Today, we wanted to share yet another strategy to help you craft new stories to boost your resilience. Hopefully you have practiced setting intentions and using affirmations. Now we want to introduce you to the idea of visualizations.
The first time I started practicing visualizations was just over 15 years ago when I was training for my first marathon. I had a running coach who had us visualize what it would be like to cross the finish line after 26.2 miles feeling strong. I loved the sense of calm that would come over me while I was visualizing and I could feel my confidence growing. There was less room in my mind for all the negative thoughts: You are not a runner. You are never going to be able to run a marathon. Overtime, the visualizations helped quiet those negative thoughts. And since then, I have always found such power in visualizations. I followed Oprah Winfrey’s discussions on the power of visualizing and I have led sessions on creating vision boards.
In Chapter 3 of Onward, Elena shares that in order to “abandon narratives that don’t serve you, you need to craft the new ones that you’d like to live in.” You can start visualizing your classroom filled with engaged students that respect you. The possibilities are truly endless when you start crafting a new story through visualizations.
I have also used visualizations with my own kids who are young athletes. To ease the butterflies before my son’s basketball game for example, we go through a visualization of him standing at the free throw line. We visualize every step of the process, down to the cheering crowd and the high fives from his teammates. Here is a great read from a sports psychologist perspective: The Power of Visualization. It gives some practical steps to follow to start adding visualizations into your life.
Play around with visualizations and watch the new stories that you find yourself living in. Have fun with this and enjoy living in the new stories you create.