Mental visualisations to shape your future
Successful people and athletes are known to use visualisations to achieve their objectives.
American author and motivational speaker Jack Canfield has said, “The daily practice of visualising your dreams as already complete can rapidly accelerate your achievement of those dreams, goals, and ambitions.”
He also explained that visualisation techniques creates focus upon your goals, and this is helpful because:
* it activates your creative subconscious to generate creative ideas,
* programs brain to readily recognise opportunities,
* activates the law of attraction (of elements to help you achieve your goal),
* builds your internal motivation
One technique is called mental rehearsal, created by the Russians in the 1960s, and yet another technique combines statements or affirmations to evoke a picture and experience of already achieving what you want.
And science can explain this, somewhat.
Visualisation and psycho-cybernetics
In the 1960s, a Dr. Maxwell Maltz wrote a book called, “Psycho-Cybernetics”. In his book, psycho refers to the mind, while cybernetics refers to a feedback-based system of the self-image. **
The key to how this works, is to understand that our self-image is a machine that aligns itself based on feedback it receives. When you feed it images and experiences, it aligns with a reality that is based on these images and experiences.
The more positive the images, the more positive qualities one’s self-image leans towards. Whatever images or experiences we feed ourselves - handsome, pretty, rich, poor, courageous, articulate and more - the more we view ourselves to have those qualities.
When we see ourselves as having those qualities, we actually become as possessing those qualities.
Proven by science
I have mentioned earlier in this post that athletes and successful people have used visualisation techniques. This is because it is a proven technique, and it helps to have something to focus the mind upon.
In 1995, the Department of Justice at the University of Lewisville, studied the effect of visualisation upon firearm capability.
Seventy-two student volunteers were grouped into visualisation and control groups. All students practiced their marksmanship but those who also used visualisation scored an average of 32.86 points higher than those who did not.*
This is the outcome when a group of people use visualisation to improve their firearm capability - it did get better.
Now, what if we used this visualisation technique for other areas of our lives? For example, in sports performance, or when speaking in public, or taking a test?
What if, visualisation techniques were also applied to healing oneself, emotionally and physically?
The writer at Better Humans seems to think it can, and shares about a meta analysis of 15 studies by Peter R. Giacobbi et al. that found guided imagery appeared to improve arthritis in afflicted patients - there were lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which led to less arthritis symptoms.**
Jack Canfield believes that visualisation can help one to harness their subconscious mind, and inevitably bring about change in beliefs, assumptions, and opinions.
It is similar to Dr. Maltz’s idea about self-image. When we give ourselves positive images and positive opinions, our thoughts, speech and action will align to how we view ourselves which is with positive qualities.
Opportunities will begin to come our way, and we will recognise them and know how to use them.
REFERENCES
* https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/visualize-and-affirm-your-desired-outcomes-a-step-by-step-guide/
** https://betterhumans.pub/visualization-how-mental-imagery-can-make-you-better-at-life-12360661870c
*** https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v32n4/whetstone.html
