Science has found that mental practice is almost as effective as physical practice.
It’s crazy to consider.
It really comes through in sports. Golfers have now taken to playing rounds of golf in their minds. They still practice by playing actual rounds of golf on the course, but they also now take the time to go through an entire round in their mind. They put themselves in challenging situations.
In that study linked above, researchers found that people who simply mentally worked out instead of going to the gym added muscle mass to their bodies. It wasn’t as much as actually going to the gym, but there was a significant improvement.
For skills in life that truly require mental skill, mental practice and visualization makes a lot of sense. It’s important to put in the practice and repetition in a physical sense, but it maybe just as important to focus on doing mental exercise.
You Can’t Do What You Can’t See
Jackie Burke Jr. is famous in golf for winning the Masters and PGA Championship in the same year. YouTube is full of great videos with him and in a few he mentions visualization. He remarks, “How can you hit a shot that you can’t see?”
His point is that a golfer needs to visualize a shot happening before swinging. Jack Nicklaus has said the same thing. Tiger Woods has commented on visualization and how he focuses on seeing a shot before taking the swing.
In business, visualization is an important trait for successful people. You’ve probably read about creating a vision for your company. It’s the job of the founder or CEO to create a vision for the company. The reason is so that everyone on the team can see where the company is going and they can work toward that goal.
Little kids interested in sports have visions of winning championship games. They visualize being in position to win the big game. Do this enough times and when the moment actually comes those kids have already prepared for it.
You can do the same in business. You can visualize where you want your company to go. You can see what you want and how to pull it off. You can mentally practice for events like sales presentations and meetings. You can prepare for networking events where you’re mixing with successful people. Your practice can ease tension and prepare you so that you’re confident, engaging and effective.
Process > Result
It’s good to visualize what you want to do in business, life, sport or whatever. However, just thinking about the end result is only a dream and can actually be more harmful to your ability to reach your goal than not visualizing at all.
The real power in visualization and mental practice comes in visualizing the process.
This is the “practice” in mental practice. You’re going through the process needed to achieve your desired result. You’re not only seeing the end, but seeing the steps in between to achieve what you want.
Let’s take an abridged version of a golfer. The end is winning The Masters, a common dream for many aspiring golfers. It stays a dream if you only visualize it, but the best golfers are the ones that visualize how to achieve their dream and then put in the physical and mental practice. They see the steps to becoming Masters Champion. Then they take those steps.
Visualizing the process helps to keep your focus on what needs to be done. You throw out all the unnecessary steps and keep your focus. It also puts you in situations that make you feel less anxious. It’s like the golfer that pretends to have a putt to win The Masters. Do that on a practice green thousands of times and in your mind thousands of times and when the actual moment comes you’ll be ready. Maybe not entirely ready, but more ready than if you’re feeling the emotion for the first time.
So in a business setting it might be visualizing the handshake to seal the deal. But that isn’t enough. You have to see the process. Visualize the steps it takes to achieve the handshake. Do the physical preparation and the mental preparation to practice the situation. Then when it comes you’ll be an ace: comfortable, confident and engaging.
Conclusion
The takeaway here is that there is no substitute for the physical act of practice whether in sports or in business. If you have a big presentation coming up it’s important to speak the words, move on a stage and all the things that go into the physical nature of what you’re doing.
But you can enhance what you do with mental practice. Visualize the process it will take and go through mental reps as well as physical reps. You’ll find that you’ll improve with what your body is doing and you’ll reduce anxiety, which leads to good outcomes in business. When you’re confident and engaging you’re more appealing to others. They will want to work with you, buy from you and more.
Try it out in a simple way to start. The next time you have a phone conversation. Go through the process in your mind ahead of time. Then see how prepared you are for the call when it occurs.
You should find that the call goes much better than if you were to go into it blindly without any practice.
