The Power of Mental Rehearsal
I always knew that when a golfer hit a hole in one it wasn’t just the result of his or her perfected swing, the prevailing winds or good luck. With the kind of laser like focus sports professionals are capable of achieving, I understood that it was their intention, combined with intense imagination and mental rehearsal that created that particular outcome.
The champion golfer Jack Nicklaus has said:
“I never hit a shot, even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a colour movie. First, I “see” the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright-green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour before landing. Then there’s sort of a fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the king of swings that will turn the previous images into reality. Only at the end of this short, private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball.”
Whether we’re a professional sports person or not, we all have a mental movie running in our head continuously imagining how our day or future will play out. They are OUR mental productions but they’re not entirely original as our scripts are often handed to us through the opinions of others and our conditioned fears and doubts.
Strengthen the observer part of self and be mindful of the kind of films that are running in your inner cinema. Start critiquing them even as they’re running, and pull some of the re-runs off the screen immediately. Replace them with a bold new visionary tale casting your good self as you prefer to be.
Once you make this inner picturing process conscious and deliberate, you begin to create experiences to match in your outer world.
Bring mental rehearsing to the forefront of your day – while you’re having your morning shower. Rehearse how you would like the meeting, or the long drive, or anything on your to-do list to play out.
I like to rehearse phone calls as I’m preparing to make them. Seeing myself finding just the right word at the right time. Sensing the great pleasure I will have as I hang up – feeling very satisfied at how the conversation has gone.
As I set off in the car to my destination, I mentally rehearse seeing my car pull into its destination at exactly the time I would like the journey to end, and no longer.
SEE THE END IN THE BEGINNING. Set your intention up front.
Don’t just play with this to manifest the perfect car parking space. Employ it throughout every day so that you are deliberately creating your preferred outcomes.
Remember of course that it works both ways. Draw the curtain quickly if the film you’re running turns into a horror movie. You want to be in the business of producing happy endings.
Pull out some of those old dusty scripts of your wildest dreams that you may have put aside a long time ago. Let them come to life again vividly on your inner screen and marvel at how they begin to show up in your world in the most surprising ways.
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