How to visualize to ensure optimal performance

Visualization is another aspect of mental toughness that leads to enhanced performance in training, business and day to day life. It is also part two of our Mental Toughness blog post.

Have you ever taken a moment to step back and think about what you are picturing in your head or how you are thinking about the result of a certain action? To some degree you will have done this but do you realise how much of an impact this has on your performance? Your brain will think and react to what you feed it. Constantly feeding your brain with fear, negative thoughts and visualisations of failure will only result in your brain thinking that this is what you want and your brain won’t change this without you. Negative brain feeding also leads to cortisol being released into the body which can lead to impact on your immune system and lowered confidence. Negative self talk also has the same outcomes, we will cover this later in another post.

In order to achieve a boost in confidence, induce relaxation and boost your immune system you need to ensure you feed your brain with positive thoughts. As an example of of changing thought patterns we will use the example of approaching a workout involving running for a person who does not favour  running. The usual reaction to seeing running in a work out would be ‘Oh no, I hate running. It is the worst’. All of this is negative, so when you start to fatigue in your workout what do you think your brain will tell your body? It certainly will not be singing ‘…because I’m Happy‘ (Pharrell Williams, see link). The other path you can take is to see the workout and think ‘This will be a great test for my running ability, I will strategise and do my best to run at a faster pace than last time’. By doing this you are feeding your brain with positive thoughts and when the going gets tough on the run your brain will be more likely to focus on testing yourself and doing better than last time.

You can enhance your visualisation by doing the following:

• When you wake up. Take five minutes before you do anything else to lay down, close your eyes and picture yourself doing what it is you wish to achieve.
• Use both first and 3rd person perspectives when picturing yourself performing.
• Use every sense in  your visualisation, what sounds would you hear, what will you feel? Really place yourself in the environment.

Written by Luke McCracken