May 30 2007
Why what you see is what you get: creative visualization delivers real-world results. Here’s how and why it works - Peak Performance
At the beginning of each semester, Dennis P. Kimbro gives his Clark University students an assignment that, while simple to complete is as critical to their long-term success as acing their most complex exam. “Bring me the brochure for your class rings,” he demands. That’s it? It sounds almost ridiculous. But he’s dead serious.
“And while you’re at it, bring me a picture of the outfit you want to wear on graduation day and the list of people you want to invite. Do they know where they’re sitting or staying while they’re here? You need to know. So write all of that down for me. Draw me a diagram, if necessary. But see it–all of it. Keep seeing it, and you will see your way there!”
Welcome to Kimbro’s first lesson in the art of visualization, which is an absolute requirement for all of his classes. “Whenever I interview professional athletes who have won major championships, they tell me they did it for the ring,” says Kimbro, the renowned motivational speaker and author of What Makes the Great Great (Doubleday, $13.95). “So, I tell my students, do it for the ring. But don’t stop there. See every detail, every day until you’ve done it.
“I tell them all the time, `Whatever thou see’st, that thou be’est.’ I’ve never met one successful person who didn’t incorporate visualization into his or her life.”Visualization is the process of mentally creating detailed pictures of yourself achieving a desired goal or outcome and focusing on that image until you achieve your objective. It is a performance-enhancement technique practiced by high achievers in the performing arts, sports, business, and beyond. Visualization, a teaching tool used by coaches and instructors, is also promoted by health practitioners as a way to help their patients enhance health, cope with disease, overcome addictions, and change unhealthy behaviors.
Like meditation, visualization has been used over the years to reduce stress and increase self-awareness. So how does it work? Creative visualization exploits the connection between your thoughts (experienced as messages or imagery in your mind), your emotions (how thoughts make you feel), and your actions (the choices you make in response to your emotions). Patterns of thinking result in moods or emotional states, which produce patterns of behavior or habits that can affect everything from your effectiveness on the job, to the quality of your relationships, to your level of physical fitness.We react to visual imagery all of the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. For example, you probably respond to a movie (a combination of imagery and sounds resulting from the visualizations of others) with terror, joy, or sadness (and sometimes all of the above) as if you are actually experiencing it yourself. The key is making a regular, at least daily, habit of focusing and directing your thoughts. With creative visualization, you create the “movie” you want to see (hear, feel, smell, and taste), constantly editing and rewriting the “script” and deciding how you want it to end in your own mind. As a result, you literally program your mind to move toward desired outcome.
Experts maintain that visualization is a powerful–and often underused–tool for success. Why underused? Perhaps because we tend to be so busy. We commit our time to classes to improve our technical or intellectual preparedness, or go to networking events to enhance our public profiles and contact lists. But how often do we make time to connect with ourselves and our goals-and simply focus mental–not just physical–energy on those images? Not often enough, says Kimbro.”If you raise your level of vision, you will raise your level of play,” says Kimbro. “Start with making the time to be still and quiet for 20 to 30 minutes a day, focusing on your vision, on your goals, your dreams, your plan.”It may sound a lot like meditation, but there’s at least one critical difference. Meditation often involves getting still and clearing your mind. In visualization, instead of clearing your mind, you become laser-focused on your goals and dreams. You create a vision and then gradually and methodically clarify it down to the most minute detail.”We are at our best when we’re chasing a goal,” says Kimbro, “and, the truth is, everything happens to us twice: first on the inside then the outside. After all, where do your dreams and goals come from? From within. So, to the extent that you can control what goes on within you, you’ll be better able to control what goes on outside.”We tend to think of that old saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” referring to the physical, the tangible. Well, Kimbro and others insist that we should embrace that saying at face value. In fact, as with his students, Kimbro challenges you to test it. “Try telling yourself, `Until I see something clearly in my mind’s eye, I’m not going to achieve it,” he says. “Then start to visualize and watch the transformation in your life.”
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Caroline V. Clarke is an editor-at-large for Black Enterprise magazine. She is the author of Take a Lesson: Today’s Black Achievers on How They Made It and What They Learned Along the Way
