Why Visualisation is a Skill to Master
The art of visualisation can take you far beyond your imaginations.
Visualisation is a skill I learned playing sports in my younger years. I recall my coach telling me to keep practicing to pick up the ball—though peculiarly so, she asked me to do so in my mind. “Close your eyes and keep imagining yourself picking up the ball perfectly,” she said.
My sport was touch rugby. I was fourteen and a freshmen in high school. Somehow early in the season, after a stellar weekend exchange away, I was traded up and invited into the varsity squad. I was both excited and in shock with faint sense of guilt, because the girl I stole the spot from—for obvious reasons—wasn’t so thrilled.
This was my first encounter with the power of visualisation. Unknown to everyone else on the squad, I had spent the better part of the year prior, before high school, visualising myself making it on the school’s travelling team.
But, admittedly, this was before I knew what visualisation or manifestation is. I was simply so overwhelmed with excitement of the opportunity, that I couldn’t help fantasising about the whole experience, day in, day out. I was absolutely obsessed! I wondered often, what it would feel like to make it on the travelling team, as a freshmen no less!
After miraculously securing a spot on the varsity squad, I knew there was one skill standing between me and a guaranteed place on the traveling team. My coach recognised it too—it was the one thing holding me back from my effectiveness on the field.
Fuelled by adrenaline, nerves, and an eagerness for the play, I had an unfavourable frequency to fumble the ball. In touch rugby, the art of swiftly picking up the ball during an offensive play is one of the defining factors to any game—and at crucial moments, it was often my Achilles’ heel.
If you don’t know the sport, this all may sound silly, but in a game of touch rugby, picking up the ball well, with timely precision can mean the difference between losing or winning the play. Each team has six plays total to try and score a tri or before the offensive team loses the ball to a turnover.
I knew I only made it onto the varsity team, as the youngest player on the team that year because of my speed and play making wits, but when it came to holding on to the ball, my hands were often as slippery as soapy butter.
Reading“The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How It’s Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live—and How You Can Change Them” by Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley, is where I eventually learned why mental practice works.
"The changes that take place in the brain as a result of mental training can be as enduring as those brought about by physical training." — Richard J. Davidson and Sharon Begley
What’s even more exciting was to realise that while in the mind I can practice perfectly every time, such probabilities aren’t possible in real life. But if science confirms that mental practice is as effective to actual practice to the brain, then I knew mental practice is where I can enhance my advantage, before applying the skill on the field too.
This is one of the only times, where striving for perfection makes sense. By the third and fourth year on the team, I was named captain and most valuable player on the team—I owe a lot of that achievement to my ruthless dedication to my mental practice.
This type of mental training isn’t exclusive to sport or physical performance.
Visualisation is a skill that can be applied to in all areas of our lives too. This includes performance at work, public speaking for a presentation, how to handle conflicts at work and at home, and pretty much any other situation that requires our execution and performance.
Indeed.com defines visualisation techniques as “exercises you can complete to help you achieve goals. You can use these techniques to use your imagination to visualise your goals. Creating a clear mental picture of your future success can give you the confidence, motivation and courage to work toward achieving your goals. There are many such techniques you can try that range from painting a picture to writing a checklist.”
Going from being last picked to becoming captain and eventually most valuable player felt like a genuine miracle to my teenage self. Of course, I had put in the countless hours of practice—both on the field and in mental practice—but there’s no denying that visualisation is what gave me that extra edge as well.
The benefits of visualisation techniques are:
Enhanced Focus and Clarity: Visualisation can help sharpen our focus on what we want, by creating a clear mental image of our goals or desired outcomes. This clarity can guide our action and decisions, making it easier to stay on track.
Stress Reduction: Engaging in visualisation can reduce stress and anxiety by promoting relaxation. Imagining ourselves in a calm, serene environment or visualising a positive outcome can trigger joy and a relaxation response in the mind and body.
Improved Performance: Athletes, performers, and high performing professionals often use visualisation to enhance their levels of performance. By mentally rehearsing a task or an event, we can improve our confidence, reduce errors, and increase the likelihood of success.
Boost Motivation: Visualisation can help maintain motivation by continually reminding us of our goals and the positive feelings associated with achieving them. This can keep us committed to our path, even when faced with challenges.
Manifestation of Goals: While this may induce some eye-rolls, hear me out. Visualisation helps manifest our goals because, as neuroscientist and MIT lecturer, Dr. Tara Swart explains in “The Source,” visualisation primes your brain with the dreams we want most most. By visualising our goals, clearly and often, our brain becomes more attuned to real-life opportunities that can help bring us closer towards those goals.
Improved Self-Image: Regularly visualising positive outcomes and visions of ourselves at our best can enhance our self-esteem and self-worth. Such exercises can reinforce a positive self-belief and favourable self-concept that strengthens the patterns of thinking that support that belief.
In one of the final games I played in that year’s tournament, I vividly remember charging fiercely toward our opponents, completely forgetting my lack of ball skills in the beginning of the season. While we only won bronze, the victory felt even sweeter as the medal was placed around my neck in the cold winds of Taipei. Yes, I eventually secured myself a spot on the school’s traveling team, and the competition was held that January in the crisp, chilly air of Taipei, Taiwan.
Mastering the are of visualisation completely transformed my year that year, but what it’s done in my life since has been nothing short of mesmerising milestones I once thought were unthinkable.
I hope this story encourages you to master the art of visualisation as a regular practice and a top priority. The beauty of it is that this power is always within your reach, available to you whenever you need it. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide how you want to harness this innate potential that’s always already waiting inside of you.
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