Mind games — the power and threat of visualization
Visualization — sitting down and creating a scene in your head of a future event — is powerful, but also threatening.
It’s powerful as a driving force to begin. I love to sit down and think about the end of a workout, run, or long day of work and then go begin those tasks. I’m filled with excitement as I tune into each intricate detail. Where I will be, how I will feel, etc. Visualization can push you to start great things.
Where the threats come in is visualizing unknowns and false visualizations.
What I mean by visualizing unknowns is trying to create the scene of events you have never done. This a threat because typically, people don’t visualize how shitty it’s going to be and prepare for it. They only visualize the positive aspects, so when things get tough or boring, they are shocked and quit early. Visualization of the outcome is great, but that must be accompanied by a realistic evaluation of the process to accomplishing that outcome.
Think about it being 9 pm on a Sunday and you tell yourself “I’ll wake up tomorrow at 6 a.m. and workout.”
You visualize you conquering the morning and how positive it’s going to be. But in reality, when that alarm sounds and it’s warm under them blankets, and it’s still dark outside and your mind is telling you “no way, stay in bed,” you didn’t prepare for that so you’ll hit snooze and go right back to bed.
There’s a feedback loop:

The more experience you have, the more you can understand how to better visualize and prepare for accomplishing something. Starting out, you’ll be great at visualizing, but absolutely terrible at preparing for the process. The best path forward is experience.
False visualizations
There are also false visualizations in which you want something to happen so bad that you create the scene in your head, but it never happens the way you planned. Instead of dealing with that and giving up that false hope, next time you visualize it the same way and jump right back in, leading to more disappointment down the road. False visualizations are really fueled by forgetting to evaluate the flaws of your creation in your mind. A key step.
For me, this was booze (and now so much more). Every Friday afternoon at work, I would visualize how great it’s going to be getting drunk with friends. The deep conversations, the bonding we’ll do, the fun we’ll have, the people (especially women) I’d meet. All a lie. It never happened. Instead I would black out, embarrassed myself and end up alone the next morning on the search for my wallet, phones, friends, and dignity. Instead of dealing with the reality and evaluating, I continually told myself it’s ok and I didn’t have a problem. So when next Friday would roll around, I’d visualize the exact same scene that led to the exact same outcome. Insanity.
I now look at the relationships I have with people, food, and countless other things and have began to ask myself, “am I creating false visualizations in my head about this? What’s the reality of the situation? How can I better prepare for the in the moment stress and pressures that will 100% be there.”
