After sending out last week’s mental toughness tip, one of my former mental toughness coaching athletes sent me an email about how her team used visualization. She said:
“Just thought I’d share a picture with you that your mental toughness email this week made me think of. This is from NCAA Division III Gymnastics Nationals in Wisconsin in 2011. We were late getting into Wisconsin so for our practice day, the day before the big competition, we stood on each event and visualized our routines. Our coach thought it would be great to not only prepare ourselves without tiring ourselves out, but to also psych out the competitors! Have you ever seen 6 people stand on one beam with their eyes closed?? And we had the best meet of the season the next day and came third as a team in the nation! It was awesome!”
I agree, that is awesome.
Visualization is so versatile, and it really works. So get out there and be creative with your visualization – anything that you want to train in your sport, you can also train in your mind. It’s like extra practice. You can even train your confidence or your response to fear or nerves. Or train a new skill you’re just learning, so that you develop faster.
And, you can use this skill outside of sport too.
The point is: go and visualize, do it every day, and you’ll be amazed by your results.
