The Power of Visualization in Goal Setting & Visioning
Just imagine it. You’ve launched your new business. You have a steady stream of clients and they are making amazing progress. You’ve never been happier with your work and you’re convinced this is what God called you to do. You have exceeded your most optimistic revenue projections for the year in just six months. Sounds like a far off fantasy? Not if you’re employing a powerful technique that many successful people have used to help them achieve excellence in their field. It’s called visualization.
It’s a technique, tennis ace, Serena William swears by. From the time she was a kid, her dad, encouraged her to think and practice as if she was already competing in a Grand Slam match. To date, Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam tennis titles spanning four decades and is widely regarded as the greatest female player in the sport. According to Serena, “I am a strong believer in visualization. It’s like this meditation. You need to see things happening and envision yourself in a fantasy world, and really believe in that fantasy world until it comes true...” She uses visualization to keep her striving towards excellence, to remind herself of the goals, talent, perseverance, and most of all, the greatness that lives within her. Clearly, it has paid off.
Serena Williams, tennis ace
“You need to see things happening and envision yourself in a fantasy world, and really believe in that fantasy world until it comes true.”
Visualization Basics
Think and Grow Rich best-selling author Napoleon Hill posited that to achieve any goal, one must have “a strong unrelenting expectation of success.” He believed that “whatever the mind can see and believe it can achieve.” As a coach, I often observe that the key difference between an unmet goal and personal or professional success is the belief that it can be achieved. I know the impact mindset has on my clients’ ability to achieve their desired goals. Since our imaginations fuel our beliefs, one way to combat a negative mindset is through visualization.
Essentially visualization is the process of creating a vivid mental image of a future event. Cognitive scientific research indicates that since the brain doesn’t know the difference between a real memory and an imagined one if you envision something vividly enough, your mind perceives it as something real that you’ve already experienced.
Scientific Proof of Visualization
One particular study by Harvard University researchers showed that students who visualized in advance performed tasks at near 100% accuracy, whereas students who didn’t visualize achieved only 55% accuracy. Another study found that basketball players who visualized shooting free throws by imagining the basket and picturing themselves making the shot performed better when asked to shoot a series of free throws afterward than those that simply practiced shooting the free throws. It seems counterintuitive but it proves why many celebrated athletes, such as Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, and others successfully use visualization to level up their game.
Visualization is particularly useful in coaching clients around goal setting, where it can be broken down into two components — process visualization and outcome visualization. Process visualization involves envisioning the steps it would take to achieve a client’s goal, while outcome visualization involves the client imagining that they’ve achieved the goal. With the former, Stanford University neuroscientists found evidence that mental rehearsal prepares the mind for real-world action.
Process and outcome visualizations can be applied to any goal, whether completing a task, building a new business, or losing weight. It is phenomenal when using it to achieve aspirational goals like launching a new business, leveling up a coaching practice, writing a book, or developing a new service or offering. As entrepreneurs, visualization can help us manifest our highest, boldest visions for our business, and help us turn our dreams into reality. It’s not magic or “name it claim it” new age fairy dust, but a scientifically proven strategy that impacts our brain and our responses.
What Happens in Our Brain When We Visualize
Our brain’s reticular activating system or RAS acts as a filter of information. We are each exposed to an enormous barrage of stimuli in a given moment which would overwhelm us if we were to try to attend to each one. RAS tells the brain what to let in and what to filter out, using established patterns to decide what we need to pay attention to and what we can ignore. According to Coaching For Breakthrough Success, essentially RAS lets in anything that will help us achieve the goals we actively visualize and affirm, as well as information that matches our beliefs, self-perceptions, and worldview. Understanding this underscores then how important it is that we monitor and manage our mindsets and self-image.
When we use our imagination to visualize specific images and pictures, our brain will seek out all the information in our environment to make the image real, because the brain thinks the image is real! By visualizing a specific outcome, we’re telling the RAS to look out for information that aligns with our vision. This cue engages our brain to suddenly incline us to be receptive to all kinds of opportunities and resources that will help make our vision a reality.
If we aren’t intentional about the images we focus on in our minds, RAS can also work against us. Constant thoughts about lack, limitation, challenges, or worst-case scenario thinking, can make our current reality more painful than it needs to be. Using the power of our imagination more consciously, allows us to enjoy the fruit of our positive images and desired future state. Intention is a critical component of harnessing the power of visualization. It’s our intention that allows us to imagine a better reality than the one we’re currently experiencing. By visualizing the future, we can govern our behavior in the present and act intentionally so our desires and goals manifest.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Icon and “I Have a Dream” author. His speech gave listeners a vision for what was possible, painting a future that ignited them to believe in the vision too.
Martin Luther King & Steve Jobs, Visionaries, Visualized
The power of our imagination can take us to unfathomable heights, to levels of excellence not yet witnessed. According to the account in Michael Hyatt’s book, Your Best Year Ever, at Steve Jobs funeral, his widow Laurene Powell talked about how Jobs possessed “an epic sense of possibility.” She added,
“It is hard enough to see what is already there, to remove the many impediments to a clear view of reality, but Steve’s gift was even greater; he saw clearly what was not there, what could be there, what had to be there. His mind was never a captive of reality. Quite the contrary. He imagined what reality lacked and he set out to remedy it.”
Steve Jobs, the innovator and leader that revolutionized the technology industry with Apple’s iPod, iPhone, and iPad, was a pioneer known for his vision. Visualization is at its core, an aspect of visioning, that allows us to use our minds to stretch the limits of our imagination to create, innovate, and excel, as Jobs did.
This type of future state imagining can be witnessed in the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as well. In the civil rights icon’s “I Have a Dream” speech, he envisioned a better future for African Americans, a future that at the time seemed impossible. Despite all the obstacles that stood in his way, he galvanized a movement so powerful that the most sweeping civil rights legislation was passed, paving the way for legally ending the segregation that had been institutionalized by Jim Crow laws. King’s speech gave listeners and lawmakers a vision for what was possible, painting a future that ignited them to believe in the vision too.
Look for Part 2 of this post where I talk about another technique called Acting as If in coaching.
Natalie Jobity, MPhil, MBA, ACC, founder of The Unveiled Way, is a leadership and career coach, consultant, brand strategist, bestselling author, mentor, speaker, and facilitator who has earned a reputation as "The Brilliance Unveiler." She empowers female leaders to live in the fullness of their purpose and unveil their brilliance by leveraging the power of their strengths, expertise, and distinctiveness, so they make transformative impact in their sphere of influence.
Visit Natalie’s website to learn more about how she partners with leaders with her signature “Unveil Your Brilliance” program and her "Brand Your Biz Like a Boss" consulting service. While you’re there, join her Unveiled community and pick up your complimentary copy of her "Empowered to Lead: Seven Strategies to Help You Become a More Impactful Leader" guide.