The Power of Mental Rehearsal

Mental rehearsal is a powerful and exciting tool that you can use to achieve superior results. But the strange thing is that it’s not used as much as it could be. I think this is because people don’t really understand how it works. In today’s blog, I’m going to explain why mental rehearsal is really a skill you should master if you want to achieve maximum success. And I’m going to start by telling you a secret…

The secret is that imagery and mental rehearsal are already influencing your results. Yes, that’s right. Even if you know nothing about mental rehearsal, you’re already using it to some extent, and it’s already influencing your life in a pretty significant way. You just haven’t been aware of it. And if you haven’t been aware of it, then you haven’t been in control of the mental rehearsal process. This means that you’re not fully in charge of your results either.

Let me be crystal clear about one thing before we go any further: I’m not talking about New Age visualisation here. That’s based on a certain philosophical view or religious position. I have no interest in promoting a religious position – I’m a peak performance psychologist, not a preacher or spiritual guru. I’m talking about the science of skill building and learning (not about manifesting your current wish list). And I’m talking about how you can use neuroscience research to your advantage.

The most important thing you need to know about mental rehearsal is this: When you physically rehearse skills or tasks, relevant parts of your brain become active. When you mentally rehearse the same skills or tasks, the same pattern of brain activation occurs. This is why mental rehearsal is so powerful. When you mentally rehearse, your brain fires in the same way as if you were actually practising. New neural connections are created, and the process of myelination is stimulated. These are the neurological processes most important to learning and skill building. And you have the power to activate this skill building process without lifting a finger!

Mental rehearsal gives you a distinct advantage, particularly if you’re trying to master skills that you cannot yet physically perform. If you can mentally rehearse those skills in the right way, then you can build the neural pathways that will make physical achievement possible. Think of it this way. If someone carves a path through a densely wooded forest, then it will be much easier for you to walk through that forest in the future because you’ll have an established pathway to traverse. When you mentally rehearse, you’re carving a neurological path that will make it easier for you to later perform physical tasks, because the neural pathways you need will already be established.

A further obvious benefit of mental rehearsal is that you can use it when you cannot physically practice, when you’re ill, unable to access the practice facilities you need, or physically fatigued. This makes it possible for you to practice more in a single day than you could manage using physical means alone. The consequences of this are huge. Over time, the addition of mental practice to your existing physical practice routine will contribute an exponential increase in your level of skill. I’ll explain how this “multiplier effect” works in a future blog, but for now I hope I’ve persuaded you that this extra practice will make a significant difference to your skills.

The reason I mentioned earlier that you’re probably already using mental rehearsal is because I want to draw your attention to the fact that mental rehearsal can work against you, even if you’re not aware that you’re actually using it.

Ruminating over past performances and focusing on mistakes and failures is a type of mental rehearsal. When we do this, we allow a negative movie to play over and over in our minds. There's robust evidence to show that this can lead to future mistakes and failures. Although I sometimes hear people offer metaphysical explanations for this process, there’s a solid neurological explanation that doesn’t rely on a particular set of spiritual beliefs: When you visualise yourself making mistakes or failing to successfully perform specific tasks, you build the neural circuits associated with unsuccessful task execution. Similarly, if you repeatedly visualize yourself coping badly with performance demands, then you’re creating the neural circuits associated with ineffective coping in response to that set of demands.

This doesn’t mean you’re definitely going to fail – you may have other, stronger neural pathways that will prevail on the day – but you’re definitely increasing your risk of failure, as well as making yourself miserable.

Think of your neural circuitry as a large map of interconnecting roads. The neural circuits you use most often become big, powerful superhighways, while the neural circuits you rarely use shrivel into overgrown, neglected pathways. Your brain works tirelessly at your command, building the roads you tell it you need.

Since you’re constantly issuing building instructions to your brain anyway, why not take charge of the architectural blueprint? Use the power of mental rehearsal to build your own success superhighway.