Visualizing success

“If you want to reach a goal, you must 'see the reaching' in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal”- Zig Zigler

I'm somewhat of a slow driver, but, to some extent, I do consider myself a skilled driver. I might not be Collin McRae, nor have I had any real-life track experience, but I have played Gran Turismo and Forza – and have gone go-karting a few times, if I may add – so I guess you can count that as skills learned.

Although playing Xbox or PlayStation might be fun and, in a way, educational, I decided to research more about performance driving and how to handle your vehicle on a track (if I decide one day to change my career and become a professional race car driver, of course). The class I took or, I guess you can say, a series of YouTube clips I’ve watched, was offered by iRacing.com. iRacing is the world’s premier motorsports racing simulation. It puts you in the driver’s seat by allowing you to experience today’s newest form of competitive motorsport: virtual racing. So, the people who sign up to is are from all over the world — England, Mexico, Japan, Narnia, Montreal – and all were excellent at the high-end racing simulations. Except me. I'd never actually played it, but it sure looked impressive.

According to the testimonials on their website, some of the members had some real track experience, and a good number had a lot of karting experience, which is how almost all real racers start. Even their computer-based racing experience proved useful for learning tracks, finding the ideal lines through turns, and helping to train your eyes and reflexes.

In other ways, the simulator is useless. Nothing can replicate the physical feel of the car in a hard turn, and you can't exploit physics in the real world without some serious health-and-money related consequences. All in all, more realistic simulators like iRacing do seem to help a little bit.

Normally, these types of posts are written by genuinely fast and track skilled drivers. And oh boy am I qualified to do that with my simulated racing experience. Despite how incredibly well we all drive on the racetracks located inside our craniums, I suspect that I'm not alone, and there's a good number of people interested in more competitive track driving but who just never had the time or resources to really give it a try.

One of the most important things I learned from iRacing was where to look when you are behind the steering wheel. That big window above the dashboard is quite useful, for drivers who don't insist on driving by the instruments alone. And how you look through that windshield is important as well. Generally, I was told to be always looking through the top half or 1/3 of the windshield. Keep your eyes on where you want to go in the distance, not right at the end of your own hood. Look where you want to drive to, and you'll drive there. This sounds much easier to do than it actually proves to be. Just try it sometime.

I personally feel that not enough emphasis is made on vision placement, especially when you are in driving school about to get your driver’s license. In my view, one of the deciding factors between a good driver and a great driver is the use of their eyes. The best people at whatever they are practicing – whether its racing or playing football – have the ability to take in a greater amount of information through their eyes than others. By looking further ahead or through a turn you will automatically improve your performance and chances of success by way of:

- Greater anticipation of situations that could arise in front of you; - Automatically helps you achieve the correct driving line; - Driving a racecar on the limit is about feeling the balance of the car, looking ahead gives you more sensitivity to the racecars state of balance; - Greater sensitivity to changes in driving line in the racecar. The best drivers are constantly correcting, making little adjustments to the steering and pedals throughout the turn. The best drivers make it look easy, with virtually imperceptible changes, they appear to be driving on rails, yet they are working the controls.

Your car will go where you are looking – so make sure you are looking at the right places! Never look where you do not want to go!

I found that this technique works in real life situations. Yes, it does work with regular driving, but that was not what I was talking about. All top performers, regardless of profession, know the importance of looking ahead in life and picturing themselves succeeding in their minds before they actually do in reality. Visualizing something and actually acting it out are closely connected.

Actor Jim Carrey is famous for writing himself a ten million dollar check for a movie deal and dated it five years from that very day. Can you guess what eventually happened? Not long before that date came along, he secured ten million dollars to star in the movie Dumb and Dumber. The power of visualization has been instrumental in turning dreams into reality for not only folks like Jim Carrey, but elite and successful people in every field: professional athletes, business CEO’s, speakers, singers, etc.

Replaying the mental vision and image of where or who you would like to be is the key catalyst in swinging your vision from a mere day-dream into reality! Remarkably, science has also demonstrated that your brain cannot tell the difference between a visualized image and reality.

So, what is visualization? It is simply a mental rehearsal. You create images in your mind of having or doing whatever it is that you want. You then repeat these images over and over again, daily for about five minutes a day. In your five-minute practice, use your imagination to see yourself being successful in whatever goal you may have.

I started to experience the incredible benefits of taking the time to picture myself succeeding before every football game. I visualized every little detail, from walking into the locker room, tying my cleats and having conversations with my teammates.

I would picture myself having the “perfect” game, executing each move perfectly and making big plays. The more vivid I was, the better I seemed to play. I couldn’t believe it. Before the game even started, I had already played the entire game in my mind. This made a tremendous difference because it greatly increased my confidence and comfort level.

Sun Tzu said, “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” What Sun Tzu has in mind is the great battles that were fought in China at the time, where huge armies would be lined up and then sent off to fight. The battle would go to whoever had prepared best, a combination of the best supplies, the best planning, the best intelligence, the best control of the ground, the best training, etc. The general wound things up and let them go. While Sun Tzu is speaking about the preparation for war and of the armies I do believe that he is also talking about something else.

