Basics of Visualization

Hey, folks! Mark Devine here coming at you from SEAL Federal headquarters with the latest edition of SEAL Fit TV. Today we're going to talk about visualization basics. Visualization is near and dear to my heart. It’s been part of my training for years, helped me become a Navy SEAL, helped me get through automating my class, has helped me in business, helped me perform at all levels. It’s an extraordinarily valuable skill to develop, and it's one of the cornerstones of our unbeatable mind program. So I want to give you a few thoughts and tips on how to develop a visualization practice.

First, there's really two types of visualization or two ways that we use visualization. There’s more than this, but these are the two primary ways for athletes and leaders. First is what we call rehearsal visualization. Now, when you want to perform a skill you know to a level of perfection, then in our mind’s eye, we can practice it with that perfection. Our physiology will accept the practice at a very subtle level so that when we show up to do the actual event in our body, so to speak, you know our performance will improve. So, the more you practice the visualization, the better the performance will get in the outside world. Really there's a lot more to it than that, but that's kind of, at the nuts and bolts level, what performance or rehearsal visualization is.

Second is what I will call an idealized state visualization, and this is what you know some would call manifestation, or what I've referred to is also a future of my state. So this is where you'll envision an ideal state for yourself at some point in the future like if you're working on becoming a leader, a master authentic leader, then you're going to envision yourself performing in the context of being right. not performing an event but being that person you know interacting with people. Authentically knows, making decisive calls that are spot-on, be calm, and in the face of danger and chaos. 

I mean, being the type of person, so you see yourself as that person, and that imagery starts to take root and really gives you a lot of confidence. It gives you momentum toward that state and so when you do that second one, it's going to be also a long-term project and think in terms of months or years, right instead of days or weeks, all right. Additionally, you know the last point I'll make here on this in terms of what it is you can use visualization to immediately change your physiology in a training or a difficult situation. That’s a different subject really that is in the realm of mental toughness, but it just shows you how vast this topic of visualization is okay.

So real quick, how do we start a visualization practice? Let’s just focus on a rehearsal visualization for now. First, you need a baseline image of what it is like to perform at the level that you'd like to write. You can't just go in without any reference point and start visualizing a perfect double-under. Obviously, you need to observe a perfect double-under, right? So the baseline is a video or observing someone else who's got the perfect form that you want to emulate. So find that person you want to emulate or that you know. Find that athlete or--this works as well for great leaders--find that person you want to emulate...and get to know??

Watch a video, read the book. You really get a good internal representation of what it would look like for somebody else, and then what we do is with that image in our head, we manipulate it and replace ourselves into that picture. So literally place you know the picture of yourself, the image of the feeling, and you can do that from a first earth or a third-person perspective. First-person is like in the imagery looking out of your eyes. The third person would be like. You get a helmet, you know you're actually seeing yourself the first would be you know helmet cam the second would be you're seeing yourself in the in the image right I hope that's clear if it's not then call me finally we want to add some juice this next part is really important, so the juice is I've got the mental imagery clear and now I want to energize it.

I want to energize it with sensations, emotions, color, and sound. You know everything that you can bring to bear, that's going to make that imagery really pop and be powerful for you. And then the last thing is what you'll do is anchor this into your physiology and your psychology through repeated practice through triggers okay anchor triggers and by really deep emotionality. So we can represent what's happening in the imagery to something else in our life, so those are advanced practices that we get into an unbeatable mind. Still, for now there you go. That’s a good overview of visualization, put it to work in your life, and I will check in with you next time.

View at Source