From athletes to entrepreneurs to executives, visualization is recognized and touted as a powerful tool to turn aspirations into reality. Wherever you are in life, visualization techniques can help to bridge the gap between dreams and reality.

This article is all about what visualization is, why visualization is so powerful, the benefits of visualization, plus 5 visualization techniques you can use to start achieving your goals.

Are you ready? Let’s get visual!

5 Visualization Techniques You Need to Fuel Unstoppable Success

What is Visualization?

Have you ever tried putting together a puzzle without an image? Sure, it’s possible. But it takes way more time than needed, simply because you have no idea what you’re trying to piece together. Working towards your goals can often feel like you’re piecing together a puzzle without seeing the full picture – frustrating and unnecessarily difficult! Visualization is a lot like getting a glimpse at the full picture.

The American Psychological Association defines visualization as, “the process of creating a visual image in one’s mind or mentally rehearsing a planned movement to learn skills or enhance performance.”

In goal setting, visualization is a transformative tool that bridges the gap between your current state and desired outcomes. Visualization goes far beyond daydreaming about a fantastical outcome. For example, visualization is creating a powerful mental image of smashing your presentation or finally getting your business off the ground. Daydreaming is getting lost in thinking about how you would spend your million-dollar lottery winnings (Though I won’t be the one to deter you from that dream ;).

Jim Carrey: A Famous Visualization Example

The story of Jim Carrey and his visualization techniques is a famous example of just how powerful visualization can be for achieving your goals.

Before becoming a well-known actor, Jim Carrey was struggling to make ends meet, and that’s when he decided to utilize visualization techniques to manifest his career aspirations. On top of visualizing his career, the directors he would work with, and the life he wanted, he also wrote himself a check for $10 million for “acting services rendered.” He then dated it for Thanksgiving 1995 and kept it in his wallet. Giving himself 3 years to accomplish this goal, just before Thanksgiving 1995, Carrey learned he would be paid $10 million for his role in the movie “Dumb and Dumber!”

When discussing the power of visualization, this story has become a popular anecdote – illustrating how setting clear intentions, visualizing them, and taking action towards those intentions can lead to achieving even the greatest goals.

Why is Visualization So Powerful?

“Vision is the starting point of all high performance. You create things twice; first mentally, then physically.”
Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington, The 12-Week Year

Visualization is an active process, meaning you are mentally rehearsing your actions. Let’s continue with the presentation example. When you visualize your success, you’re also thinking about the actions you’ll take. Things like what you’re going to say, how you’re going to command the room, what your posture looks like, and what hand gestures you’re going to use. This process helps build up your confidence and mentally practice the outcome you want.

Dr. Biasiotto’s study of simulated mental practice (aka visualization) on basketball free throw accuracy illustrates this impact. During the study, players made several free throws. Then they were split into three groups:

Group 1 did not practice playing basketball for 30 days
Group 2 practiced shooting free throws for 30 minutes for 30 days
Group 3 spent 30 minutes visualizing shooting free throws for 30 days

After 30 days, Group 1 showed no improvement and Group 2 improved by 24%. And most interestingly, Group 3 improved by 23% – just slightly less than those who physically practiced their free throws!

What does this mean? It means that mental practice is nearly as effective as physical practice. This is because the brain can’t tell the difference between physical experiences and imagined scenarios – the emotions attached to both of these are equally real. This is why visualization is so powerful!

What are the Benefits of Using Visualization Techniques?

“When you think about a vision that is so deeply connected to you, the neurons that fire in your brain are the same neurons that fire when you act on that vision.”
Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington, The 12 Week Year

Visualization techniques play a key role in helping you achieve your personal and professional goals. Whether it’s learning a new skill, improving your health, or going for a big job interview, visualization can provide a clearer blueprint for what you want to accomplish.

Here are some of the ways visualization can help you achieve your goals:

Visualization Motivates Detailed Planning and Inspires Execution

Visualization helps you mentally walk through the milestones necessary to hit your goals. By going through a simulation of the process, you’re thinking about potential hurdles and may even identify unseen obstacles. This leads you to plan more effectively. For example, what questions might come up during your job interview? Are there specific skills you want to emphasize and elaborate on? What questions do you want to ask at the end of the interview?

Much like physical repetition, visual repetition helps you practice, iterate, and increase the effectiveness of your execution. You feel more confident and prepared to take on the next steps, so you’ll be more likely to do so.

Visualization Deepens Emotional Investment in Your Success

As you start to visualize the outcome you want for yourself, you also make space to emotionally connect with it. In turn, this increases the likelihood that you will persevere when you inevitably face challenges.

