Why Athletes Practice Visualization And How You Can Use Visualization In Your Daily Life

Think of your favourite athlete. The strength they posses. Their power, resilience, and mindset. 

We often see these stellar athletes as superhuman. In many ways, they are. But trust me, they’re human. They experience all the same emotions you experience. They experience fear, anxiety, self doubt, confusion, low confidence, and low self worth.

They do? I promise you, they do.

In my work as a Mental Performance Coach and Clinical Hypnotherapist, I support athletes to help them overcome these types of mental blocks and to mentally and emotionally prepare for their performances. I help them move from good to elite. At the highest level, the thing that separates the good athletes from the elite athletes is their mental and emotional strength.

One of the most important mental training skills these athletes do is practice visualization. They know their mind is truly a muscle. The more they train it, the stronger it becomes.

Visualization is one of the key tools to athletic success. Why? Because it creates the reality of your performance in your mind before it happens. It helps to emotionally prepare the feeling in your body to execute your skills and win.

Visualization is mental and emotional rehearsal. So when you’re competing, your mind, emotions, and body already know what to do. Because you practiced what it would feel like. You prepared. You saw it and felt it before it happened. 

Here’s a brain tip for you: your brain cannot tell the difference between a real and imagined event. Practice an emotional state until it becomes a neural trait in your brain. 

As you visualize, your brain and subconscious mind accept what you’re seeing as truth. Your subconscious mind takes everything you think literally.

The problem is, you often think of the worst-case scenarios. Top athletes know they HAVE to practice the best-case scenarios. They must rehearse the win in order to achieve the win.

Now, you may not be one of the top athletes in the world. However, you can take this practice and apply it in your own life. Are you tired of feeling anxious every day? Are you tired of thinking of all the things that could go “wrong”? Are you tired of constantly feeling not good enough or comparing yourself to others?

Well, just as easily as you can practice the worst-case scenarios, you are just as capable of practicing the best-case scenarios for your daily life. It takes intention, dedication, and practice. This is what the greatest athletes do.

Maybe you aren’t walking out onto the biggest courts in the world every day, but how do you want to walk out when you arrive at work? How do you want to feel when you’re about to give a huge presentation? When you’re about to have that intense meeting with your boss or friend? 

Instead of visualizing and preparing for all the possible things that can go wrong, what are all the ways these moments of your life can go right?

Just like the top athletes take the time to visualize their win before they step out to perform, you can also take a few moments to visualize how you want your day to go before you step out and live it. On the court, in the boardroom, on the stage that is your life. 

See what you want to see. See your ideal scenario. See your win. Feel yourself taking that risk, see yourself making different choices, see yourself speaking up for yourself. How do you want to feel? How do you want your day to go? Decide. See it, feel it, believe it. 

Exercise your mental muscle just like these world-class athletes do. They’re just like you. You’re just like them. We’re all humans trying to navigate our lives, our goals, our dreams. It’s your job to show up for them, whatever they may be.

Here's a formula when practicing visualization. Start by asking yourself: "How do I want to feel?" Identify core emotions you desire to embody. Then get curious, ask yourself, "How do I know when I feel these emotions?" Be specific. What do these emotions feel like in your body? Where do you feel them? What are the sensations of confidence or calmness? And then the next step is to activate them. Invite these feelings in. Let them land. And as you are feeling them in the moment, visualize your performance from that state. This is how we start training your subconscious mind.