Visualization: How Positive Images Can Supercharge Success

This is the fifth and final installment of our First Habits introduction. So far we’ve covered:

• What a First Habit is
• The importance of breathing to your child’s future development
• How habits are formed and reinforced
• Why subtle changes in memorization techniques can set your child on the right path academically
• And how a growth mindset can supercharge your child’s confidence in their own autonomy and the possibility of positive change

This post is going to tie everything together in a way that is actionable from day one and can be applied to every part of your child’s life. We’re going to discuss the topic of visualization and how a slight shift in pre-thought can positively impact confidence, success and willpower.

The Power of Visualization: Boosting Confidence and Success

We at First Habits believe that positive visualization is probably the biggest area of “low hanging fruit” out there for parents who want to see positive change in their children immediately. In the business world, low hanging fruit is defined as “a thing that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort.” Now that’s a very business-y definition but the concept is appropriate from a parenting perspective as well. Some First Habits concepts are a little hard to explain to a child or will take months or years of repetition until they are fully ingrained and the upward spiral fully takes hold. Our main premise is that the time, effort and repetition it takes to achieve a self-sustaining First Habit will be worth it and will pay off in multiples of satisfaction and benefits to you and your child, but we posit that the ratio of reward to effort will be highest for generating a visualization practice in your child.

Relatedly, this might also be the post that will provide the greatest benefit to you, the adult. We’ve been very surprised through our research for this book that this isn’t a standard teaching in most schools (pre-K all the way through university), sports teams, homes and businesses around the globe. And many parents don’t seem to be aware of the power that comes along with positive visualization from a very young age or even as an adult. So, let’s go into some detail about visualization and how it can supercharge your child’s (and your) confidence, abilities and results.

Unlocking the Benefits: Why Visualization is a Game-Changer

First of all, what is visualization? The dictionary definition is “seeing mental images or scenes of events, situations or people in your mind. It is possible to visualize not only images, but also smells, voices, sounds, tastes and even physical sensations.”

So why is it important? If properly used, visualization can increase positivity, optimize performance, reduce stress and increase motivation. All sounds good, right?

Well let’s put all of this in context for you and your child. A growing child has many, many opportunities to try new things. The result of those challenges and opportunities can increase their aptitude and happiness as they grow and develop. What if there was a way to get a small increase in performance and confidence just by doing one small exercise that takes less than 30 seconds?

What is important when it comes to visualization? And how do we teach our children to take full advantage of this process?

For beginners, it comes down to three things: details, senses and feeling. You want as many details as possible, as many of the five sense employed together to form the visualization and to embrace how you feel as the visualization is occurring.

Step-by-Step Guide: Teaching Visualization to Your Child

Here are the steps:

• Starting out you’ll want your child to close their eyes and take a second to set the stage.
  • If you have more time, you can also ask your child to write it down or draw a picture so that the vision can be further dissected and ingrained. Your child may not be innately trained to visualize, i.e., there’s no visualize button that someone can hit and immediately construct the powerful visualization that we are looking for.
• Start out small with your child. “Close your eyes and visualize a bee flying over to that flower. Okay, do you see it? What color is the flower? Oh, okay and how fast is the bee flying? Is the sun shining? How brightly?”
• Keep prodding with additional cues focused on details that engage all senses as well as feelings. Feeling will become very important as you keep digging into visualization. The details and experience need to then be connected to a positive feeling like accomplishment, happiness or being cared for.

The trick is that with enough realistic detail and repetition our brain will be primed to expect whatever the visualization entails. So, in our case with children, the visualization should be based on accomplishment or success or overcoming some obstacle. Effectively your child will be getting mental “reps” of success and eventually their brain will treat the visualization “as if” the result actually happened. Through visualization, your child will see themselves doing well on whatever they are visualizing and, after a few repetitions, your child’s visualization will hopefully become enmeshed with reality. They’ll better understand what they are studying for and how they will feel after the positive result. This will provide further motivation to become better at whatever they are attempting.

It is all about mindset and having that open, “this-is-achievable-and-not-all-that-daunting” frame of mind. That’s the key to visualization. Your child’s posture and body should also take on a more positive and confident tone. It may not be noticeable, but as is the First Habits mantra, just being one half of one percent more confident or more optimistic or less anxious will have a huge impact when added up across a decade of life experiences.