If I could translate that quote for you, I would have phrased it more along the lines of "Whether you believe you will win or lose, you are right." The first and most important battle is in the mind. Let me give you an example. Imagine the toughest, scariest, fastest, super aggressive fighter you can think of – or just imagine Mike Tyson – and then put him in the opposite corner from you. Picture him sitting on that stool coldly staring at you with the eyes that just penetrate your soul. Imagine him standing just waiting for the bell to ring so he can run over and pummel you with everything he's got. Every breath he takes causes every muscle to bulge and twitch with eager anticipation of what he is about to do to you. Every move he takes makes you feel you are about to have your ears bitten off. Does this raise your anxiety level just a little bit?

Well, here's a secret – no matter who you fight, the worst opponent will never be the one sitting across the ring from you. No, my friend. The worst is inside of you – by a long shot. If you don't win the fight going on in your head before you step in the ring – you'll lose long before the bell actually rings. You can literally psych yourself out of a victory and by letting on to how tired or scared you are – you will strengthen your foe, whether they are in a physical form or if it’s all in your head. What you think will affect the outcome of the fight. So if you doubt your ability to win – you stand a great chance of losing. Not only do you hamper your own ability to perform – but more importantly – you give power and strength to your enemy if you let on how nervous, fearful or doubtful you are.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

When I sit down at a chess board against a superior player, there is a high chance I will lose. But it is not determined, not yet. Blunders happen, moments of inspiration or clarity strike. Mostly, I lose. Occasionally, I surprise myself. But, what is important in these situations is if I visualize myself winning if I visualize myself delivering the knockout blow if I visualize myself moving the chess piece and achieving the checkmate, I get more confident and I tend to get what I want.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains how Michael Phelps won his gold medals by using the power of habits and visualization. Phelps’ record is extraordinary. His 22 total medals and 18 gold medals is the greatest medal performance in all of Olympic history.

Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, claims that vision and mental rehearsal are two sides of the same coin. “You must program your internal viewfinder,” says Bowman. He’s speaking of visualization and no one, in Bowman’s opinion, does it better than Michael Phelps. “For months before a race, Michael gets into a relaxed state. He mentally rehearses for two hours a day in the pool. He sees himself winning. He smells the air, tastes the water, hears the sounds, sees the clock.” Phelps take visualization one step further. He sees himself from the outside, as a spectator in the stands. He sees himself overcoming obstacles, too. For example, what would he do if he fell further behind in a race than he intended? Phelps practices all potential scenarios.

According to Bowman mental rehearsal is a proven, well-established technique to achieve peak performance in nearly every endeavor. “ The brain cannot distinguish between something that’s vividly imagined and something that’s real. ”

Bowman believes that all of us – regardless of our field – have a strong belief in who we are today and who we’d like to be tomorrow. When we set goals in business, sports, or any area of achievement, there’s a gap between where we are and where we want to be. “The most strongly held mental picture is where you’ll be… so get really good at mental rehearsal,” Bowman advises. “If you can form a strong mental picture and visualize yourself doing it, your brain will immediately find ways to get you there.”

“When Bob Bowman started working with Phelps and his mother on the keystone habits of visualization and relaxation, neither Bowman nor Phelps had any idea what they were doing. "We'd experiment, try different things until we found stuff that worked," Bowman told me. "Eventually we figured out it was best to concentrate on these tiny moments of success and build them into mental triggers. We worked them into a routine. There's a series of things we do before every race that are designed to give Michael a sense of building a victory.

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From The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg:

"If you were to ask Michael what's going on in his head before a competition, he would say he's not really thinking about anything. He's just following the program. But that's not right. It's more like his habits have taken over. When the race arrives, he's more than halfway through his plan and he's been victorious at every step. All the stretches went like he planned. The warm-up laps were just like he visualized. His headphones are playing exactly what he expected. The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension."

Back in Beijing, it was 9:56 a.m. – four minutes before the race's start – and Phelps stood behind his starting block, bouncing slightly on his toes. When the announcer said his name, Phelps stepped onto the block, as he always did before a race, and then stepped down, as he always did. He swung his arms three times, as he had before every race since he was 12 years old. He stepped up on the blocks again, got into his stance and, when the gun sounded, leaped.

Phelps knew that something was wrong as soon as he hit the water. There was moisture inside his goggles. He couldn't tell if they were leaking from the top or bottom, but as he broke the water's surface and began swimming, he hoped the leak wouldn't become too bad.

By the second turn, however, everything was getting blurry. As he approached the third turn and final lap, the cups of his goggles were completely filled. Phelps couldn't see anything. Not the line along the pool's bottom, not the black T marking the approaching wall. He couldn't see how many strokes were left. For most swimmers, losing your sight in the middle of an Olympic final would be cause for panic.

Phelps was calm.

