How To Train Mental Imagery & Become A High Performer

Table of Contents

• How Imagery helped Michael Phelps set Olympic Records
• Imagery - Your VR Simulator; how and why it works
• How to train and use Imagery - avoid this common mistake!
• Bonus Free Resource

It's 2008, Beijing China, and Michael Phelps is standing on the starters block for the 200m butterfly, chasing Olympic history. Winning this event would tie him at 7 gold medals in a single Olympics, a record dating back to 1972 set by Mark Spitz.

At the sound of the horn, he launches himself into the pool. As soon as he hit the water, his goggles began to fill with water, and halfway through the first lap (25m), he was completely blinded.

Panic would be the natural reaction, however, Phelps didn't worry. He had visualized and lived through this scenario countless times. He recalled his mental training and began to count his strokes. Matching the stroke count for each 50m with his previous best 200m butterfly performances.

Phelps swam blindly for 175m and won his 7th Olympic gold medal that year. Going on to win his 8th four days later, and solidifying his name in the history books. All of this could have been taken away by a leaky pair of goggles.

...however, Michael did not worry. He had visualized and lived through this scenario countless times.

How did he still win when things didn't go to plan?

What mental skill did he use that you can start implementing into your life now?

One word...

Imagery.

The act of creating a vivid alternate reality, one that you see, smell, hear, taste, and feel everything around you. This is one of the 5 canon mental skills that all high performers should add to their arsenal.

Read below to learn more about it and how you can start applying it today.

Imagery - Your Virtual Simulator

Have you ever woken up from a dream that felt like reality? Perhaps a daydream that was so vivid and within your control that you felt like you had left your body and existed in that second reality?

The brain may be a complex organ, but when imagination is strong enough, it can become indistinguishable from reality. This is where the power of mental imagery comes in.

Imagery is less of a weapon, rather it's your virtual reality (VR) simulator.

Imagery gives you the ability to step into an alternate future where you can see, smell, hear, taste, and feel everything. What you experience in this 'simulation' affects how you think, act, and ultimately the outcome.

Untrained minds often use mental imagery, but fall victim to visualizing and ruminating on the negative simulations. This leads to the person crumbling under the simulated pressures, and procrastinating. The resulting outcome doesn't reflect their true potential.

Training your mind to use imagery, its 'VR capabilities', to come up with positive scenarios, that are vivid, detailed, and within your control is an effective tool for improving performance.

Once you have simulated the scenarios in your head, prepared for what you can prepare for, and reviewed how you would react when things go wrong. When the moment comes, you can be fully present and perform at your highest level.

So, the important question... How can you train your mind to step into the VR simulator and start using mental imagery?

How To Start Training and Using Imagery

There are 3 main 🔑's to do it correctly

🔑 Vividness: You need to craft a simulation that feels like the real thing.

🔑 Controllability: You need to be in control of the simulation, not the other way around.

🔑 The Good, The Bad, and only then, The Ugly: Start simple, and focus on the things that could go right, before you focus on how things could go wrong.

Let me explain these keys through a situation where I used the VR Simulator

I recently had to have a difficult conversation that I had been avoiding for a few months. Due to this avoidance, every few days my anxiety would bubble up to the surface. Drowning out any positive thoughts, and leaving me to ruminate on every negative simulation. Enough was enough.

I told myself "f**k it, this conversation has to happen, and this time I am gonna prepare". I decided to use the VR simulator to prepare for every scenario and visualize the one that would help me communicate effectively, and make the conversation rewarding, not something that haunts me in my sleep for years to come.

Like in The Good Place when Janet helps Chidi practice breaking up with Simone. (sorry spoilers)

I would use imagery, aka 'step into the simulator' for 10-15 minutes, every night, for a week, leading up to the conversation.

I would lay in my bed, close my eyes, and start to imagine the entire interaction.

🔑 #1 Vividness: To have the simulation be as vivid as possible, I prepared using my 5 senses. Since I knew the place I would have the meeting, I used that to my advantage.

I visualized the room, looking down at my hands while I sat in the chair. I thought about what sitting in the chair would feel like. The feel and taste of the altoid mint in my mouth. The sounds of people walking in the hallway.

I fully immersed myself in the simulation and allowed myself to feel all the feelings that came up. If I felt it in my head, I would surely feel it in real life. Might as well recognize and work through them now, so that I would not be thrown off when it was time for the real deal.

Once you have a vivid simulation crafted, I practiced controlling it.

🔑 #2 Controllability: At all times, I wanted to make sure I was in the driver's seat. It's like I had a remote that I could control the situation with. I could start, stop, pause, rewind, zoom in and out. If I needed to go back and reword something, I had the freedom to do so. Like the remote from Click with Adam Sandler.

This takes a lot of practice! I often found myself losing control of the simulation, and the negative scenarios would take over. However, with practice, it got easier.

Once you have a vivid simulation you can control, you need a strategy in place.

🔑 #3 The Good, The Bad, and Only Then, The Ugly: When you are just starting, diving straight into all the things that could go wrong is not a good idea.

This is what most people get wrong. They start by visualizing every bad outcome before even allowing themselves to believe that there are good outcomes out there.

As an anxious mind, were I to visualize worst-case scenarios right off the bat, this would be a recipe for disaster. So, as unrealistic as it seemed, I started by visualizing all the positives. Using the simulator to experience all the ways things could go right for me. Seeing myself come away from the conversation happier and with a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Only when the positive simulation was vivid and well within my control, did I start to venture into the versions where things went wrong. Seeing myself stumble on my words, and practice gaining composure. Visualizing that the conversation ended up going nowhere, and practicing the hard act of acceptance.

I didn't dive too far into the ugly, which really should be saved for the scenarios where you feel that it is necessary.

The Moment of Truth: When the time came, I was relaxed. I was in the clothes that I had visualized. The chair felt familiar. I knew the general idea and flow of what I wanted to say. When I got flustered, I quietly took deep breaths just like I had in the VR simulator. While everything didn't go 100% to plan, and nothing ever will, at all times I felt in control of myself. Coming away grateful that I had the conversation, and created a deeper bond with the other person. Had I just continued to avoid it, who knows how much of my mental bandwidth would have been taken up from the anxiety and rumination?

The Starter Kit

Regardless of your end goal, whether that is blocking a penalty kick to win the game, or delivering a killer pitch to your clients. Mental Imagery, and stepping into the VR simulator, will only serve to help you.

First, Start by identifying a specific situation where you would like to improve your performance.

Second, set aside time every day to step into the simulator.

Third, craft a vivid imagination by going through your five senses. Sight, Smell, Hearing, Taste, Touch.

Fourth, practice controlling the simulation. Work on pausing the frames, and rewinding to the parts you want to perfect. View the situation from a POV, or a birds-eye view.

Fifth, start positive before you go negative. Think of all the ways things could go right before you start working on what you would do when things go wrong. Start slow, start easy.

At the end of the day, Mental Imagery, like any other skill will take practice. Results will take time and hard work. However, the benefits are worth their weight in gold. It isn't just by chance that athletes competing at the highest level use Mental Imagery. If you want to become a high performer, imagery needs to be added into your high performance arsenal.

Free Resources to Help You

Attached below is a guide to help you create an imagery script for yourself. It will guide you through crafting a vivid and controllable simulation. In addition, if you would like to learn more, I have also added a YouTube video that might be of interest to you.

I will leave you with that. If you read this far, thank you 😄 and if you haven't yet. Consider subscribing to weekly newsletters on how to use mental skills and physical training to become a high performer. Until next time!