Mental Practice

There’s a really cool clip on YouTube of the Blue Angels, a U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, practicing their flight… in a conference room.

With their eyes closed.

The motivation for this is type of activity, often referred to as Mental Practice, is straight forward: by visualizing the activity before you do it, it will improve your performance.

I did a similar exercise before engaging in sprints today: imagining myself sprinting, feeling my legs beginning to give out, and imagining a bright orange orb inside me refueling my legs so that I could push forward.

Subjectively, the actual sprints felt great. Objectively, I broke a few personal records.

Even when you’re not in your performance setting, you can level up your competency by simply imaging yourself executing in detail.