Success Lessons from the Winter Olympics: Visualization
Over the next few weeks, the Olympics will no doubt generate
many headlines focusing on inspirational stories, unexpected
successes, good/bad television ratings, and even scandals.
But here’s a fact you probably won’t hear much about: With each
Olympics, countries throughout the world rely more heavily on
sports psychology to help their athletes achieve success and win
gold.
Canada, for example, is hoping to rebound from their
disappointing 2002 effort by sending 12 psychologists with their
team to the Olympics in Turin, instead of the seven they sent to
Salt Lake. The U.S. took just two psychology experts to
Lillehammer in 1994, and then attempted to achieve greater
success by taking 11 to Salt Lake.
Why this increased reliance on sports psychology?
Simple. Sports psychology works.
Numerous studies have shown that the techniques of sports
psychology significantly enhance success and performance. That’s
particularly true in the Olympics, when the different between
gold and silver is often hundredths of a second or fractions of
a point. When physical performances are nearly equal, the mental
edge determines winning and losing. Psychology becomes crucial
to success.
Sports psychology features a number of proven techniques to
enhance success and performance, but this article focuses on one
in particular: Visualization.
Visualization goes by many names, including mental practice and
covert rehearsal. It’s been a favorite tool of sports psychology
experts for many years, but it has an even longer history as a
technique for motivation, self-help, and self-improvement.
In the late 1800s, many popular self-help and self-improvement
movements swept the country, including Christian Science and the
“New Thought” movement. Some of these “schools” of
self-improvement were overtly religious, while others took a
more philosophical approach to the psychology of success. But
they all shared a common belief in the importance of psychology
as crucial to success. Specifically, they all taught that our
beliefs literally shape our reality, and that visualizing the
future *creates* the future. In a sense, they preached that
psychology is destiny, and the path to self-help and
self-improvement begins with visualizing what you truly want.
Many of today’s motivational gurus borrow heavily from these
century-old self-improvement movements.
In the 1920s, followers of Freudian psychology also preached the
benefits of visualization, but for different reasons. They
believed that visualizing the future influences the unconscious
mind, and in turn, the psychological dynamics of the unconscious
would push you toward what you visualized, without you even
realizing it. Again, the fundamental philosophy of
self-improvement at work is that psychology is destiny, and
visualizing the future is crucial for motivation and success.
==> Why Visualization Really Works
Today, research in sports psychology has made it clear that
visualization can enhance success and performance in sports. But
parallel research in positive psychology has confirmed that
visualization can enhance success in everyday life, making it a
valuable tool for those interested in motivation, self-help, and
self-improvement. But the reasons that visualization enhances
the psychology of success are more practical and pragmatic than
followers of Freudian psychology or popular self-help movements
would have us believe. Here are the three main reasons that
visualization enhances success and self-improvement:
1) Visualization enhances confidence
Research in the field of positive psychology shows that simply
thinking about an event makes it seem more likely that it will
actually happen. As you think about an event, you begin to
construct mental scenarios of how it might occur, and even more
importantly, how you might *make* it happen. The result is often
greater confidence, and self-improvement occurs via a
“self-fulfilling prophecy.” The psychological process is simple:
Visualization => Confidence ==> Action ==> Results ==> Success
2) Visualization boosts motivation
Visualization boosts motivation as well as confidence, making
self-help and self-improvement more effective. As your dreams
for the future seem more likely, you become more motivated to
initiate and sustain action.
Setting goals is often a very rational, even “dry” element of
one’s efforts for self-improvement. But visualizing your desired
future is a very different psychological process, making
abstract goals very tangible and concrete in your mind. This
process engages your emotions as well as your thoughts, and
generates an authentic excitement that motivates
self-improvement.
Visualizing your future also makes you aware of the gap between
where you are now, and where you want to be. The result is more
motivation for self-improvement, as you strive to close the gap
between your future ambitions and your current reality.
3) Visualizing is a form of practice
This is the most important reason that visualization enhances
success, but the one most often overlooked in self-help and
self-improvement books. Like any kind of practice, visualizing a
behavior makes you more skilled and successful when it comes
time to actually engage in that behavior. Moreover, visualized
behaviors can be practiced more quickly, easily, and frequently
than actual behavior - that’s part of why world-class athletes
regularly complement their actual practice sessions with
regimens of psychologically-focused visualized practice.
