Tap into the Power of Your Mind

I was reading 'The Brain that Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge last week, and I was excited to see yet more evidence that visualization can be as powerful as doing a skill for real. Research has shown that repeated thoughts about a skill (i.e. writing your name in your mind) and the actual performance of that same skill (i.e. physically writing your name) produce the same brain mapping. And, interestingly, they take the same amount of time to do physically as when imagined.

As the brain is plastic, and malleable to repetitive nerve stimulus, the perfect skill repetition that can be performed in your imagination can strengthen the neuronal (brain) connections for that skill, such that when repeated for real your execution improves, and so the brain pathway is further strengthened. Just like walking through the brush, eventually if you walk back and forth enough, the brush will be stomped down and a pathway will form. The same is true of the brain. The trick is to create the pathway, or habit, of the skill you want vs. reinforcing the pathway that you're used to, but don't necessarily want to keep taking.

In the brain, the common theme is 'use it or lose it'. Here's a great way to 'lose' ways of performing skills that you no longer desire, and to strengthen the performance of those skills you want to 'use'.

So, I would recommend visualizing daily.  The more you do, the stronger your brain connections will become, and the better you will perform.  Why?  Because you will be changing your brain to suit your needs through your added repetition.  And, since it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, this is a great way to cut down on your time to master your performance.