VISUALIZATION Dr Charles Garfield has done extensive research on peak performers, both in business and in sports. While working with NASA Programme, he watched astronauts rehearsing again and again everything on earth in a simulated environment before they went into space. His research showed that world class athletes and other top class performers use the visualization technique. World class athletes spend a great deal of time envisioning their moves in detail. They see it, they feel it, and they experience it before they actually do it. The aim is to bring to mind a powerful performance.
Visual imaging sometimes also called mental imagery prepares the brain for action. Your creative visual right brain is one of your most important assets. Laura Wilkinson broke her ankle just months before the Olympics. As her ankle healed, she sat by the pool for up to six hours a day, mentally rehearsing each and every move of a dive again and again. This involved walking to the ladder, climbing it, getting set for the dive, diving into the water, swimming to the edge of the pool, getting out and repeating it. Laura Wilkinson had a taped foot when she won the 10 metre platform gold medal in Sydney. Research done on brains has found that thinking about a particular event produces the same pattern of activity in the brain as actually experiencing the event. The brain sends signals to the body that make it react the same way to the mental image as it would to the actual experience.
In fact imagery has become an industry. ‘Courses on How to Improve Your Memory’, teach tricks like imagining items in the rooms of your house and then mentally walking through it. Phobias are also treated through imagery, and sports psychologists use it to help the athletes visualise the perfect dive, sprint or swing,
You can visualize the technique for every area of your life. With practice, visualization becomes easier and easier. You can visualize effectively if you follow the following steps:
• Sit comfortably and let yourself relax. If you are tense your muscles get contradictory messages.
• Have a realistic goal. It could be to do with a performance, a presentation or a talk, a difficult confrontation, or a challenge to achieve a goal.
• Visualize as if you are achieving the goal, reliving what your senses were experiencing. Use all your senses, visual, auditory and kinesthetic (feelings and touch). See it clearly, vividly, relentlessly, over and over again.
• Create an internal ‘comfort zone. This is a psychological area or ‘zone, where you can perform effectively and with confidence.
• Enjoy it. This is important.
The nature of the visualization is crucial. If you visualize the wrong thing, you will produce the wrong thing. If you visualise being outside your comfort zone at some point, you may experience energy loss, palpitations, dry throat, poor co-ordination etc.
I believe that not every one can use this wonderful faculty. If you can’t visualize, do not be too disappointed. Try to visualize as much as you can, and then try to move onto the next step. I had a client who found it difficult to construct an entire visual scene.
If you can use the faculty, practice regularly till you feel comfortable and it is inside your comfort zone. What ever you visualize, should be in accordance with your values that are important to you, something which you want to accomplish.
USING THE MIND TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS - To learn more about this author, visit Sohan Singh's Website.
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