If I tell you to imagine biting in to a slice of lemon what happens? Does your mouth start to salivate as you think of the sour taste? Do you feel your nervous system cringe a little at the thought of eating a sour lemon? How is it that just by thinking about biting in to a lemon that your body physically responds as though it really did? Well that’s the power of visualisation. The mind is an amazing tool and by using the power of visualisation you can completely change your life. Elite athletes and titans of business use visualisation every day to achieve their goals and there is absolutely no reason why you can’t either.
But how does visualization work and why is it so effective?
Well lets start with the how. Visualisation is actually an easy concept to understand. All you do is think about what you want to achieve and visualise in your minds eye you achieving your goals.
Michael Jordan used the power visualisation religiously to make his 3-point shots at basketball. I’m sure there are some of you reading this thinking to yourself ‘pfft…this is BS. I think about what I want all the time and it never comes true’. There is a very simple reason for this. It never comes true because you don’t believe it will come true. When Michael Jordan shot for the hoop he knew he was going to make it and that belief in himself fueled the power of his visualisation. When you visualise yourself biting in to that slice of lemon your body reacts the way it does because it remember what happened when you bit in a lemon for real. If you never bit in a lemon before and you visualised yourself biting in to a lemon it’s unlikely that your body would react the same way. Here’s the thing though, if you’ve never bit in to a lemon before but someone told you that lemons were extremely sour and juicy and then you visualised yourself biting in to that lemon, then your body will react because it knows what happens when something sour and juicy is tasted. This is the same with using visualisation to achieve goals. You may have never achieved the goal that you’re visualising before but you know how it feels to achieve a goal. You know the feeling of happiness and accomplishment that comes when you have achieved goals in the past. Now let’s say that you want to be good at mathematics which is something you have struggled with your whole life. Before you begin the visualisation you need to believe that you’ll be good at mathematics and that the power of visualisation is real…because it is. Now imagine yourself solving a difficult mathematical formula. Let’s say its Schrödinger’s equation. Google it and you’ll see it. Visualise yourself in front of a giant blackboard full of numbers and mathematical symbols and your writing down the solution. You don’t need to worry about the detail because the point of this exercise is to tap in to the feeling of solving the equation rather than actually solving it. Now imagine that you solved the equation and have a great sense of achievement and accomplishment. You feel thrilled. You’re body and mind is actually reacting the same way it would as if you solved the equation for real. Now as you begin to learn mathematics you can use this power of visualisation to help you progress and learn faster than if your not using visualisation. Another important thing to know is that you can’t just use visualisation once and expect it to be life changing. The mind is like a muscle and needs to be used over and over before you start seeing results. If you practice visualisation every day for 10 minutes you will generally start seeing results within a few months.
Now let’s get in to why visualisation works. The reason visualisation is such a powerful tool is because the mind can’t actually differentiate between what it real and what it not real. Something imagined is just as real to the mind as something real. This is why your body reacts when you think about biting a lemon because your mind really believes that you bit in to a lemon. This prompts your mind to activate the different systems within your body to react like you really bit in to the lemon, such as your saliva glands to begin salivating.
There is another important reason that visualisation works and it’s called neuroplasticity. This is where the neuronal pathways in your brain literally re-wire themselves with every thought you have. When you use visualisation you are literally reprogramming yourself to achieve the outcome that is being visualised.
As a counsellor I use visualisation a lot with my clients with great results. I highly encourage you to get in to this habit so that you can see the results for yourself.
If you want to learn more about visualisation please feel free to contact me.