If you've ever watched an athlete close their eyes before a competition and wondered what they're doing, there's a good chance they're visualizing.
Visualization, also called mental rehearsal or imagery, is a common mental skill in sport psychology. The basic idea is pretty simple: you mentally rehearse a skill, performance, or situation before you actually have to do it.
But visualization isn't just about imagining yourself standing on the podium with a gold medal around your neck.
In fact, some of the most useful visualization exercises involve imagining things going wrong.
In this episode of The Mentally Fit Athlete, Lidia Garcia and I answer a question from a high school sports psychology class: What role does visualization play in improving athletic performance, and how can athletes use it effectively?
What Is Visualization in Sports?
When we talk about visualization in sport psychology, we're really talking about mental rehearsal.
You're creating a vivid mental experience of performing a skill or dealing with a situation that could happen during competition.
Maybe you're a baseball player visualizing yourself throwing from home plate to first base. Maybe you're a diver mentally rehearsing a dive. Maybe you're a runner imagining what you'll do if another athlete makes an unexpected move during a race.
The goal isn't simply to picture yourself succeeding.
You're rehearsing the experience of performing.
That means thinking about what you will see, hear, feel, and do. The more complete the mental rehearsal, the more it resembles the actual performance you're preparing for.
How Does Visualization Help Athletes?
Visualization can be useful for several reasons.
For one, it gives athletes another opportunity to rehearse skills. Physical practice is obviously important, but you can't always physically practice.
Athletes get injured. Facilities aren't always available. Weather gets in the way. Sometimes your schedule simply doesn't give you enough time to train as much as you'd like.
Mental rehearsal gives you another way to work on the skill when physical practice isn't possible.
Visualization can also help athletes prepare for situations that are difficult to recreate during practice.
Competition is unpredictable. You might know where you're competing, but you don't necessarily know what the weather will be like, how the crowd will respond, how your teammates will feel, or what your opponents will do.
You can, however, mentally rehearse how you want to respond.
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Visualization Isn't a Replacement for Physical Practice
This is an important distinction.
Visualization is a tool. It isn't magic.
If you want to become a better free-throw shooter, you still need to shoot free throws. If you want to improve your sprinting, you still need to run. If you want to improve your dive, you still need to physically practice the dive.
The best approach is generally to combine physical practice with mental rehearsal.
In our conversation, we talked about research comparing physical practice, visualization, and a combination of the two. The basic takeaway is that combining physical practice with mental rehearsal can be particularly useful.
Think of visualization as adding mental reps to your physical reps.
You don't have to choose one or the other.
How to Use the PETTLEP Model for Sports Visualization
One framework we discussed for making visualization more effective is the PETTLEP model.
PETTLEP stands for:
Physical
Environment
Task
Timing
Learning
Emotion
Perspective
The idea is to make your imagery as closely connected to the actual performance experience as possible.
Physical
What is your body doing?
Think about the movements involved in the skill. What are your muscles doing? What does the movement feel like?
If you're visualizing a tennis serve, for example, don't just picture the ball going over the net. Imagine the movement of your body as you serve.
Environment
Where are you performing?
Are you on your home field? At an away competition? On the track? In a pool? On a mountain?
Include the environment in your visualization.
Think about what you'll see and hear around you.
Task
What exactly are you doing?
Be specific about the skill or task you're rehearsing.
Instead of simply imagining yourself "playing well," imagine the actual movement or decision you need to make.
Timing
What happens first, second, and third?
Competition involves sequences of actions. Your visualization should include those sequences.
For example, a runner might mentally rehearse the start of a race, settling into their pace, responding to another runner, and finishing strong.
Learning
Visualization can change as you learn.
As you develop a skill, your mental rehearsal can develop with it. You aren't necessarily going to visualize the same thing forever.
Your imagery should reflect where you are in the learning process.
Emotion
How do you want to feel while performing?
This doesn't necessarily mean trying to force yourself to feel completely calm.
Maybe you want to feel confident, strong, focused, or capable.
You can include those emotional experiences in your mental rehearsal.
Perspective
Are you seeing the performance through your own eyes, or are you watching yourself from the outside?
There isn't necessarily one perspective that will be best for every athlete or every situation.
You can experiment with both.
Sometimes seeing yourself from a third-person perspective can help you picture what you want your performance to look like. At other times, seeing the performance through your own eyes may make the visualization feel more like the actual experience.
The important thing is to find what works for you and what you're trying to accomplish.
Don't Just Visualize the Perfect Performance
This might be one of the most useful parts of visualization for athletes.
Competition doesn't always go according to plan.
So why only rehearse the perfect version?
Let's say you're a runner preparing for an 800-meter race.
