Grab your favorite piece of sporting equipment. Basketball, baseball, tennis racket, swim goggles, shoe laces, golf pencil, hair tie, water bottle, anything you have that reminds you of your fitness goals. Now, hold it in your hands and close your eyes. Feel all the edges of the object, the texture, the shape, etc. Memorize the way it feels in your hands. Start to picture the object in your head. What color is it? Where does it bend? What is its shape? Once you can hold a perfect image of the object in your head, begin to think about your goal. Continue to grasp the object in your hands with your eyes closed and think about yourself accomplishing your goal. Crossing the finish line of a race you’ve wanted to achieve. Beating your partner at a tennis match. Swinging the golf club just right and making perfect contact with the ball. Squatting your desired weight without quivering. Whatever your goal is, picture yourself getting it done as vividly as you can. Lock it into memory.
Open your eyes. This is a technique called visualization. Many sports psychologists use this technique with athletes to improve their performance. The way it works is through the brain’s formation of memories. By creating this vivid image of yourself being successful, your brain starts thinking it is true and stores it to memory. Now, your brain already believes it to be true and if you’ve done something once, you could do it again. This time in real life.
Pretty cool, right? You think about something you want enough and it comes true. Well, not quite. Just like everything else, this requires balance. There has to be a happy medium of positive thoughts mixed in with some hard work. Dreams don’t work unless you do. You definitely need to put in the work but the dream is a good place to start you off.
During the past week we have broken down ways to stay consistent in order to make slow progress toward your goal. This technique is yet another way to help improve your consistency to chip away at your goal and provide you the confidence to believe you can accomplish it. Start with your dream, visualize it coming true and then hit the ground running. Use the object you picked as a constant reminder to perform the steps required to keep moving forward toward your vision. Whenever you feel or see it, you should be thinking, “What have I done to move toward my goal today?” and “What could I be doing right now to move toward my goal?” Because life is like riding a bicycle. To maintain your balance, you must keep moving.
I have been using the bicycle charm on my bracelet to remind me to keep moving forward to find balance. I shared one with all of the #FindYourBalanceChallenge winners this week. Make sure to stay tuned for our next challenge to win one of our reminder bracelets. And please comment below your visualization experience. We would love to hear which object you picked and what your vision is.
Keep pedaling,
Cara
