A Happy Healthy Holiday and New Year Ahead…Visualize It
If you read our last article about how to better enjoy the holidays, you may have picked up on the part about really ENJOYING (and savoring) yourself right now, not obsessing too much about what you eat, keeping it consistent but just maintaining in the gym or activites you enjoy outside of it, and also visualizing the year ahead.
There is a great deal of scientific consensus around how potent visualization techniques and future focused planning can be. Many of you may already be reflecting on your 2023 and some things you may like to do for your health, fitness or just overall wellbeing in the new year ahead and that is great! In fact, really tapping into this time to visualize your future self and what you are doing in the upcoming year may be just what you need to catapult toward success and it may be a skill that also carries over in the new year.
Visualizing:
Using vivid imagery with as much sensory input as possible (even smelling what the room smells like in a scenario) to envision and even rehearse what you would like to set out to do in the future can seem sort of “woo woo” or maybe even a little far fetched as far as how effective it will be in helping you in future endeavors; but it is extremally powerful.
The more sensory information and input you add in to the images and scenarios in you see in your head, indeed the more potent they can be for providing a variety of really great outcomes your 2023 may have been missing.
The many benefits of vivid visualizations for health:
There are numerous ways to reap benefits:
Better Focus and Clarity:
Visualizing your future self, like actually seeing yourself in a typical day in the new year ahead doing some of the things you would like to do or change can not only help you better clarify what you may need to do to make that happen (what road blocks are in your way now, how your day may shift to make way and time for something); BUT it can also help you then FOCUS in on what you truly want and how you will achieve it.
Motivation and Commitment:
Visualization helps you get clear on what you want to achieve as mentioned. That clarity can be incredibly inspiring since it removes road blocks an reveals more direct paths on how to achieve what you want. This is extremely motivating and it can help you better commit to the next steps and process.
Confidence and self-belief:
When you see yourself so vividly achieving a goal, indeed the same areas of the brain light up. It’s like you’ve done it! And when you do achieve something difficult you have set out to do that can be a real confidence booster.
When you accomplish wins through visualizing those wins, you are more likely to retain that self-belief in the moment.
Lowered Stress and Anxiety:
Stress and anxiety can be a huge road block and overall deterrent from even trying something new you hope to do. Visualizing can help ease some of the fears that may come up and provide a safer space to work through them in advance. It can also help take your mind off the current worries and focus more on the positive aspects of your future goals instead. Stress around it deminishes.
Enhanced Creativity and Better Problem Solving:
Finally, you may also find some sparks in creative thinking with novel solutions to some of the issues that may get in the way between you and your goals. You may be better able to tap into the creative thoughts in a more focused and relaxed state that visualizing tend to provide making it a safe space to brainstorm and think of some of the best ways to go about what you are hoping to set out to do.
This is a critical skill because it is also what will help you sustain when obstacles do arise (as they always will) and it will help you set out new gameplans when a shift is necessary as you need to adjust or set out new goals later on.
Quick Visualization Tips:
Practice Makes Perfect:
Find a quiet and relaxing environment to practice at first. Down time during the holidays can be a great opportunity for this if you find yourself primed with some mellower days where you have some time on your hands to relax.
Use ALL Your Senses:
The more senses (all 5 of them!) you use when you visualize, the more real, potent, and effective it can be for achieving all of what we mentioned above. Do your best to see, smell, feel, hear, and even what taste is in your mouth as you envision your future self. Yes- it’s a lot, but it an help make it more vivid.
The Sweet Spot
There is a Goldilocks zone with this and trying to visualize or achieve something that is incredibly difficult may be too tough to tackle at first. Try something that you know will challenge you but not be a complete stretch to even know where to start. Once you get your visualization skills a little more polished, you can tackle more.
We hope you had a wonderful holidays so far and a great week ahead. We will be back in the New Year with some new offerings, announcements, and back to our usual rotation of articles to help you around nutrition, exercise, self-care and manual therapy, as well as some thinking articles.
We love helping people connect more and enjoy their training what works best for their wellness. If you’re interested in making some changes or need some help in the new year, please book a free consult with us . Let’s see how we can help you get to where you want to be.
Have some more curiosity about what you can do to maintain? Have a read HERE