Visualising Success

I thought it would be worthwhile putting down a few thought I have about visualising or imagery work to enable best performance. From a young age I can recall my father reminding me about focusing and visualising what I wanted to do when it came to sport. It was great guidance and I can help but think that many of the well practiced mental skills that I have developed began with his simple instructions. Now I say well practiced because I feel that my greatest strengths are my ability to focus and to create a clear mental image in my mind of what the performance will look like. This also opens the door for creating a sense of the feeling and emotions that will be need to perform optimally. I know that their has been a great deal of work done in this field and I also appreciate to some time corny nature of what visualising your success can conj our up. The thing for me is that I have found great benefits from it and have found on many occasions that the build up to my best performance has included a lot of time either reflecting or visualising. To me it is critical for success, but everyone is different and there are many approaches. For me it is valuable to go for a walk and I begin by reflecting on a recent performance. I try to dig into the experience and to develop a great understanding of it. This I find gets me into the feel of what the sensation are when racing and performing. The natural evolution in this is that I begin to consider and imagine how the performance or race could have been different. I have often found that this increase my appreciation for the fine line between a great performance and a good one. The appreciation and awareness for the difference between great and good is important because it enable clear focus on what's need to improve and to develop repeatability. To simplify this if I have to row 240 stroke in a race then I want to perform 240 great strokes and imagining that each stroke is great is needed, but understanding how to adjust and adapt if you have a stroke that is not quiet there. This is really what I am visualising and practicing. The great thing is that I can do it more often than just the time out on the water. Even this last week I have watch a few races on DVD and spent time reflection and imagining how to maximise our opportunity.