If I mentally play piano, guitar, tennis, football or if I mentally give an important speech or mentally imagine a successful meeting, a successful project or a successful date, does this REALLY affect the outcome?
In 1994 the Journal of Applied Psychology published a boring article full of scientific jargon titled
“Does Mental Practice Enhance Performance?”
You can find it online. But the results of their study are not boring at all. In many cases the mental practice of a thing is AMAZINGLY about half as good as actually doing the thing.
I know this to be true because I sometimes mentally rehearse tennis moves while falling asleep. This sometimes causes my arm to move involuntarily, as if I’m actually using a tennis racket.
The study found that the best results with visualization are attained if the person follows through with the activity or physical practice on the same day. In my books I call this part “physicalizing”, as opposed to merely visualizing.
Repeated mental rehearsal of a thing habituates body and mind to a thing to that when it actually happens, it’s much easier to do – because you’ve already “been there, done that”.
