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MANAGING YOURSELF

To Reach Your Goals, Make a


Mental Movie
by Srini Pillay
MARCH 05, 2014

Warren Bennis, one of the most respected authorities on leadership in the world, said: “Leadership
is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” On the surface, this sounds perfunctory. But when we
examine this more deeply, several important implications arise. If leadership is the ability to
translate vision into reality, what is the method to do this? One way, according to the latest research,
is to use our brains to optimize our chances of success.

There is now incontrovertible evidence that imagining a movement will stimulate the movement
areas in the brain. This technique has been used when helping people with stroke to begin moving
and to help elite athletes optimize their pre-competition training. The recent example of the detailed
visualization of Mikaela Shiffrin leading to a gold medal in the Olympic slalom is one such case in
point. This evidence suggests that to reach your goals first write them down, and then determine
different possible ways of achieving them. Then, close your eyes and imagine yourself following
those paths. Imagination “warms up” the action brain and “jump starts” your brain.  This technique
can be especially helpful if you are procrastinating or stuck.

But, as easy as it sounds, simply closing your eyes and imagining yourself accomplishing a goal or
leading a team to do so may feel challenging for a number of reasons. Many of my clients, for
example, have asked: “What if I don’t feel confident enough to imagine? What if I have missed my
targets for several quarters, and trying to imagine getting to my goal is anxiety-provoking?”

First, multiple forms of imagery have been found to be helpful in reducing anxiety, so imagining can
actually help you feel less anxious.
Second, to improve your confidence, one especially helpful type of imagery that you can use is
called motivational-general mastery (M-GM), which involves keeping an eye on your goal, while
imagining coming from behind. M-GM stands in contrast to the static imagery of imagining having
your goal in hand, as in holding up a trophy. Actually coming from behind to reach your goals
appears to be a more powerful way to increase your confidence. To do this, clearly define your
benchmarks, and then denote where you are and when and how you anticipate reaching and even
exceeding them. Literally sketch this out on paper first so that you can use this script to create your
mental image.

The next question people often ask is: How can I imagine exceeding my benchmarks when I have no
idea of how I will actually do it? Remember that when you say you have “no idea”, you mean you
have no conscious idea. However, a recent review of 75 papers revealed that imagery can help in
several ways:  In addition to helping to focus your attention by stimulating attentional networks in
the brain, imagery can actually help your brain to map your path to your goal outside of conscious
awareness. Imagining activates brain regions that can unconsciously map your path to success. Not
knowing “how” doesn’t actually matter, since the brain will figure this out once you let it know
where you want to go.

How can this be? When you program your car’s navigator with your destination, your car figures out
how to take you to your destination. Similarly, your brain has the ability to map out your course to
your goal once you clearly communicate to yourself what this goal is. In addition, imagining your
journey also helps to keep your brain on track as it will constantly refer to this image and update
your journey with greater ease than if you did not provide this information to it.

Many people and teams I have coached use this method to guide their paths to success. Rather than
simply having a business plan, they make a mental movie of a business plan. When you have a
vision for your life and business, it helps to make this quite literal.

As a start, define your goal. Make it real and graphic. Google and print out representations of this
image, or spend actual time visualizing the image in high definition. Set aside time to do this every
morning and think of it as feeding your brain graphic information so that it can help you chart your
path to your goals. By repeatedly practicing this method, you can really conserve brain resources
because practice generates automatic patterns in the brain, decreasing the need to recruit or invite
brain regions involved in deliberate effort.

Brain science teaches us that a picture is worth a 1000 words because it serves as an attentional
guide, motivator and map to the brain to help you navigate your way to come from behind to reach
or exceed your goals. Now that you know how to translate vision into reality, what’s stopping you?

Srini Pillay, M.D. is an executive coach and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is also a technology
innovator and entrepreneur in the health and leadership development sectors, and an award-winning
author. His latest book is Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind. He is
also a part-time Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the Executive Education
Programs at Harvard Business School and Duke Corporate Education, and is on internationally
recognized think tanks.

This article is about MANAGING YOURSELF


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