The Power Of Visualization!

Happy Saturday,

While I was perfecting the 7 steps which is the backbone of the 1-1 confidence building sessions, I thought it would be a great idea to speak a little about visualization and the power of it! If you already follow me on social media you may have seen a post like this in the past so you guys are ahead of the game and already know a little about it!

I love the method of using visualization to improve my abilities and mindset when it comes to interacting with my pony, this includes ground work, arena work and general riding. So what exactly is visualization? A lot of us probably all ready do it unconsciously, on a daily basis. However the visualization that we probably do is negative visualization, so we visualise the worst possible scenario which has a massive impact on our confidence and is probably the biggest part of us becoming the nervous or fearful riding that we know.

Ok so how do we visualise in a positive way that makes good improvements? We learn how to catch the negative thoughts as soon as they enter our head and we remove them to replace them with positive thoughts. Sounds simple? It is! But only when you train yourself to do it automatically, it's rather challenging at the start.

So that's the first method of using visualization, the one we want to practise and speak about is visualising ourselves actually doing the sport i.e. Riding.

This method has been trailed and tested on groups of professional athletes, the first group was told to do nothing at all. No physical practising and no visualization. The second group were asked to just physically practise there sport and nothing else. The third group were asked to just visualise themselves doing the sport in a positive way without physically doing the sport.

So how do you think they all done? do you think some improved? maybe not?

So as you guessed the first group did not improve however they didn't get any worse! The second group improved by a low percentage however they still improved! Finally the third group had the highest percentage on improving there skills just by visualising themselves doing it! Imagine what achievements we can achieve by physically practising and having positive visualization!

When you hear the saying it's mind over matter, it really is. A lot of people undermine the power and impact our brains have on us!

Step 6 of my 7 steps of confidence building is all about visualization and learning about it in depth! It's pretty exciting stuff... So I hope this helps and I hope you've enjoyed reading this blog.

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As always lots of love from Bernie, Blue & Bruno :)