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Month: June 2022

Stop Trying To Visualize (You’d Be Better Off Running)

Thursday, June 30th – 12:04pm

Have you ever heard about that study where basketball players visualized shooting free throws instead of, you know, actually shooting them?

When I heard about that I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I played hockey at the time. All I have to do is score in my mind, I thought. Then I will be the greatest. (I was notoriously the not-greatest on the team). Screw my past failures and weak hand-eye coordination, I had found the hack of all hacks: The crème de la crème of quick & easy success. Can you tell I went through a law of attraction phase?

And so I tried it. 

And it didn’t work.

Maybe I’m weird, but if I try to visualize scoring a point in a sport—in my case, hockey, but it applies to any other—I literally can’t imagine myself scoring. I mean, if I close my eyes and picture myself skating toward an empty net; if I prime myself for a snapshot to go in just below the crossbar, I will hit the crossbar in, my mind’s eye, and the puck will not go in. 

Perhaps I’m not sports-minded … or perhaps (and I’d put my money on this one) Victor Frankl’s idea of paradoxical intention has paralyzed me. 

The willfully created, mental picture with the eyes closed, is the stereotype of visualization. Hell, it’s in the name “visual”-ization—if we can’t make a proper picture in our heads then there must be something jacked up about us, right? Maybe. Or maybe we’ve misconstrued the term that’s been touted as the “key to success” by personal development aficionados since the time of Napoleon Hill. Quite simply, I think the error is in limiting our imagination of the future to only one of our senses (even if this is only out of linguistic convenience). In truth, our imagination—our mental process for creating what doesn’t exist inside our mind—is what supersedes visualization. The problem is that this word is so all-encompassing that it would not be fair to limit its definition to what we are attempting to get at with the word “visualization.”

Visualization, when it is referred to outside the realm of science and data, is almost exclusively used to refer to visualization techniques. Techniques whose purpose is either:

  • To relax—something you may see in the midst of mindfulness meditation class.
  • To empower—designed to produce more confidence in a skill (whether scoring free throws or giving an important speech).
  • To place yourself into a future reality—one that you deem more ideal than your current one. 

I do not take any issue with these things, I’m only writing this because of how important I think these three processes are to us. What I take issue with is the emphasis on the visual nature of the techniques. I would like to offer an alternative term to refer to this process that doesn’t limit the number of routes we can use to reach the given outcome: I will then make an argument for why this linguistic change is so important.

The term is sensorize. (Wow, look how clever I am). Sensorize and sensorization are the words I firmly believe should replace the current cultural obsession with visualization (the exception being any technique that is expressly visual, as may be the case in a certain meditation). It may seem like such a simple and insignificant change, but as the acceptance and understanding of different sensory learning styles become more common in the classroom, I think it’s imperative to shift our language in the personal development domain.*

But what would the shift mean? Not much if it doesn’t catch on. However, if you are reading this right now, I can offer some food for thought that may change your thinking:

The point of any technique that involves imagining the future for yourself is to create the emotional response in your body and link it to that outcome. You do not, I would argue, have to see that future outcome if you can form the emotional anchor by some other means. What is much more important is knowing the outcome. This can be done by adapting other people’s stories (or synthesizing multiple stories) of success to yourself.**

From there, once the outcome is pieced together, sensorize it in the present moment by any means necessary. If you struggle with mental pictures, embrace your thoughts in their auditory, kinesthetic, or even written form (which is distinct from visualization according to Neil Flemming’s theory on learning styles).

  • Pump yourself with music while you read the description of your outcome.
  • Go on a run while you listen to the description of the outcome that you recorded in a tone that fills you with energy.
  • Listen to that Steve Jobs speech that everyone always oodles over, then say, out loud, the outcome you want.

There is a story of how Jim Carrey wrote a check to himself for $10 million that he was determined to cash it by 1994. Even though Carrey himself considered it an act of visualization, I would argue that the physicality of the check (kinesthetic) and the dollar amount on the check (reading/writing) was the true power it held. 

