Visualization and Positive Thinking - Sporting Success

This post will focus on the power of visualization and positive thinking and how it influences the training lifestyle.

Thoughts become reality. Whatever goes on in your mind is attracted to you. For example, if you try to walk a tight rope and think to yourself, "I don't want to fall off"... all that is going through your head are thoughts of falling, and that's going to have a negative affect on your performance... you're going to fall off. If you try the same but think more along the lines of, "I want to stay on all the way"... Thoughts of positivity and success will greatly increase your chances of achieving your goal, optimism will improve your performance.

Your thought patterns have an affect on your actions and the actions of those around you. So if you manage to change your thought patterns, you can change the events which make up your life, you can achieve anything. Optimistic people see an opportunity as a chance to achieve and succeed, pessimistic people see an opportunity, but then fear the consequences of failure and don't take action. As a result they then fail, and the failure then reinforces the negativity.

Negative thoughts attract negative outcomes, positive thoughts create positive outcomes, those that are desirable. For example, if you observe the mentality of top level athletes and sports people, they all appear confident, they are optimistic achievers and have a positive mindset. They do not enjoy failure, but they do not fear it or focus on the consequences. Instead they aim for what they want to achieve, they visualize their goal of success rather than dwell on disappointment and failure. They know that you have to fail in order to succeed, and the amount of times you fail is irrelevant if you eventually reach the ultimate goal, failure is a valuable learning experience.

Top level athletes have no time for negative thinking, it's severely detrimental. This is why sports clubs employ sports psychologists, mindset/mentality is everything if you want to succeed or achieve what you want. For example, if an athlete thinks along the lines of, "I don't want to break my leg" or has visions of an accident plaguing his/her mind, then he/she will encounter injury as long as the mind is focusing on the negative outcome. The negative thoughts change the athlete's actions and a weakness/injury will be created as a result. On the other hand, if an athlete doesn't want to encounter injury, he/she should focus on achieving a mindset along the lines of, "I want to have a strong leg". If the athlete visualizes his/her legs as a solid and tough as steel, the chances of a leg injury will be greatly reduced. These positive thought patterns have to be consistent though, as any negative thoughts will create weakness in the integrity of the athlete's body. The good thing is that a positive thought or visualization is more powerful than a negative one!

"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was" - Muhammad Ali

If I am about to attempt a lift or a stunt that is dangerous, I'll assess my mental state before taking any action. If I have the slightest amount of doubt or negativity in my mind, any thoughts or visions of failure, I won't attempt it at all and will come back when I have a stronger mental attitude. If I recall every time I've encountered injury, I also recall having an element of doubt, uncertainty or lack of confidence at some point before I hurt myself. Negative thought patterns can be dangerous and can put your life at risk, imagine you are the guy who walked across the tight-rope between the twin towers... a negative thought could lead to a deadly mistake! Furthermore, if you display negative thought patterns, you'll radiate a negative energy though your body language, mannerisms and attitude which other people will pick up on and respond to. You'll influence the people around you in a negative way, especially the ones you care about.

Visualization and positive thinking is the most essential element of my training. For example, when I decided I wanted to achieve the one armed chin, I began training with the power of visualization as my main training tool.. without it I still would never have achieved my goal. During my training, every day I would take some time out and visualize myself on the pull up bar, performing the one armed chin with ease for reps. I would focus on the feelings and sensations associated with the movement, and the joy of being able to perform such a difficult skill. After a couple months training I had achieved my goal and was able to perform an OAC, a skill that only one in 100,000 people possess! I managed to reach my goal because my positive mindset attracted a positive outcome... My visualization gave me inspiration, discipline and drive, it changed my actions in order to create for me/attract to me what I wanted from my training. The training was hard, but if I had focused on the hardship, if I thought, "This is too hard, I will never achieve the OAC" I would have set myself up for failure, even though I have the potential to meet my training aims.

As part of my training I'll practice positive thinking and visualization regularly in order to develop a mindset that will allow me to achieve my training goals. I like to surround myself with inspirational pictures and images of the physique I want to create, the lifts I want to achieve and the titles I want to win etc... These images remind me of what I want from my life and training and gradually the negativity in my mind is replaced by positivity and optimism. Every time a negative thought comes into my head, I identify it and replace it with a positive one.

Focus on what you want to achieve rather than what you don't want. If you prepare for a negative outcome, you'll be more likely to end up there as your thoughts and energy will be consumed by fears of failure... negative thoughts don't produce positive actions. If you accept the current situation rather than strive for improvement then you'll see no development. Identify what you want to achieve, what are your goals? Develop a positive attitude towards these goals and focus on them all the time, try and experience the joy of reaching your goals a little bit every day and you'll be there in no time!

Things don't always go to plan, failure will occur. Expectations of success may be met by shortcomings, but the biggest mistake you can make it to see these shortcomings as the end of a journey rather than a learning experience that will help you succeed next time. Even if you fail multiple times during your training journey, if you constantly focus on the ultimate goal, you will reach it eventually with the correct mindset, persistence and attitude. If you expect to fail, you set yourself up for failure, thoughts of defeat will take place over the goals and desires you strive for. If you tell yourself you won't reach your goal, you won't... you will demotivate yourself and defeat will be a likely outcome. You may not always fail because of a negative mentality in the short term, but the ultimate goal can never be achieved with constant negative reinforcement.

It's easy to notice whether someone can be a great athlete or not by observing their mentality. Their attitude, their vision and the way they perceive the world around them are geared towards achieving rather than not achieving. All the strongest people I know have similar thought processes which become apparent from the way they behave, they see risk as an opportunity to better themselves rather than an opportunity to injure themselves. The people that never fall and hurt themselves never think they are going to fall, the people that do fall and hurt themselves constantly have falling on their mind, and because of this their confidence levels are low and they are vulnerable.

I remember I was out training with Liam (Arnold) and he was doing some of the most terrifying and awesome movements I've ever seen. I said to him, "Aren't you afraid of falling?". He paused for a moment and had to think about it - because he obviously never has any need to think about it - and he said something along the lines of, "I know that if I fall, I'll be able to save myself, so I don't have to worry about it". A few days later I was out with him in the park slack-lining (Which I had never done before), I kept trying to balance on it and failing whilst Liam was running around on it like it was nothing. After a few failed attempts I gave up trying and said, "I'm crap at this". Liam pointed out to me what a rubbish attitude this was and I decided, if I tell myself I'm crap at this... then I'm going to be crap at it... So I'll tell myself I'm good at it and it'll be easy. I tried again and was able to balance and made great progress in the short time we were practicing.

Anyone can achieve anything with the correct attitude, everyone is capable.

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