Visualize Yourself Succeeding With Ease

You hate public speaking and find yourself having to prepare for a banquet speech. Horrors. You continually put off working on your address because you’ve always been so nervous before a speech that you can’t even wedge a morsel of dinner down your throat.

Visualization to the rescue! (And I don’t mean visualizing the audience members in their underwear.) Undoubtedly you’ve read about Olympic athletes who have used visualization technique to enhance their performance. Have you ever tapped into this powerful technique yourself? Using it, you can blast through your reticence to get started on your speech, or even combat long-term procrastination on lengthy projects.

Olympian Dwight Stones, a high jumper who represented the United States in the Olympics some thirty-five years ago, was one of the most avid and prominent users of visualization techniques in the sport. His method was so precise and so observable that he influenced the generation of high jumpers that followed him. You don’t have to be an Olympian athlete in pursuit of a gold medal to engage in this process, but his experience in the Olympics is a good place to begin the discussion.

Before every jump, during practice or actual competition, Stones took his place a measured distance away from the high-jump bar and paused for several seconds. He then envisioned himself taking every step on the way toward his launch over the bar. During televised competitions, particularly the Olympians, you could see Stones moving his head up and down, seemingly counting the steps, as he visualized his approach and takeoff.

When he “reached” the final step before the jump, you could see him contemplating the angle at which he approached the bar, where he’d plant his foot, how he’d use his arms and upper torso to create upward thrust. Sure it looked a little mystical, but the guy could jump! Stone’s head movements told you in advance that he planned to clear the bar easily, land on his back in the proper position, and be pleased with his efforts.

Dwight Stones used such visualization techniques to help achieve record-setting performances. Certainly, he didn’t clear the bar at every height every time. Many of his jumps were misses – he knocked over the bar and in some cases, failed to make the jump altogether. But, such misses and failed attempts are never the focus of visualization. Success is!

Likewise you can visualize succeeding at every step along the way to giving an effective speech, from writing it to arriving at the meeting site, approaching the lectern, not losing your lunch, speaking with eloquence, and receiving hearty applause. In this, and in virtually all professional as well as personal endeavors, employing visualization helps you to perform well and accelerate your progress. You accomplish your task in ways that non-self-starters, who don’t use visualization, cannot appreciate. Too bad for them.


Be Like Mike


Here’s a variation on visualization that may work for you: simple observation. During his heyday as a basketball player and ever since then, Micheal Jordan has been paid a small fortune to endorse products. One of his earlier commercials offered the then-famous line, “Be like Mike” The advertising ploy was that if you bought and used this product, you could be like Mike, because he bought and used it too.

We certainly can’t be like Mike was on the basketball court, but if we shine a little in the workplace like Mike, wouldn’t that be a good thing?

When it comes to self-starting, is there a “Mike” in your office – not someone six feet, five inches, but someone widely regarded as having a take-charge attitude? This is the person who seemingly never procrastinates, at least not in a way that others can notice. This is somebody who “takes the bull by the horns” and dives headlong into complex tasks and demanding projects. You know, the exact opposite of the Cowardly Lion.

Action-oriented role models are all around us; largely, they are the winners in life. We see them on television, in newspapers and magazines, even walking down the street. Although you previously may not have considered the value of studying the behaviors of action-takers and high achievers, now is the time, so get ready.

What can you learn by observing such role models in your office or anywhere else you find them? Discover how they launch into arduous tasks and blast through any feelings of procrastination. Summon up your courage and ask what makes them get started so quickly on challenging tasks. Glean from them any shreds of wisdom they will impart.

Hereafter, if you’ve been stalling on a project, consider one of the high achievers in your organization. How would the person act in the face of the task you’re confronting? Sometimes simply envisioning this person and the kinds of action he or she would take is enough to get you started. Be like Mike, or Moby, or Mikhail, or Marianne, or anyone else whose action-oriented behavior is worth emulating.


Regards,


Timben