“By Any Means Necessary”

This idea of linking the emotion by any means necessary should not be overlooked. “By any means necessary” is the keystone phrase to combat the paradoxical intention (i.e., the harder you try to do something, the more it eludes you) that I experienced when I tried to visualize myself scoring a goal back in high school. 

I can say, anecdotally at least, that when I am in a good mood, it is much easier for me to think about positive future outcomes. When, however, I set aside time to think about a certain positive future outcome (as is the case when I block out time to set goals), my mind either goes blank or fills with worrying thoughts. What this points to is the need to understand the concept of “hyper-intention” in order to go about achieving our outcome (in this case, linking emotion to an anticipated future) indirectly. 

I would even go so far as to say, “You CANNOT think about your positive future outcome.” Sure, write the thing on a note card; sign that million-dollar check to yourself. But don’t think about the outcome. Focus purely on (1) generating the emotion, by physically moving your body in an exciting way, and (2) looking at the tangible reminder of the outcome; whether written, visual, auditory, etc.

I’ll conclude with a metaphor to solidify all this rambling:

Light refracted in water droplets creates a rainbow. The rainbow is the output, not the input. If you spend your time trying to find where the rainbow begins so that you can reverse engineer it, then it will forever elude you.

Don’t think about the rainbow; direct your energy to the light and the water and the rainbow will arise.

*This applies more widely but I think it’s most applicable here. (Maybe I’m biased). 

**I’m referring to success in terms of achieving an outcome that you consciously chose and worked toward (this goes beyond money and fame).

Inspiration Never Strikes (The Myth of the “Napkin” Idea)

empty bar with red lights

Saturday, June 18th – 3:31pm

Here’s a story that might sound familiar:

Guy sits at the end of a bar and scribbles something on a cocktail napkin. His pen runs dry. He asks for another; plus a second glass of that Pale Ale on draft.

Wow. The first sip of it is cold and fantastic. He writes further on the soft paper. His scribbling has turned to rambling and the rambling turns into an idea. An idea or a dream? A dream—what an unreal thing—like the shape of a cloud or the end of a rainbow. Only with defocused eyes can you really see it. Maybe that’s the second beer talking.

Mwah! Finished.

He kisses the napkin (except with one hand so it’s not as poetic as you see in the movies), then tomahawk throws the pen into the bullseye at the far end of the bar where some big-bellies play darts. He pays the tab with a single twenty and tells the bartender to keep the change. 

What?

I said keep the change.

Oh, thank you.

I won’t need any change where I’m going.

What?

I’m sorry I was muttering to myself.

Okay.

He walks home. The napkin soaks the sweat beading on his hand. It’s hot as hell out here. The orange from the sun bounces like a pinball against the skyscrapers and keeps blinding him no matter how he holds his arm.

Screw it. He pushes the napkin to the bottom of his pocket and wipes his hand dry on the outside of his pants.

Home at last.

The first gust of air from the lobby is the same as when you stick your head in the freezer after the AC’s gone out. Guy walks up three flights of stairs, enters his apartment, loosens his tie, and hu-ruffs onto his couch.

The napkin, he thinks. Don’t forget the napkin. There is gold in this pocket. Thin, inky gold. He’s smiling now. The idea of a lifetime, written on a dinky bar napkin. Guy decides he’ll frame the thing when this is all said and done.

He clears the center portion of the coffee table. There’s an empty beer and two Chinese takeout boxes still sitting out—one had shrimp “something” in it and stinks real bad. Screw it. He feels giddy: only half-remembering what he’d written.

The prophecy, the golden scroll, the napkin.

He irons it flat with his hands, then leans in to read his small marks.

What have you written, Guy? What have you dreamt for yourself …?

Ever heard how the design for the Sears Tower in Chicago was inspired by a pack of cigarettes?

Wowee, maybe there’s something to those lung cancer sticks …

What about the one where Aaron Sorkin wrote “A Few Good Men” on a whole stack of cocktail napkins?

