Advocates propose producing a detailed schema of what one wants and then visualizing it again and again with all of the senses (i.e., what do you see? what do you feel? what do you hear? what does it smell like?). For instance, in sports a golfer might visualize the perfect stroke again and again to mentally train motor skills memory.
In one of the most long-familiar studies on visualization in sports, Russian scientists equated four groups of Olympic athletes in terms of their physical and mental training ratios:
Study group 3 had the best performance outcomes, indicating that particular sorts of mental training, like consciously invoking particular subjective states, may have significant measurable impacts on biological performance.
According to experts, "The Soviets had ascertained that mentalimages may act as a prelude to muscular impulses.
It has since gotten to be more widely understood and accepted in neuroscience and sports psychology that subjective training may cause the body to react more favorably to consciously desired results.
Visualization practices are a typical form of spiritual exercise. In Vajrayana Buddhism, complex visualizations are utilized to attain Buddhahood, e.g. Generation Stage. Additionally, visualization is utilized extensively in sports psychology.
A few celebrities have endorsed the utilization of visualization and claimed it had a substantial role in their success. Such celebrities include Oprah, Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Anthony Robbins, Bill Gates, Ronnie Bernard and other people.
In a 2008 interview with Tavis Smiley, actor Will Smith said he utilized visualization to defeat challenges and, as a matter of fact, visualized his success years before he got to be successful.
A different example is actor Jim Carrey, who wrote out a check to himself in 1987 in the sum of 10 million dollars. He dated it 'Thanksgiving 1995' and put in the notation, “for acting services rendered.” He visualized it for a long time and in 1994 he got $10M for his role in Dumb and Dumber!