What is Creative Visualization
Usually referred to in sports, creative visualization is one of the most well-known methods of achieving extraordinary results. Creative visualization, the idea that our thoughts affect our real-life results, was explored in a well-known book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill in 1931. “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve,” he famously said.
Creative visualization is the technique in which one uses the imagination to fully visualize specific actions, turns of action or situations in one’s life. It is vastly important to imagine with all our senses so that we use more of our brain cells and thus reinforce our desired outcome. When you plan a future event, you should ask yourself about the desired scenario:
- What do I hear?
- What do I see?
- What do I feel?
- How does it taste?
- How does it smell?
One of the most famous examples of the power of thought is the experiment quoted by Wikipedia:
“In one of the most well-known studies on Creative Visualization in sports, Russian scientists compared four groups of Olympic athletes in terms of their training schedules:
- Group 1 = 100% physical training;
- Group 2 – 75% physical training with 25% mental training;
- Group 3 – 50% physical training with 50% mental training;
- Group 4 – 25% physical training with 75% mental training.
Group 4, with 75% of their time devoted to mental training, performed the best. “The Soviets had discovered that mental images can act as a prelude to muscular impulses.”
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Why Creative Visualization Works
What we currently know about our brains is, among many other facts, that it is :
- in constant motion, reprogramming itself, and it is our emotions that give the direction to the way it changes.
- consists of about 100 billion neurons, and each neuron is connected to approximately 7 thousand other neurons, which creates a huge number of connections between them – between 10 and 14 zeros.
- is constantly reprogramming itself, and it brings changes and improvement in our lives
- whether you look at a thing or imagine it, the same areas of your brain are used. It explains why depression destroys the human body – imagined fear, oppression and isolation damages the cells of the organism, weakens muscles and the immune system.
- according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the national bestseller ”Flow”, we can only process a small amount of information of all that takes place at a specific moment. Meaning we can distinguish 126 bits of information per second (a bit is a sound, smell, visual stimuli, etc), deleting all others. When you concentrate on something, like an impression, you cannot concentrate on something else as strongly, and so you are able to build an image with emotion that affects both your mind and body.
How To Use Creative Visualization To Design Our Outcomes
There are many methods to greatly help us shape our future, like the SMART way of goal setting. The goals need to be :
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Every part of the process is important. For example, “Specific” brings you closer to understanding what you want and what it looks like. So to set a goal that is specific you need to ask questions like:
WHO is closely engaged in this goal?
WHAT do I want to accomplish?
WHEN is my deadline for this goal?
WHERE will it take place?
WHY do you want it?
HOW will I do it and what are the possible difficulties?
Creative visualization has the power to make things happen. Our brains are the most advanced bio-computers that exist on our planet, and the power of thought creates our future.
Albert Einstein said and proved it by his own accomplishments:
“Our imagination is more important that knowledge. Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.”

