Psycho-Cybernetics Part 5 of 30: Use Your Illusion II
May 12, 2009 by dr. lam
Now that we learned about the power of imagination, we should begin to use it to our advantage. Maltz talks about The Theater of the Mind, which is a mental movie we play of what we imagine we want to do. After playing that out in our mind, we actually can carry out the task much more easily because we have already envisioned it and allowed our automatic success mechanism (servo-mechanism) to take over to do the job rather than forcing our conscious mind to do it.
Professional athletes do it all the time. Jack Nicklaus has said, “I never hit a golf shot without having a sharp picture of it in my head. First I ‘see’ where I want the ball to finish. Then I ‘see’ it going there; its trajectory and landing. The next ‘scene’ shows me making the swing that will turn the previous images into reality.” He even selects the right club for the swing by envisioning the shot and allowing his automatic success mechanism to make the decision unconsciously.
Another idea that is related to this is the concept of role playing. If you are a salesman and want to increase sales, you role play the entire scenario in your head of how your customer will respond to you. You previsualize everything. If you are intimidated to speak up in front of your boss in a meeting, you previsualize and role play what you and your boss will say to each other. You create The Theater in Your Mind of what is going to happen before it happens. Using your imagination can be and is as powerful as actually carrying out the task.
If you have an arduous task in front of you or if you want to improve at playing the piano, hitting a golf stroke, public speaking, talking with your kids, etc., play it out in your mind over and over again until it is crystal clear. Allow your unconscious to do the work after you have allowed your imagination to create the scenario firmly in your mind.
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4 Responses to “Psycho-Cybernetics Part 5 of 30: Use Your Illusion II”
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I love that example of that golfer imagining his hits! That is a great example!
People don’t just learn how to do something without practicing and I think that imagining something in a sense registers as practicing to the brain, and that might be why it helps people better succeed in what they want to do…just a theory…lol
I really like this blog post. Really neat!
Thanks, Dr. Lam!
thanks heather!
ahem – I tried just that on Sunday when I was on the golf course – didn’t quite work though:)
But then again, I admit that I wasn’t too serious when envisioning my ball going right on the green, so I guess you really have to focus on something and mean it…
i guess we’re all not jack nicklaus or tiger woods.