Think of it like a relationship. As you develop an emotional bond with your success, you’ll feel more invested in making sure that it thrives. This translates into meeting deadlines, taking action, and keeping yourself accountable. The desire to succeed and the outcomes you visualize will drive you to make it a reality!

Enhances Problem-Solving Skills and Improves Adaptability

Visualization is much like a choose-your-own-adventure game – you choose the scenario you want to play out, see the outcome, and restart the game to pick a different scenario.

By visualizing multiple scenarios and their outcomes, you flex those creative problem-solving skills. It also allows you to see the same problem from different perspectives. What happens if you decide to take action? What happens if you do nothing at all? Incorporating visualization helps you practice flexibility and adaptability in a risk-free environment. And these are both critical when it comes to achieving difficult goals.

5 Visualization Techniques to Fuel Unstoppable Success

“If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it”
Muhammad Ali

Here are some proven visualization techniques to get you started on your success journey:

1. Create a Vision Board

Creating a vision board is a timeless visualization exercise and for good reason! A vision board is the perfect medium to translate your intangible goals and aspirations into a physical representation. Start by writing down your goals and what steps you’ll take to achieve them. Then, search for images, quotes, affirmations, etc. that you associate with those goals and add them to your board. Keep your board where you can see it to remind yourself of where you’re headed and why you’re taking action.

2. Keep a Daily Journal

Journaling is a great way to help with visualization! It also allows you to document your journey. Start by writing down things like what you’ll be doing that day to get one step closer to achieving your goals. You can also write about the challenges you come across, your achievements, your hopes, what you’ve learned, etc. Keeping a daily journal ensures that you are also mentally practicing your next steps, giving you more confidence as you move forward in your journey.

3. Write Stories from the Future

For this exercise, you’ll be writing two stories. In the first one, imagine yourself 5, 10, 15 years from now (you decide) and write a story about how you failed to achieve your goals. What happened? Where are you? What were the things that you let get in your way? What steps would you have taken instead?

In the second story, imagine yourself again, but this time write a story about how you achieved your goals. Where are you? What do you see? How do you feel? What challenges did you face and overcome? What advice would you give to yourself?

Include as many details as possible in both stories and revisit them periodically. Both stories will help you to visualize success, what steps you might need to take to get there, and even what alternative outcomes may look like.

4. Walk in the Footsteps of a Role Model

Just as the name suggests, Role Model Visualization is a technique where you gather inspiration from those you admire and place yourself in their narrative. Find a role model whose success aligns with your aspirations and imagine what their journey looked like. What goals would they have set for themselves? What challenges would they have faced? What’s the internal dialogue they would have had to keep pushing? What mindset would they need to have? By visualizing a similar path, and imagining yourself going through the same experiences, your own goals will start to feel more achievable.

5. Take a Progressive Approach

A big part of visualization is to envision the outcome, but focusing on the journey is equally important. Progressive Visualization encourages you to take a more detailed approach and mentally rehearse the types of challenges and successes you’ll come across. Your journey will be made up of many little steps and by preparing for different scenarios, you’ll begin to instill a resilient mindset. Start by breaking down your goals into smaller goals and identify what actions you’ll need to take to achieve them. Then, think of the types of roadblocks that may come with these actions and how you’ll prepare to tackle them. This technique will help you feel more prepared and realistic when it comes to understanding the effort required to achieve success.

Concluding Remarks

This post was about what visualization is, why visualization is so powerful, the benefits of visualization, and visualization techniques you can use to start achieving your goals.

When it comes to visualization techniques, there is no right or wrong. Just remember that visualization is the starting point of your success journey.

As Jim Carey famously said, “ You can’t visualize and then go eat a sandwich.”

Now, it’s over to you. How have you incorporated visualization into your life? If you have any thoughts or questions share them below!

Sources

American Psychological Association. “Visualization.” APA Dictionary of Psychology, https://dictionary.apa.org/visualization.

Grouios, George, et al. “The Effect of a Simulated Mental Practice Technique on Free Throw Shooting Accuracy of Highly Skilled Basketball Players.” Journal of Human Movement Studies, vol. 33, 1997, pp. 119-138.

Guillot, Aymeric, et al. “Imagining is Not Doing but Involves Specific Motor Commands: A Review of Experimental Data Related to Motor Inhibition.” Neuropsychologia, vol. 42, no. 3, 2004, pp. 310-321, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393203003257.

Moran, Brian P., and Michael Lennington. The 12-Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months. Wiley.

Ranganathan, Vinoth K., et al. “From mental power to muscle power—gaining strength by using the mind.” Neuropsychologia, vol. 42 no. 7, 2004, pp. 944 – 956, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393203003257?via%3Dihub