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).