Imagery As Motivation

Imagery is a wonderful tool for motivation. There are several types of imagery used in sport psychology. Internal imagery involves feeling and seeing as if one were actually doing the skill from that person’s own perspective. External imagery involves seeing what it looks like to do the skill, as if watching a videotape. I tend to use external imagery a lot when pushing myself during exercise. Some of my images are pretty ridiculous, but they work. For example, when I am running and I feel myself getting tired and wanting to stop, but I know I can keep going, I picture myself in a race with a group of my friends. We’re all running together and the person who runs the longest wins. I close my eyes and actually feel as if I am in this race. My competitive nature along with the high standards I hold for myself compel me to keep running until I have reached my goal. I picture myself as the last person running and all of my friends that I just beat are impressed with my physical prowess. That image is completely ridiculous because when I do run with friends, it’s for motivational support, and I can’t think of any situation where I would be running against my friends to see who could run the longest. But it works. When I picture this, I have yet to fall short of reaching my goal.

I visualize scenarios like these even when I’m not working out. I usually run in the evenings, and during the day I am psyching myself up for that night’s run by imagining myself beating my time or distance from the day before. I start to expect myself to perform better, and I find that I want to live up to these expectations and that shows in my performance. I actually see myself performing well and look forward to starting my run so I can live up to my imagination. Looking over my running log from the past month alone, my times and distances have increased dramatically.

I am a magazine junkie. I have seen many articles in my fitness magazines that suggest that a great way to help motivate yourself to stick to a weight loss program is to post photos of what you want to look like all around the house. The plan is that you will see these photos and the visual imagery of you looking like the photos will discourage you from giving up. Some people have even gone so far as to tape their faces onto a model’s body and post it on the refrigerator as a constant reminder of that they want to look like. I have to admit that before my wedding, I cut out a page from a magazine that had a model wearing my dress. Of course the model was beautiful and had a perfect (retouched?) figure. I also cut out a photo of a similarly beautiful and fit model on a beach wearing a bathing suit. I posted these pages on the lampshade next to my bed so they were the first things I saw when I woke up and the last things I saw before bed. Every day I imagined myself looking like the first model on my wedding day, then looking like the second on my honeymoon. I can’t guarantee that this method is what did it, but I did lose slightly over 10 lbs before my wedding. I think that these images helped me imagine how it would feel at these events, and that made it more real for me, and encouraged me to stick with my fitness program.

I used to work in a physical therapy office, and I could tell that the patients who make the best recovery are those with positive attitudes, who are probably doing a lot of mental work in addition to the physical work. The patients who come in with the attitude that they can see themselves running again after a total knee replacement, or bowling after rotator cuff surgery, are the ones who need less time in rehab before they are able to be released to a home exercise program. The patients who come in and feel sorry for themselves because they hurt and they feel that their condition is never going to improve are the ones who end up in therapy for a long time due to slow progress. I strongly believe that in order to achieve something you really want, you have to work hard at it and constantly remind yourself of what you are working for by seeing yourself achieving it.