You could visualize running your perfect race from start to finish. That's useful.
But you could also visualize another runner getting out fast and being 100 meters ahead of you.
What do you do?
Do you panic and start chasing immediately?
Do you stick with your race plan?
Do you gradually pick up the pace?
What does the situation look like? What does it sound like? How does your body feel?
Rehearsing these situations gives you an opportunity to think through your response before you're standing on the starting line.
Then, if something unexpected happens during the race, you may recognize it rather than feeling completely caught off guard.
Prepare for the Uncontrollables
Athletes spend a lot of time thinking about what they can control.
That's important.
You can control your preparation. You can control whether you bring the equipment you need. You can control your effort and your response to what happens.
But you can't control everything.
You can't control the weather.
You can't control your opponent.
You can't control how your teammates feel that day.
You can't control whether the crowd is loud or quiet.
You can't control whether your coach woke up in a great mood.
Okay, maybe that last one is particularly important.
Visualization can help you rehearse what you'll do when those uncontrollables show up.
Imagine competing in the heat. Then imagine competing in the cold.
Imagine a loud crowd. Then imagine an almost empty stadium.
Imagine the weather changing.
The goal isn't to predict exactly what will happen. That's impossible.
The goal is to become more comfortable responding when things don't go according to plan.
Visualization and Anxiety: A Thought Is Not a Prediction
There's another reason I think this topic is particularly important for athletes dealing with anxiety or OCD.
Sometimes athletes become afraid of their own thoughts.
They might think, "What if I picture myself failing?"
Or, "What if I imagine something going wrong and then it actually happens?"
Having a thought doesn't make that thought happen.
If it did, we'd all be millionaires because we'd simply visualize winning the lottery.
Visualization can be a powerful tool, but it isn't magic.
Thinking about a bad outcome doesn't cause that outcome to happen. And having an unwanted image or scary thought doesn't mean you're a bad person or that something terrible is about to happen.
For athletes who struggle with anxiety or OCD, learning to recognize the difference between thoughts and actions can be an important part of mental health treatment.
Make Visualization Part of Your Training
Like any mental skill, visualization takes practice.
You probably won't close your eyes for the first time five minutes before a championship and suddenly become an expert at mental rehearsal.
Try incorporating it into your regular training.
After physical practice, spend a few minutes mentally rehearsing an important skill.
Practice seeing it.
Practice feeling it.
Practice hearing the environment around you.
Practice the sequence of movements.
Practice responding to situations that might throw you off.
And then go back to physical practice and put those mental reps to work.
The more familiar the process becomes, the easier it can be to use visualization as part of your preparation.
You Can Use Mental Rehearsal Outside of Sports, Too
One of my favorite things about mental skills is that they don't have to stay on the field.
A lot of athletes are also students. You might have a big presentation, an important exam, a job interview, or another situation where you need to perform under pressure.
You can use the same idea.
Imagine yourself giving the presentation.
Picture someone asking you a difficult question.
Imagine how you'll respond.
Think about what the room will look and sound like.
Rehearse what you want to do when you feel nervous.
You're still doing the real thing when the time comes. But you've given yourself an opportunity to practice mentally beforehand.
That's the whole point of mental reps.
Visualization Is One Tool in the Mental Skills Toolbox
Visualization isn't going to replace physical practice, coaching, recovery, or good preparation.
It doesn't guarantee that you'll win.
And it definitely doesn't mean you can visualize your way into becoming a millionaire.
But it can be a useful addition to your training.
For athletes, mental rehearsal can help you practice skills, prepare for unpredictable situations, build confidence, and become more comfortable responding when competition doesn't go according to plan.
Sometimes performing well means being ready for the perfect day.
Sometimes it means being ready for the weird day.
And there are going to be plenty of weird days.
The good news is that you can practice for those, too.
Looking for Help With Performance Anxiety or the Mental Side of Sport?
Mental skills can be helpful, but sometimes an athlete's struggles with performance are connected to something deeper, such as anxiety, OCD, perfectionism, burnout, or fear of making mistakes.
That's where clinical sport psychology can be especially useful. I work with athletes on both sides of that equation: developing mental skills for performance while also addressing the mental health concerns that may be getting in the way.
If you're an athlete in Long Beach, you can learn more about my clinical sport psychology services on my Long Beach sport psychology page. I provide telehealth throughout Long Beach and California, working with middle school, high school, collegiate, and adult athletes dealing with performance anxiety, OCD, perfectionism, burnout, confidence concerns, and other challenges.
If you're ready to talk about what's getting in the way of your performance, schedule a consultation. We can talk about what you're experiencing and whether working together would be a good fit.