[Bill]

It could be that visualization skills are one of the most important things to solve problems. I quit many times as it became boring and I lost patience but I think it´s wrong to neglect it. It´s probably more important than going to the gym.

Here this guy gives rather good tips:

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WHY WE DON’T VISUALIZE

I’ve read about this stuff, I’ve tried this stuff, a million times. Probably so have you. But let me ask you something–do you use planned, specific visualization regularly? If not, why not?

As I’ve gone through my own experience with trying to visualize regularly, but eventually letting it fall to the wayside, and as I’ve talked to others who have tried and failed at keeping a regular schedule going with it too, I’ve found that the number one reason why visualization is so hard to keep doing is because it’s SO DAMN BORING.

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So I started experimenting around with it myself. And I eventually found some key things that have helped turn the power of visualization into a regular part of my training every single day for the past 6 months.

And I want to share this with you so that you can cut through all the fluff out there and actually start putting visualization into practice for yourself.

GETTING STARTED WITH VISUALIZATION

The first thing that I decided was that I needed to develop my ability to “see” things in my mind. Easy things. I figured that our brain works like a muscle and that learning to be good at visualizing would take time.

When we give up on visualization because the mental pictures get harder and harder to create and focus on it’s often not because we suck at creating mental images and will always suck at it. No. It just means that we haven’t developed that part of our brain yet. It’d be like giving up on working out because you couldn’t bench press a 300 lb bar.

So instead, I started light. And I recommend you do the same.

I started with 10-15 mins every day (now I go for 20-25 mins at a time). I would lay down, close my eyes, and try to calm my mind by taking 10 long, deep breathes, concentrating on the feeling of the air going in and out of my lungs (this wasn’t easy and I still find my mind wandering during it. So don’t worry. Just try to calm your mind down as much as you can).

Next, I would pick something very easy to visualize. For instance, blowing up a bright colored balloon. Or standing in a room, turning the lights brighter and dimmer. Or eating a bite of lemon meringue pie one bite at a time (it’s surprising how realistic you can make it). Or getting a back massage. Or walking on the beach and jumping into the ocean (imagining the sounds, the smell of the air, anything that you would notice if you were really there).

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1. There is no room for impatience. Just like warming up your muscles before a workout, there are no shortcuts. I HAD to take the time to focus my mind and get it on a creative, visual plane before I could seriously get into a good visualization session.

No matter how long you’ve been going to the gym your muscles will always require a warm-up before being ready to work. From my experience so far the same holds true for visualization.

2. Spend time feeling things in your body. A lot of times I would visualize myself performing a skill as if I were watching myself on a movie screen. However, I noticed that I felt like I got more out of it when I tried to actually picture how doing the skill felt instead of just looked. I tried to recreate the feeling inside my body.

Warming up by visualizing getting a back massage has become one of my favorite ways of priming myself to be able to “feel” what I’m visualizing rather than just “seeing” it. I’d recommend giving it a try.

http://austinimpactjkd.com/2012/10/using...-a-how-to/