Visualization also used routinely in psychology and
self-improvement because it is excellent for practicing
behaviors that are too frightening, intimidating, or even
dangerous to perform in person. For example…
Salespeople who fear rejection perform better and are more
motivated if the visualize themselves facing, and bouncing back
from, rejection
Psychotherapists routinely ask patients to visualize themselves
facing their fears and anxieties as a way of easing them into
actually confronting those fears
Recovering alcoholics can begin practicing their skills at
resisting temptation by visualizing themselves facing, and
resisting, tempting situations such as parties or restaurants
In each case, it is clear how visualization allows you to
practice your success skills, making self-help and
self-improvement more effective.
==> Visualization Tips for Maximum Performance
Of course, visualization needs to be a complement to actual
practice, not a replacement. But done properly, it can make
actual practice even more effective, and start fostering a
psychological mindset of success. Done improperly, it can even
hurt performance. To incorporate visualization into your
self-improvement and motivational efforts most effectively, just
keep these three principles in mind…
1. Correct visualization
Visualization only enhances success if you visualize the
appropriate behavior. On the other hand, visualizing incorrect
or ineffective behavior creates the wrong psychological mindset,
hurting performance and minimizing success.
Sounds obvious, but this principle of the psychology of
visualization is often violated, particularly by novice
athletes. For example, someone who has just started playing
basketball can certainly visualize themselves shooting f’ree
throws, but because they haven’t had much coaching or training,
they are likely to visualize the wrong things (e.g., not bending
their knees, not following through). As a result, visualization
has been shown to actually hamper the success of novice
athletes. But many studies have shown that experienced athletes,
who use proper form and technique, will benefit from
visualization, because they are likely to visualize the right
things.
The bottom line: If you are new to a sport or other endeavor,
maximize your success by skipping visualization for now.
Instead, your best path toward success and self-improvement is
to focus on real practice, learning from skilled performers,
taking lessons, getting training, etc.
2. Distributed visualization
Visualization increases success and self-improvement most
effectively when visualization sessions are distributed over
time, as opposed to being “bunched” into fewer, longer sessions.
This is true for any kind of practice or preparation. For
example, in preparing for a test, short bursts of studying
distributed over time (e.g., one hour per night for four nights)
leads to better results and more success than cramming (e.g.,
four hours in one night). The advice of “a little practice over
many days” - commonly offered by self-help books - is definitely
not self-help snake oil.
3. Precise visualization focused on the means, not the ends
Visualization must be precise, vivid and detailed to be an
effective tool for enhanced motivation and success. Self-help
and self-improvement books often encourage people to visualize
broad ends, like “being richer” or “having less fear.” Although
this can temporarily boost confidence and motivation, this is
one case in which many popular self-help and self-improvement
books often steer people in the wrong direction. Visualizing the
“ends” - how your life would be if you accomplished your goals -
is not the most effective approach because it doesn’t provide
the many benefits of practice.
Instead, research in positive psychology shows that visualizing
the “means” rather than the “ends” leads to more personal
growth; documented benefits include reduced anxiety, more
effective planning, and enhanced success. For example, don’t
envision “having a great sales year.” Instead, a better strategy
for success and self-improvement is envisioning yourself going
to specific sales meetings, your actions in those meetings, the
reactions of others, and how you will specifically overcome
obstacles and persist in the face of rejection. Use all your
senses - as you imagine the actions of others, consider how they
might they might dress and the sounds of their voices. In short,
self-improvement requires visualizing how you achieve
self-improvement, rather than how it will feel to have
accomplished your self-improvement goals.
When visualization was successfully used as a psychological tool
with the 1976 U. S. Olympic ski team, for example, precision,
detail and focusing on the “means” were crucial to the process.
Skiers focused less on their eventual success of winning the
gold medal, and instead visualized themselves careening through
the entire course, experiencing each bump and turn in their
minds. That team went on to have unexpectedly strong success,
and precise visualization has been a standard psychological tool
in the training of Olympic athletes ever since. You can use
these same principles to enhance your own motivation,
self-improvement, and success.
