Deliberate Imagination

The power of the human mind continually intrigues me.  When in college a group of 16 of us were asked to read Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.  That was the beginning of a journey that I continually come back to. 

Here is our thought for today from that book.

“You can deliberately use the imagination

to get good at something through mental practice.”

The concept of deliberate imagination jumps out at me.  Most

of us have heard of this example in various forms.

~ A basketball team is divided into three groups to see how to improve their free-throw percentages.

Group 1 physically practiced their free-throws for an average of fifteen minutes per day for 30 days.

Group 2 mentally pictured accurately shooting free-throws for an average of fifteen minutes per day for 30 days.

Group 3 went about life and practice in a normal way, which included practice games of basketball, dribbling, shooting long shots, layups, and an occasional chance to shoot free-throws.

The amazing results

Group 1 – a near 100% improvement

Group 2 – a near 95% improvement

Group 3 – no improvement

Group 2 – the imagining group, made huge growth and they only imagined themselves shooting the shots. 

That is astounding. 

Denis Waitley and others have often reminded us of this fact – when athletes imagine their routine or event with mental replay their synapses fire as if they were actually performing their event in real time.

Think about the amazing power of the human mind.

What can we do with deliberate imagination?

P Michael Biggs

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