How visualisation can make your goals a reality
A clear vision is an important step in achieving any goal, after all, if you don’t know what you’re aiming for, how can you get there? But how does visualising our goals help us progress towards them?
Visualisation is a tool that top athletes, politicians and CEOs use when setting and pursuing goals. It is also used in a range of therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In recent years, an increasing number of people have been using visualisation to increase their chances of reaching their goals.
We’ve invited Laura to discuss the positive impact visualisation has on our neurological pathways.
WHAT IS VISUALISATION?
Visualisation is a technique used to form a mental image of a future event. Whether your goal is a new job, a new stage in a relationship, or to feel happier and calmer, imagining this happening in detail has been shown to increase motivation, focus, and help you progress towards your goal.
There are two types of visualisation. The first is outcome visualisation, which involves imagining yourself achieving a goal. The second is process visualisation: imagining each step of the process towards your desired outcome. The latter has been shown to be more effective. Researchers at the University of California asked a group of students to visualise themselves achieving a high score in an exam. A second group was asked to visualise studying for the exam. The students who imagined themselves getting a high grade scored lower than those who imagined themselves studying. However, imagining the end result has a greater impact on motivation, so visualising both the process and the outcome is optimal. Of course, this doesn’t mean simply imagining and waiting for it to happen, but coupling visualisation with action is a powerful combination.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
When we visualise a situation, we activate the same pathways in our brain that are stimulated when the event happens in real life. This triggers a similar neurological response, allowing the brain to familiarise itself with the experience. Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart explains that “there is surprisingly little difference to the brain between experiencing an event directly in the outside world and a strongly imagined vision of the same event.” For example, if you imagine being in a stressful situation, your body will begin to respond as if it were happening: your nervous system will prepare for fight or flight and trigger the release of cortisol or adrenaline. Similarly, if you imagine a peaceful environment, you will physically relax. Rehearsing a particular situation or outcome can therefore generate a physiological change in the body. Research has even shown that for stroke patients the results from visualised movement were similar to practising the actual movement.
WHEN WE VISUALISE A SITUATION, WE ACTIVATE THE SAME PATHWAYS IN OUR BRAIN THAT ARE STIMULATED WHEN THE EVENT HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE.
USING VISUALISATION
One way to use visualisation is to create a detailed image of your ideal future life. This could be through a guided meditation or journaling, which allow you to fully immerse yourself in the vision. Think about how you would like a typical day in your ideal life to look - not a dream day off work or on holiday, but a realistic account of how the day might pan out. We don’t often take a step back and think about the day-to-day life that achieving our goals will create. Success looks different for everyone. This is a great way to get clear on what success would look and feel like for you.
WE DON’T OFTEN TAKE A STEP BACK AND THINK ABOUT THE DAY-TO-DAY LIFE THAT ACHIEVING OUR GOALS WILL CREATE.
You could start by thinking about these questions: how would you like your life to look this time next year? What do you want to be doing? Who do you want to be surrounded by? How do you want to feel? Writing in the present tense about the entire day, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, has a strong effect on your subconscious. You can choose any point in time, but writing it about one year’s time is a good place to start. Engage as many senses as you can in your vision and imagine the emotions you would be feeling.
The more detail you can include, the clearer you will feel about the goals to set to reach your vision. It’s important to spend time afterwards breaking your goals down into steps that are achievable and outcome-based. Otherwise, your vision can seem daunting and unrealistic.
VISION BOARDS
Another way to use visualisation is by creating a vision board. A vision board is a collection of images related to your future goals and is a visual representation of how you want your future to look. Many people find having tangible images of their goals a powerful source of motivation.
WHEN WE FOCUS OUR ATTENTION ON WHAT WE WANT, WE’RE MORE LIKELY TO NOTICE OPPORTUNITIES RELATED TO IT.
Seeing the same images repeatedly teaches our brain to focus on what is important to us. We are inundated with information and new visual stimuli every day. Selective attention is the cognitive process whereby our brain selects what is important to us and what isn’t. The brain’s limbic system is constantly filtering out information we don’t need for survival and retaining information it deems important. For example, we can see the clothes we’re wearing, but we’re not thinking about them all the time. When we focus our attention on what we want, we’re more likely to notice opportunities related to it. Have you ever thought about buying a certain dog breed or car, then suddenly you start to see that dog or car everywhere? Or you hear your name in a noisy room? This is your brain’s RETICULAR ACTIVATING SYSTEM. When we’re highly aware of something, we’re more likely to notice it.
