Remember the last Skroll started with imagining yourself as a movie star who went to a movie with a friend? The act of imagining things vividly like this is called visualization, and it has been a go-to practice for many great personalities, especially in sports. But why?

Your brain is smart, but there are always tricks to hack it. We already saw how power pose can change your emotions and now it is time to use visualization to change your actions.

In the field of sports, from Jerry West, the basketball player in the NBA logo, to F1 racing champion James Hunt, many stars consider visualization a major factor for their success. Even though this was way before any scientific validation for visualization, these people still saw its results, and there was no doubt about its effectiveness.

During his basketball career, Jerry became known for hitting shots at the buzzer, earning him the nickname "Mr. Clutch." An All-Star every year of his career, he led the LA Lakers to the NBA Finals nine times. When asked about the secret for his ability to make the big shots, West said that he had rehearsed making those same shots countless times in his mind.

Don’t Tell the Brain

Some mechanisms of the brain are very simple. If it sees something happening frequently, it starts believing it. In fact, you can flip the old adage: “What you see is what you believe.“

The good news is that seeing is not all about what is in front of your eyes. In the end, it is your brain that interprets the signals based on the light entering your eyes. And when you visualize something with eyes closed, even though no light entered the eyes, the brain still interprets this information the same way as if you were seeing it. This is well proven by neural imaging research, revealing that visualization engages the same areas in the brain as the real activity!

But vision is just one of the senses. What if you could imagine a certain touch, sound, taste, and smell as well? As you must have guessed, this will make your visualization more realistic. But a vivid visualization will not do anything by itself. The game is about how you use it.

Practice Makes Perfect

Conor McGregor, the famous MMA star, tells in his infamous braggy style, how he already knows the result of his next fight. He runs multiple visualizations in his mind about the moves of his opponent, and he knows how he will respond, landing his victorious shot.

“Practice makes perfect,” is common knowledge but the available time and energy to practice are limited. This barrier is overcome with visualization. This is probably the biggest reason why visualization is more common in sports than in any other field. Even if you are physically exhausted, nothing limits you from doing a few more visualizations about a skill you want to practice.

Before we go further, remember that there is no substitute for real practice. Treat visualization as complementary to real-world practice, not its substitute. If your body cannot execute what you visualized, you are just dreaming. This is why you should keep your visualizations as close to reality as possible.

Just a Game of Words

Imagine two saleswomen with the same skill level but different mindsets. When facing a tough client, the first one tells herself, “If I lose this client, I will lose my reputation and job,” while the second one tells herself, “Slow down, focus on what the client is saying, and suggest a solution as a human to human.” If you had to hire one of these saleswomen for your company, which one would you choose? Why?

In tough situations, many people fall into a negative loop of “What-if” questions, like the first saleswoman. The problem is that no solution comes out of it, and people end up feeling worse. On the other hand, if you tell yourself what to do in such situations, like the second saleswoman, you can perform better. Such statements which show a way to perform ideally in tough situations are called “Performance Statements.”

Not all challenges lie in sports though. They can show up in the simplest things, like receiving criticism from your boss or staying awake in a lecture. In such moments, telling yourself, “Stop overthinking” or “Do not fall asleep” is not going to work. In fact, if your statement focuses on the negative aspect, like “falling asleep” and “overthinking” you are likely to do even worse. Effective performance statements are those which focus on what to do instead of what not to do. Let’s see how.