation

Visualisation can eliminate some of the unknowns that create competitive anxiety. Good visualisation is when you see the action unfold and truly feel the event take place in your mind’s eye. 

1. Use all your senses – Visualise your performance in detail. What would you see, hear, feel, smell and taste. Feel how your body would feel as you go through the motions of your performance. Like Schwarzenegger add in some physical movements or practice that coincide with the visualised images.
2. Visualise the outcome you want – When you mentally rehearse your performance in your head, make sure you see the event as how you want it to unfold. If your mental images turn negative, stop the mental tape, rewind and restart and see the performance you want to see.
3. Practice frequently – Mental rehearsal for athletes is a skill that becomes better with repetition. Practice your visualisation or imagery daily remembering that it doesn’t have to be all planned. Guided daydreaming anytime, any place is effective. Never become obsessed with time. Even quick rehearsals in your mind lasting seconds can help. Visualisation is not a chore and if you create a way that you enjoy it will work far better than forced visualisation.

Champions are champions because they always overcome the challenges in front of them no matter how tough or how long it takes - they know what they have and are not afraid to do it their own way, which includes how they visualise.