Is Visualization Helping You or Holding You Back?

Yesterday I unloaded about my first-hand experience with the duality of daydreaming. It inspired me to be more mindful about how and why I daydream—and today I want to expand on it by discussing one very popular facet of the dreamscape: visualization. Enter: the art of the visualizing your goals.  Here's something you probably don't need me to tell you: Visualizing that something will happen is far less effective than doing something that leads to the goal. AND YET, the self-development industry has placed a great deal of emphasis on visualization for years. Here's why:

Visualization acts as a virtual primer for the brain, preparing it to execute a task so that it feels easier or more attainable in real life.

It can be an incredibly effective technique to reaching your goals. The CATCH with visualization is that you're actually tricking your brain into thinking it has already executed the task, which can demotivate you from completing it in real life. (If you already get the feel-good sensation of accomplishing the goal, why bother?) As a professional daydreamer, I know this well. The more comfortable I became in my visualizations, the less comfortable I became in the act of getting shit done to make them come true. When it comes to long-term goals, there's no sense of immediacy. You might be an insanely hard worker when it comes to short-term goals or in your day-to-day, but that's often because there's an inherent sense of 'do or die' — you could lose your job, your credibility, etc. But with LONG-TERM goals, those far-fetched ideals that hang somewhere in the distance, the carrot is dangling too far out of reach. If offered the choice "do I want to DO the hard work to get way out there or THINK about doing the hard work and experience the feeling of the reward way sooner?" I personally pick the path of least resistance. What can I say, I'm the impatient kid in the Oreo experiment who eats the first Oreo before the lab technician gets back and therefore misses out on the opportunity to get two Oreos. It's not something I'm proud of, but I might as well come clean. Instant gratification is my jam. So, what I'm saying is:

Visualization can be a trap for instant gratification INSTEAD of a motivator for future success.Why, then, does visualization work so well for athletes?

Remember how it primes the brain as if taking it through a practice run? Well, athletes practice ALL THE TIME. They aren't less motivated to win after they practice. Their brains are trained to view practice as a method to perfect their skills IN PREPARATION for the main event. They know, inherently, that the practice run is not the same as the main event. Secondly, athletes are visualizing skills they've put into action time and time again. That's a very different sensation from visualizing something you've never done before or don't know how to do. Lastly, athletes tend to engage in visualization moments before they race, play, spar, whatever. The timing on this is critical. They're lighting up the parts of their brain shortly before executing the task at hand. It's like they're giving themselves a head start—granting themselves early access to 'the zone.'

So how can we visualize our successes in a way that motivates us, even if we're not an athlete?

It all comes down to baby steps and timing. There are two ways to visualize a goal: you can visualize the end-result (making lots of money, celebrating a 'one year' anniversary party of a new business, traveling to Fiji, whatever your goal is) or you can visualize the process of reaching the goal (creating a business plan, finding investors, emailing new clients, shaking hands on new business deals, etc). I personally feel that visualizing the end-result is abstract enough to implement at any time. Your brain might feel momentarily 'accomplished' but you're visualizing goals so far-fetched that your brain knows the difference. For example, if I'm visualizing that money is falling from the sky, I'm pretty keen on the fact that money has not and will not actually fall from the sky. It's an abstract visualization to express that I am opening myself up to the prospect of receiving an abundance of wealth, no matter where it comes from. Visualizing the process is where people get into trouble: If we take a page out of the athlete's book, then the best way to visualize the process of reaching a goal is to visualize it SHORTLY BEFORE EXECUTION. Break each step of the process down so that it feels like a whole bunch of baby-steps—then visualize EACH STEP right before you take action. Get your brain in the zone—it'll prime you for the task, which will in turn make it easier to execute, and because you're doing it RIGHT before you physically execute the task, it'll keep you from accidentally tricking your brain into feeling satisfied as though you've already completed it.

Here's how I execute focused visualizations from beginning to end:

BEFORE I START ANYTHING, I WRITE IT ALL DOWN ON PAPER

#1: WRITE DOWN the END GOAL.

ie. finishing the script/book/novel/business plan/finding funders etc.

#2: WRITE OUT a LIST of SPECIFIC TASKS that will take you to the end-goal.

ie. writing 3 pages per day/writing each section of the business plan/researching angel investors/applying to incubators/emailing investors/etc.

Remember how athletes visualize the execution of skills they've already practiced? This step carries that same thread—it's hard to visualize a process when you don't know what it looks like.

Make sure each task is SPECIFIC, not broad.

ie. "finding investors" is not as specific as "google 3 angel investors who are interested in X type of business" just as "emailing clients" is not as specific as "email 5 potential clients that you met at X networking event last year."

I promise, this will make it easier to execute. Generalizations = productivity death.

I VISUALIZE THE END-GOAL AT NIGHT I spend my time before I fall asleep visualizing the goal. I like doing this at night because there's nothing I need to physically execute and I can let my brain run wildly abstract, embracing the feeling of accomplishment without fooling it into thinking I've actually accomplished anything. I can relish the feeling of success. I'm entering dreamscape, regardless, so it feels natural to prime my brain for abstract positivity and, in a way, peaceful regard. I VISUALIZE EACH STEP OF THE PROCESS FIRST THING IN THE MORNING I look at my list of tasks. This isn't a to-do list, by the way, so there's no need to guilt yourself into getting it all done at once. It's just a list of what needs to happen in order to meet the goal, plain and simple. I close my eyes and visualize myself completing one task from the list. I visualize myself being successful, and reaping positive feedback from whatever it is I'm doing. When I open my eyes, I execute. If I get distracted, I close my eyes again and visualize completing the task. I complete it. I cross it off the list. The next day, I repeat that process for another task, and so on. Before you know it, your goal will be within reach. You'll wonder how you got there without any stress or anxiety. But really, you'll know.  Much like the athlete, you're engaging your brain in a way that embraces focus and engages 'the zone.'  It's kind of like meditation for the active mind—when it starts to wander away from the task at hand, you call it back, you focus, you execute. You win. Give it a shot and let me know how it goes. ;)