Episode 239 - Negative Visualization

Many people will give the advice to “be positive”. What this means, in a sense, is to be optimistic, to focus on the good things, and to imagine your future success. Certainly, there’s a place for this in life. However, is there a place for negative visualization? Should we incorporate some regular focusing on the bad things? On our potential future failures?

Episode Transcript

Introduction

Many people will give the advice to “be positive”. What this means, in a sense, is to be optimistic, to focus on the good things, and to imagine your future success. Certainly, there’s a place for this in life. However, is there a place for negative visualization? Should we incorporate some regular focusing on the bad things? On our potential future failures?

Positive Visualization

First, let’s consider positivity or positive visualization. This is worth mentioning first because it is what is discussed most. In fact, many successful athletes do this. Before they lift a weight or do their sport, they visualize successfully completing the move. This is unbelievably helpful for the very simple reason that if you don’t believe that you can do something (in other words, if you don’t have faith in yourself), then there’s no way that you can actually do that.

This is very clear in the gym. If someone “attempts” a weight, but they aren’t at least 75% confident that they can do it, they don’t even have a chance.

There are some weightlifters that believe in themselves so much that when they actually do fail a lift, they are in complete shock. Some of these moments are caught on video, and it’s fascinating to watch.