The Empowering Effect of Visualization in Sport and Life

A lot of people tell me that they just cannot visualize, but everyone can visualize. In fact, you probably visualize things many times a day, without even realizing it. Some people are more predominantly visual that others, it has to be said; but everyone can visualize and as you practice you get better at it, just like most other things in life. And it is well worth the effort involved in learning to visualize as it is one of the most empowering mental skills that you could possibly develop.

Think for a moment about a wine glass and then think about a beer glass...What's the difference? If you can answer this question you can visualize. You see, without being able to visualize you couldn't explain this difference. This is why I said before that you probably visualize many times a day without realizing that this is what is happening automatically in your mind. What color is your front door and what style is it? Once again, you simply have to visualize to be able to answer these questions.

Often you will find that you instinctively visualize things in a way that you perhaps did not intend. If, for instance, I ask you to NOT think about a giraffe, what happened? When you try not to do something you inadvertently put your will power at odds with your imagination. In order to comprehend what you are not meant to do, your mind instinctively creates a picture of whatever it is and your imagination wins the battle. A picture really is worth a thousand words - the picture which you inadvertently visualized holds more power than your will power which is telling you not to think about that thing - in this case, a giraffe.

Thus everyone has the ability to visualize, although because we are all unique and individual we will visualize in our own individual way and some of us will be better at it or more practiced than others. We all have a primary sense, be it seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling. As you visualize one or all of your senses may be utilized. You will visualize in your own way and as you practice visualization you will get better and better at it and will be able to involve and animate more of your senses.

Once you realize the magnetic power of visualizing, you can start to intentionally picture the things which you do want to picture as opposed to those that you do not. For instance, in golf many people think "don't go in the bunker" or "don't go in the water" or "don't go into the trees". These thoughts immediately trigger visualizations of those very things, and your ball will end up in the place that you are picturing - exactly where you do not want to be. A golfer who realizes how powerful visual images are will on the other hand stand on the tee, and intentionally picture the ball landing on the fairway, sitting up in a great position for your next shot onto the green...and this is where the ball will go. Whatever you imagine, whatever you visualize, you create.

Visualization has in fact been proven to have more powerful effect that physical practice. This has been proven time and again in many sports, not just in golf. Your brain does not know the difference between something which is vividly imagined and something which is real, and so as you imagine your ball going into the net in basketball, for instance, your brain is recording this as if it were a real event. The reason why it is more powerful than physical practice is that with mental rehearsal EVERY ball goes in, whilst in practice one or two inevitably miss.

I have mentioned here just a couple of applications of visualization in sport. But this mental skill, this instinctive talent we have of visualizing can be put to good use in a far wider sense as well. Imagine the power of visualization in preparing to take your driving test, or in a job interview, or anything at all which matters to you.

You can make your visualizations even more powerfully effective with the help of hypnosis. Hypnosis is a state of both relaxation and focus and your creative mind comes to the fore. Hypnosis therefore allows a greater intensity of focus and therapeutic effect. Your images and visualizations become more magnetic when in hypnosis. Not only that, with hypnosis you access your subconscious mind, the part which acts instinctively and automatically and so you can embed your visualizations deep within your psyche, creating a firm and powerful expectancy that what you are visualizing will indeed become your reality.

This is why golf hypnosis, and sport hypnosis in general is so widely used in this day and age. If you want a real edge in sport or life in general then you can empower yourself by learning to visualize effectively and deliberately, with the help of hypnosis downloads. Simply by listening to a hypnosis download you will learn to use hypnosis and discover how easy it is for you to visualize.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis downloads for sport and success in life.

When you take into account some of the basic ways in which your mind works you will appreciate that a picture really is worth and thousand words.

With a degree in psychology and qualifications in hypnotherapy, NLP and sports psychology, Roseanna Leaton is one of the leading practitioners of self-improvement. You can get a free hypnosis download from http://www.RoseannaLeaton.com and peruse her extensive library of hypnosis downloads for golf, sport and life in general.

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