Positive visualisations: techniques to achieve your goals

02 Feb Positive visualisations: techniques to achieve your goals

"Your images determine your reality always have and always will."

In the world of sport, and more specifically in top-level competition, we use visualisation to help us get the best out of ourselves in training and competition. But, although it may seem hard to believe, positive visualisation is a method that we very often apply to any human activity: I am absolutely sure that before making an important phone call you have mentally reviewed what you were going to say, right? Well, in the same way, through mental visualisation you can prepare yourself to perform tasks and respond more effectively.

Types of visualisations to achieve your goals

"Mental visualization

Mental visualisation gives you the opportunity to deal effectively with a problem before you encounter it in real life. If you have already faced the problem, practised how to deal with it and overcome it in your mental reality, chances are that in real life it will no longer present any difficulty.

There are endless practical applications of this method: for example, we can use this system before approaching an interview or before giving a lecture or workshop, as it will prepare us to respond more effectively.

Here are some tips on how to train mental visualisation:

• Imagine the perfect interview
• Listen to your feelings
• Correct your skills mentally
• Focus on what you want to do
• Remember what you need to focus on to get it right.
• Improve your visualisation skills
• Sets the stage for better performance

But how can we benefit from the visualisation technique for our work?

"Visualization for productivity

Visualisation is integral to behaviour change and the formation of new habits. The more we visualise ourselves doing an activity, the stronger the neural connections we are associating with that new habit.

Let's imagine for example, as in our case, that we want to improve our productivity over the next few months. One way to increase our sense of control and improve our performance is to reduce the number of distractions we face. While this may not always be so easy, depending on our work, home situation or other environments we frequent can influence, helping or hurting us depending on the environment we are in (obviously we recommend frequenting our productivity-oriented coworking space in Madrid ).

Let's take a look at some constructive ways we could start. Where to start and what to do? Here are some suggestions:

• Create a mental movie of a situation in which you experience distractions.
• Visualise some of these scenes and identify challenges
• Identify possible techniques to overcome the challenges you are visualising.
• Set a realistic short-term goal to reduce or stop distractions.
• Practice using visualisation to monitor what is being achieved and what needs to change.

And now imagine how good it will feel to take that small step. Whether at home or at work, constant interruptions create stress and lead to incomplete work. coworkingWhether at home or in the office, constant interruptions create stress and lead to incomplete work. Quiet thinking time is a necessity that we need to fill in any environment. Visualisation helps to create, plan and solve problems. And taking it a step further, we can pair visualisation with productive self-talk. For example, saying out loud the positive consequences of the task we are imagining.

"Visualization for stress management and to reduce distractions.

We need to relax before using visualisation so that all our creative energy is available. But what about those who "can't relax" or find it difficult? Visualisation and guided imagery have been used as a stress management strategy. In such cases, you can visualise a peaceful and relaxing scene and imagine how all the senses are activated. For example, imagine the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of the scene. Visualisation is combined with deep breathing to help us de-stress.

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In short, if you want to increase your productivity and need a new way to decrease distractions, try using visualisation. The more senses you use in conjunction with visualisation, the easier it is to gain and maintain positive habits.

Visualisation is a tool that may take practice, but the time spent acquiring these new skills is well worth the effort. Imagine, visualise it! It will help you improve performance and productivity, reduce stress and distractions, help you achieve your goals, and it's a simple, cost-effective strategy that anyone can implement at any time - it's time to put it into practice!