Mental Imagery is Magic

Recently, I was asked to run the recon challenge with a brother of mine. It is five weeks away and I needed to be able to perform specific skills underwater and other military related skills under fatigue. I had planned for underwater breath-holds after a decent warm up in the pool. Prior to getting into the pool that morning, I had a conversation with a mentor and we had started to go over some of the skills that I had to sharpen for the following event coming up. While I was warming up, I thought to myself that there was no better time to start running through mental practices of how to disassemble a 240g machine gun on a breathe hold. 

I started to run through the steps in my head, then my hands followed, and next thing I know... I am seeing the weapon system in front of me as if it were real. I went through a few different drills with this approach from putting it back together and taking it apart in my head. I was also going to have to relearn a few different knots that were going to be conducted underwater. By practicing those different skills in my head and not having the tools directly in front of me, it allowed me to gain confidence to perform such skill under stress when it is time to perform. 

By working with an array of different types of athletes from the tactical profressional community to general fitness goers, I have found that even providing these small psychological methods to help improve their ability to manage stress has been massive. As stated in literature, there needs to be a complete buy-in for it to work. It's kind of like doing magic, if you think about it. Everyone seems to be focused on the outcomes, but the magic is in the process, the trick itself. The same thing happens with mental imagery. Developing different courses of action increases our ability to own the clock under fatigue. Imagery is one of the most powerful exposures we can do for ourselves in enhancing performance and allowing us to excel beyond the task at hand.