The Complete Guide to Visualization for Logical and

Rational People
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“If you dream it, you can become it.” — William Arthur Ward

For years, I rolled my eyes at the Pollyanna bent of this common motivational phrase.

Sure, I’d dabbled with creating vision boards (and had a stack of half-cut up magazines to
prove it), yet the prospect of trying to visualize my success into reality felt too New Age for my
taste. Plus, staring at the glamorous photos and pictures of success from magazines often
stirred up feelings of inadequacy, which certainly wasn’t inspiring to help me reach my goals.

My skepticism shifted when I learned more about the science behind visualization and how to
use it effectively.

Now, as a coach, I help clients bridge the gap between where they are now and where they
want to be — and I find mental imagery is a critical component to helping them achieve
success.

What is visualization?
Generally speaking, visualization means creating a mental image of a goal you would like to
accomplish in the future. You use your thoughts to imagine a certain outcome, and what you
will do to get it.

Despite popular belief, visualizing isn’t about wishing and hoping something will happen. That’s
fantasy. Effective visualization is future-oriented, but grounded in reality.

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Many successful people — like Oprah, Jim Carey, and Will Smith, among others —credit  
visualization as part of their success. In fact, it’s a tool many high-performers rely upon to
reach epic heights. Elite athletes use techniques like guided imagery and scripting in their
training to do everything from simulate practice, to overcome fear, and even recover from an
injury.

Emily Cook, Olympic freestyle skier, spoke to New York Times sports reporter Christopher
Clarey about how she was used visualization to bounce back after a two-year hiatus due to
injuries:

“I would say into the recorder: ‘I’m standing on the top of the hill. I can feel the wind on the back
of my neck. I can hear the crowd… going through all those different senses and then actually
going through what I wanted to do for the perfect jump. I turn down the in-run. I stand up. I
engage my core. I look at the top of the jump. I was going through every little step of how I
wanted that jump to turn out….

I don’t think I could possibly do a jump, or especially a new trick, without having this imagery
process…For me, this is so very key to the athlete I have become.”

You, too, can use visualization to improve your ability to reach your goals.

The perks of dreaming big

Sports psychologists say that visualization is effective for improving athletic performance,
creative thinking, and strength. It’s been associated with numerous benefits, including
improving confidence, courage, resilience, memory and recall, focus, concentration, and
energy regulation. Beyond that, it’s shown to boost performance across a wide range of
professions — helping doctors avoid errors, police officers lower stress levels, and aiding
musicians to play faster and more accurately. Research also suggests that visualization can
spark psychological flow — a state associated with peak performance.

Despite these findings, many of us don’t use visualization enough — or at all. We’re either so
caught up in worry that dreaming about the future feels like an indulgence. Or, if you’re
anything like me, you shied away from the practice or dismissed it as non-scientific. If that’s
the case, then you may be missing out on the many powerful benefits visualization has.

For instance, psychologists recommend visualization as a powerful technique for:

Mastering a new skill

Achieving difficult goals
Becoming more confident and in control
Calming down when your feel anxious or stressed
Brainstorming possible plans and strategies

The science of visualization

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As we learn more about the brain, we’re discovering that the mind can’t distinguish between
imagination and reality. When you have a thought, it triggers the same cascade of
neurochemicals, regardless of whether you are thinking about the past, present, or future.
Your brain is stimulated the same way whether you’re physically performing an action or
simply visualizing it happen in your mind’s eye.

When you think about yourself nailing a presentation or feeling a wave of pride after finishing a
big project, your body and brain perceive that as being real in the present moment, even
though it’s a far-off goal.

The neurochemicals stimulated go on to affect your motor control, attention, and planning,
which spur you into action. Because neurons that fire together wire together, this process of
imagining future outcomes creates new neural networks in your brain that help you form new
beliefs, take new actions, and adopt new perspectives. You start to view the world differently,
and thus, act in new ways to achieve your big goals.

In particular, visualization stimulates an area of the brain called the Reticular Activating
System, which, put simply, scans your environment looking for new opportunities. That’s why
when you start thinking about getting a new job or wanting to land a new client, suddenly new
opportunities come your way. Your brain is scanning for them. Then, you take action on the
newly available options and creative solutions you’re able to see.

Visualization doesn’t have to be limited to outcomes. Visualizing yourself doing the work to
achieve a goal can be an effective form of rehearsal. For example, a writer can visualize sitting
down to write for an hour every morning as a way of boosting their performance on that habit.
Like a skier visualizing engaging her core, visualizing the work that goes into writing a book
can be as important—or even more so—as holding the finished hardback in one’s hand.

Keys to effective imagery

There are a few core components to any successful visualization:

Pick a goal that’s clear and measurable.

Usually I start this process by asking clients, “Who do you want to be? What do you want to
do? How do you want to feel?”. Then, I attach the vision to specific goals.

If you dream of mornings spent quietly writing, then pick a specific wake up time to target. After
that, decide exactly how much time you want to devote to writing before going to work, for
example. Getting specific about the future you want to create will help you craft a stronger
mental picture.

Envision it in detail.

Imagine yourself performing — and achieving — your goal step-by-step in as much vivid detail

as possible. Where are you? What will you be wearing, for example?

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Engage all of your senses.

What smells, sights, and sounds are around you?

Think about the pavement under your feet as you finish that 10k race. Hear the clinking of
glasses as you give a great speech.

Write it as a script
Reinforce your vision by writing it down. People who commit their goals to paper are
significantly more likely to accomplish them.

Recall Emily Cook’s skiing script. Script out your own visualization and record an audio.
Listening to it multiple times will encode the words and images in your brain.

Synthesizing the experience by using multiple senses helps activate different areas of the
brain, making for a more powerful visualization — and better results.

Be adaptable.
As you start to think about the future, worries will inevitably arise. All those “what-if’s”, fears,
and anxieties will rise to the surface. When they do, use them as tools to make your vision
more flexible. These are called “implementation intentions”.

Think through the barriers that you might encounter, both internal (confidence, energy, etc.)
and external (time, money, etc). Then, visualize how you’ll respond to each roadblock.

Here’s an example: I’m horribly uncoordinated and fearful of tripping over myself on stage
when I speak. Instead of letting that thought hold me back, I visualize the absolute worst case
scenario (falling on my face) and what I would actually do if that came to pass (pick myself up
and make a joke about it). I mentally walk through exactly what I would say — even how I’d
breath to lessen the panic.

You can use an “If-then” framework to work through these scenarios: “If I fall on my face, then
I’ll pick myself up and make a joke about it.” or “If the phone rings during my writing hour, then
I’ll ignore it and check for messages later.”

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