Someone, get me five G&Ts pronto! … oh, sure, yeah—some cocktail napkins too.

Why is it that the worst kind of napkin and a cheap pen have such a mythological quality when combined? Together they form the pinnacle origin story of the Modern American Dream (that being, to get stupid rich and stupid famous).

Maybe it’s not the napkin we’re caught on; maybe it’s the “struck with inspiration” narrative that we’re all stuck on. The American zeitgeist (i.e., the cultural cliché) of the past 60 years is literally built on those stories: Not always with cocktail napkins, but always with a rugged unpreparedness and well-timed spontaneity.

Yet, I, the aficionado of none, SEE THROUGH THE MYTHS. Everyone is “struck with inspiration” on occasion. Do not idolize the pen or the bar or the cocktail or the napkin. Take the magic out of the myth. ZAP! There’s no magic in what I’m speaking about. The myth of the origin story is ALWAYS crafted looking backward. And you, the great gobbler of all things labeled “advice,” will either give up too early because you don’t think you have the special stuff. Or, you’ll spend a lifetime doing the ol’ bar crawl séance hoping a few drinks at the place where “that one guy thought of that one thing” will spark something for you.

There are two main differences, though, between those whose origin stories become cultural cliché and those whose stories die a quiet death:

1. Where do you spend your thoughts?

There is artistic inspiration, entrepreneurial inspiration, and mediocre inspiration (e.g., your grand plan for Chuck McDoowad perfect surprise party).

Sorkin was “struck” with a story that would go on to change his life because he ate up theatre like a fat king with a turkey leg. He wanted to act, he went to school for musical theatre, and he wrote the script on those cocktail napkins while bartending at a theatre while the first act of a French musical was going on.*

You, on the other hand, will not find an idea that tops the “fidget spinner” because your mind is CONSUMED by your desk job … and sports … and shrimp fried rice. Also, really? The fidget spinner is what you’re trying to top?

Ever noticed how every “million-dollar idea” you hear about from that uncle who still smokes loose tobacco from a pipe is the most superficial, first-world, so-convenient-that-it’s-not-convenient idea you’re ever heard? That’s what you get when QVC and Good Morning America are your go-to sources of innovation.

2. What do you do when inspiration strikes?

You act on it. You write. You buy those tacky rainbow note cards and pin them to the wall like you saw Steve Martin do in Bowfinger. You cash in favors. You reach out to that pipe-smoking uncle. You find the right story to tell. Then you sell (just the idea at the start). You sell the crap out of it; you sell the crap out of it to people of influence. You sell and you get rejected and you sell again and you get rejected and you sell again and you see one of their eyebrows raise and you get rejected and you sell again …

Capisce?

There is no idea ATM to cash in your ideas for a quick payout. There’s no mob of people waiting to give you money (minus those gone-viral products with incredibly smart brand positioning).**

I would know … this isn’t my first rodeo.

But my point — my beautiful, self-gratifying, ego-saturated (hey ladies, did I mention I’m a writer with a HuGE vocabulary) point — is that there is no “ah-ha” moment except the kind that comes after you’ve spent a long time sulking in the gray zone of wanting a new idea, or a problem to solve, or a story to tell, BUT NOT HAVING ONE. That gray zone is the zone of inspiration. The zone where a constipated brain finds something to bite down on and push like there’s no tomorrow … I promise you will find something in that toilet if you push long enough.

My final note is this: If you want to get struck by lightning, then jump in a rooftop pool while holding a big, metal umbrella.

Take that metaphor as you will.

All the best,

Sean Patrick Greene

*That’s not meant to paint the story with yet another mythological brush. Rather, it’s meant to embody that Emerson quote, “You become what you think about all day long.”

**In the case of the viral peanut butter brand, the entire business was shaped around consumer demand and modeling an already tested idea. But even prior to the virality, there was an uphill battle for getting the brand going. For something designed to influence the trends rather than meld into them (which is what artists often strive for), the uphill battle for influence and virality lasts a lot longer. A LOT longer.