Since we learn to master vivid visualization, we can use this wonderful tool for goal setting. This article describes in-depth several goalsetting visualization. Please read it after reading my post – for detailed description of each visualization aspect. And this article describes the science behind why visualization succeeds, read it to get some scientific background.
The first time I encountered visualization as a tool for achieving goals was when I studied some military-grade methods. The methodology of mental toughness for reaching goals and confronting obstacles looks incredibly simple:
- Set clear goals: long-term, mid-term and short-term, so that you can focus at one thing at a time. The goals should be very detailed and include all possible situations and what can trigger them. If there is no special reasons do not deviate from the set tactics during implementation stage. The imagery at this stage is a tree of possible scenarios, triggers, actions and reactions – marker per scenario, with many details.
- Mental visualization. During the goal setting stage we define various scenarios. During the visualization stage we simulate each scenario in our mind to a great detail. (1) Make vision board – imagine every element in the situation. (2) Generate mental movies of each imaginable scenario. (3) Try to create an environment you will face and see how you perform. Visualization practice prepares for any reasonable scenario, so that no emergency can pose a surprise [emergency conditioning method] .
- Control of arousal. Sometimes everything goes wrong. In this case it is extremely important to calm down and act logically. Something need to protect you against “fight or flight” response. This calming trigger is usually some deep breathing and visualization of a relaxing environment – it should be very specific, vivid enough to generate proper response, not too vivid to loose awareness. This sort of visualization requires a lot of practice.
- Positive thinking. The focus should be on positive outcome. The motivation is not to quit no matter what. There should be a very strong motivation for why to proceed doing the hard things an not to avoid the confrontation. (1) Believe and (2) make others believe in success. (3) Seek out role models. Visualization of people who count on you to succeed really helps here.
As you can see, there are several different kinds of visualization, each handling a specific aspect of a mission [you do need a mission before you start generating goals]. Proper visualization increases the chances of success by at least 10 percent. Procrastination helps when you need to consider creative solutions and visualize scenarios. Once the goals have been set and all scenarios visualised it is time to ACT. If you do not act – all the goalsetting effort has been for nothing, and we will do A LOT to avert losses.