Everything else that day had gone according to plan. The leaking goggles were a minor deviation, but one for which he was prepared. Bowman had once made Phelps swim in a Michigan pool in the dark, believing that he needed to be ready for any surprise. Some of the videotapes in Phelps's mind had featured problems like this. He had mentally rehearsed how he would respond to a goggle failure. As he started his last lap, Phelps estimated how many strokes the final push would require – 19 or 20, maybe 21 – and started counting. He felt totally relaxed as he swam at full strength. Midway through the lap, he began to increase his effort, a final eruption that had become one of his main techniques in overwhelming opponents. At 18 strokes, he started anticipating the wall. He could hear the crowd roaring, but since he was blind, he had no idea if they were cheering for him or someone else. Nineteen strokes, then 20. It felt like he needed one more. That's what the videotape in his head said. He made a 21st, huge stroke, glided with his arm outstretched, and touched the wall. He had timed it perfectly. When he ripped off his goggles and looked up at the scoreboard, it said "WR" – world record – next to his name. He'd won another gold.

After the race, a reporter asked what it had felt like to swim blind. "It felt like I imagined it would," Phelps said. It was one additional victory in a lifetime full of small wins.”

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By means of constant repetition, the subconscious starts to accept the visualized thought. When this happens, mindsets, beliefs, habits, and behaviors are changed accordingly. As a result, every thought and action is directed towards the accomplishment of the specific aim. Furthermore, the beliefs, mindsets and mental strength necessary for reaching your goals are established within you. They will allow you to keep pursuing your goal – winning the gold medal – even when confronted with difficulties, like losing your sight in the middle of an Olympic final.

At the same time, visualization has a beneficial influence on your neural pathways. By continuously visualizing certain actions, the behavior will feel more familiar once it’s actually performed. The reason for this lies in the fact that real-life action and visualization activate large parts of precisely the same neural networks. Even more surprising, scientists found that the sole act of visualizing a certain exercise has helped athletes to attain almost the same strength gains like someone who performed the exercise in real life.

You want to maintain focus and composure through mental fatigue? Of course, you do. Because when your brain is tired, it will work against you and you will bring out the worst in you. Mental fatigue will break you down and feed on your inner-enemy, your inner self who wants nothing but to put you down and keep you there.

But how do you do that?

First – visualize success. Our thoughts become our beliefs, and our beliefs will decide who we become and what we accomplish. That is where visualization comes into play. In order for your beliefs to change, and they can, you have to first visualize in your mind what you really want and the steps you will take to get there. Visualize yourself throwing those punches at Mike Tyson (metaphorically speaking). Visualize each punch landing on your opponent. Have a clear image in your mind of each blow and the damage it causes. Remember, the more vivid you can practice your visualization technique, the more your mind will buy into it.

There is a direct relationship between how clearly you can see your desired goal or result in your mind and how quickly it comes into your reality. This element of visualization is what explains the powers of the law of attraction and the law of correspondence. The vividness of your desire directly determines how quickly your goal materializes in the world around you.

Here is an interesting point: when you set a new goal for yourself, your image or picture of this goal will usually be vague and fuzzy. You may have no idea at all what the successful goal will look like. But the more often you write it, review it, and repeat it mentally, the clearer it becomes for you. And eventually, it will become crystal clear. At that point, the goal will suddenly appear in your world, exactly as you imagined it.

When you visualize your goals, the amount of vividness has to match the amount of emotion that you attach to your visual image. If your emotion is intense enough and your visual image is clear enough, your goal will immediately come true.

Once you have these mental images solidified in your mind along with the belief that you can do it, you have to do one more step: take action, MASSIVE ACTION EVERY SINGLE DAY. Thomas Edison once said "Vision Without Execution is Hallucination." In order for your vision to truly manifest itself, you have to act. Many experts believe that this practice determines what you will attract in your life. Your actions are mostly determined by your thoughts, and your thoughts will determine what actions you take. As the saying goes, “If you believe you can, you will; if you believe you can’t, you won’t.”

It really is that simple.

So now - when you come face-to-face with your Mike Tyson, do not run away or tell yourself “I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. I’m not fast enough. I’m not smart enough.” You might be bruised and dreading the sound of the next bell, but if you let on that you are tired, you are only going to fuel your opponent. You will never find anyone who can outbox you more than yourself. Even when you know everything, you are conditioned and are literally in your prime, if your head isn't on straight you will lose before stepping into the ring. So, train how you will fight. And that means not showing weakness in the gym or even when you are by yourself. You will respond in a fight the way you have drilled your body and mind. So make sure you drill it right. Visualize yourself being on top, and that’s how it will be.

Whatever your definition of success is, you can achieve it. You can achieve anything you put your mind to. Just like Michael Phelps, through visualization and practice, you too can kick ass and succeed. When you are in your mental ring and your opponent will be staring at you, they will come to the realization that he is up against an invincible force who is “bout that action, boss” as Marshawn Lynch says. You show weakness and start doubting yourself and talking down and criticizing yourself, your inner enemy will see it and it will be exploited. If you portray invincibility, you will weaken your opponent without even hitting him. Your subconscious will act upon the images you create within, whether they reflect your current reality or not.

Remember, your dreams are as hungry as your demons. Make sure you’re feeding the right ones.

“Visualization is the process of creating pictures in your mind of yourself enjoying what you want. When you visualize, you generate powerful thoughts and feelings of having it now. The law of attraction then returns that reality to you, just as you saw it in your mind.” – Rhonda Byrne