Guided Visualization for Successful Performances: Creating a Positive Mindset

Visualization can be used for whatever task or event that your child is involved in from playing in the park, to tee ball, to a first recital at school for piano. Let’s go through a real life example, you’re on your way with your child to a recital. You have about a 10-15 minute drive. On your way there, take the time to have them close their eyes and talk through what a successful performance would be to them. It might go something like this:

• Okay so you’re up in front of the crowd, how are you feeling? What colors do you see and what stands out to you?
• Great okay you’re a little nervous, so you take a deep breath and you start to play?
• You’re playing well and you see yourself standing there hitting all the right notes?
• What are your fingers doing? How does the instrument feel in your hands? Are you aware of the crowd or are you very focused on your instrument?
• You’re playing well and you’re feeling good about everything?
• So, the performance ends and how do you feel? What do you see in your mind’s eye?
• How do you think the crowd will react?
• I’ll be in the audience and you see me standing up and clapping. How do you think you’ll feel at that moment? Do you think you’ll smile or what kind of sensations will you feel?
• You’ll probably look around at your other bandmates. What do you think they’ll be doing?
• Afterwards, we’ll probably go out for ice cream with friends too. Will that be fun?

Hopefully they will feel that intangible “glow” that we’ve all felt after a performance or public speaking engagement or anything that involves testing our abilities.

Depending on your relationship with your child, the environment and the desired outcome, all of the above could change or be modified. You know the questions to ask, and you know your child better than anyone so the above is just one example amongst many, but hopefully the takeaway is clear. You want to create an environment of positive self thought and bring into the present what a successful performance will feel like. That is the core of visualization.

However, please be cautious of not placing too much focus on the outcome. This can lead to a feeling of disappointment if the outcome in reality doesn’t match the visualized result. That’s totally fine and shouldn’t be perceived as a letdown. The point isn’t to make this visualization exercise a high bar that cannot be met. It’s to develop a positive mindset and show your child what is possible and how they will feel in certain future scenarios. They’ll hopefully start thinking, “wow that visualization of success really felt great, I want to do well so I can feel those feelings, I want to devote myself to practice so I can them feel that now tangible reward.”

Over time, your child’s visualization will become a truly ingrained First Habit. You as the parent may still need to provide the cue that will trigger the routine of visualization, but at first, you’ll want to focus on having them describe the experience in as much detail as possible, engage all five senses, and make sure the final visualization has some connection to a feeling. But then after a little repetition, have them describe their own version of success. Have them tell you how they will feel once they accomplish the goal that they set out to do.

Think about yourself when you were young. Sometimes the worst part of going to a game or a recital or a debate was the ride there. There was no outlet for the anxiety and nervous energy and the only option is to sit and wait for the program to start. It’s always the case that the nervousness that we feel leading up to something is much worse than what we feel when it actually begins. Don’t you wish you had someone to walk you through a visualization exercise that could become a First Habit. Let’s channel some of that energy into a positive frame of reference and see your future self in the moment doing well, enjoying the challenge and then achieving success. This is also a great bonding exercise in that you and your child will share positive communication and you’ll likely better understand some of their negative feelings and the positive outcome that they are hoping for.

The Four Pronged Approach: Reinforcing Muscle Memory and Instilling Confidence through Visualization

There is a four pronged approach:

1. Reinforce the muscle memory of doing things well
2. Instill confidence because success is mentally within reach
3. By feeling that the outcome can be achieved and the reinforcement that goes along with it, your child will be more focused and expend greater effort in working toward the goal
4. Even if none of the above has an impact, it has still been proven to increase performance of a task by adults and children
   • So, they will be slightly better over time and just being a little bit better every time you step to the plate or pick up the paint brush can have a lasting impact on your child’s future success

Said simply – before any task / event / opportunity, if you just visualize a successful outcome in your mind, on average you’re going to be more successful. A deep breath, a positive visualization and a relaxed mental state will do wonders for what your child is able to achieve.

That’s the power of visualization for your children and why it’s such an important but easy step you can take every day to improve confidence and ability and overall satisfaction in their lives. In our interactions with parents, we’ve found that visualization is drastically underutilized. So, start visualizing with your children today and make sure they adopt it as a fundamental First Habit.