Mental Visualization

I was around 15 when our basketball coach handed out a few articles for us to read and summarize for him. There were a variety of subjects related to basketball tactics, fitness, and sports psychology. What I got seemed very strange to me. It was an article about mental visualization for sports. I had no idea what it could be about. After reading the article, it changed me forever.

Mental visualization is the process of imagining experiences in your head. Sitting on a chair but assuming that you are doing sports, seeing everything with as much detail as possible. The article told the story of an average golf player, James Nesmeth, who became a war prisoner during the Vietnam war. He didn’t see or talk to anyone while imprisoned for seven years. While being there, he devised a mental program in which he’d play his favorite golf course every day in his mind. He would visualize everything with as much detail as possible, his clothes, the smell of the grass, the weather, and birds singing. He worked on his moves and saw the ball flying in the air towards the hole while locked in a tiny cage.

When James Nesmeth was released, his physical condition was horrible. However, he went to the golf course and played; he shot 74, which was 20 points better than his average before being captured in the war. He was now a much better player than when he had left.

After reading the article, I tried to do the same for playing basketball. I wasn’t imprisoned in a cage in Vietnam, but every day I was imprisoned in school for close to seven hours. There I would imagine playing, seeing everything in detail. This practice became a habit for me, and I used it for sports for many other years to come. I think it had a huge positive effect. I can’t be sure since I have never gone the other route, not doing mental visualization. But numerous studies are proving its effectiveness. This article is a meta-analysis of the researches done in this field.

I have been reading research lately that talks about this technique's effectiveness for almost anything, not just in the sports domain. Thinking back, I know that this is something I’ve done, mostly unconsciously, before exams or often before public talks and presentations. Research shows it could be used for any mental activity.

I am considering it again, consciously this time, and pondering how it could benefit various professional or personal goals. I am doing quite a lot of writing these days and I’m trying to see if performing visualization can increase my focus and persistence. There seems to be a lot that can be done. Our minds are capable of magic, and visualization is one of the empowering tools we all possess. Visualizing that which is not there yet to be fully prepared once it is.

While researching on this topic after so many years, I stumbled upon this video which is quite interesting.