I’ve previously written several posts about how I help students “visualize success.”

Today, The New York Times had a good piece providing examples of how athletes, musicians and surgeons do the same. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share an excerpt from that article, as well as listing links to my previous posts on the topic.

Here’s the excerpt from the NY Times:

Jack Nicklaus, for instance, has said that he has never taken a swing that he didn’t first mentally rehearse, frame by frame. Yo-Yo Ma told me that he remembers riding on a bus, at the age of seven, and solving a difficult musical problem by visualizing himself playing the piece on the cello. Robert Spetzler, who trained with Wilson and is widely considered to be the heir to Wilson’s mantle, says that when he gets into uncharted territory in an operation he feels himself transferring his mental image of what ought to happen onto the surgical field. Charlie Wilson talks about going running in the morning and reviewing each of the day’s operations in his head–visualizing the entire procedure and each potential outcome in advance. “It was a virtual rehearsal,” he says, “so when I was actually doing the operation, it was as if I were doing it for the second time.”

Here are my previous posts on helping students “visualize success”:

Helping Students Visualize Success

Want To Know What’s Happened Since My “Marshmallow” & “Visualizing Success” Lessons

Updates On Some Classroom Lessons & Research I’ve Been Doing

Results From Having ELL Students “Visualize Success”

More Results From Students Visualizing Success

“Mental Imagery” & Success

What Does The Navy Seals Training Program Have To Say About Students Visualizing Success?

Visualizing Success

Students & Visualization

Visualization Update

V is for Visualization at Scott Thornbury’s blog is a discussion of research, and teacher’s experiences, of using visualization with language learners.

A study reports that students who set a goal of eating more fruit and visualized actually doing it were more successful than those that did not.

And here’s a report on a study showing that people who visualized a job interview going well did better than those who did not.

Talking to Yourself: Not So Crazy After All is by Annie Murphy Paul at TIME.

The Best Videos To Help Students Visualize Success

Mental Imagery, Olympians, “Pickles” & Student Success

Another Study Finds That “Self-Talk” Works also discusses imagery.

Study Finds That Encouraging Students To Visualize Themselves As Successful Helps Them Overcome Challenges

NY Times Video Series On “Inside An Olympian Mind” Is Jackpot For Any Teacher Using Visualizing Strategies With Students

HOW I’M USING VISUALIZATION WITH MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER STUDENTS

UPDATE ON VISUALIZATION ACTIVITIES I’M DOING WITH ELL STUDENTS

Visualizing Specific Impacts of Climate Change Could Change Behavior is from Scientific American.

ASSESSMENT REPORT ON USING VISUALIZATION WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

MY ELL STUDENTS USE VISUALIZATION, AND SO DO MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL STARS

“MR. FERLAZZO, CAN I LEAD THE VISUALIZATION TODAY?”

Visualization strategies may backfire on consumers pursuing health goals is from Science Daily. It reinforces the importance of first-person visualizing as opposed to doing it from a third-person.

FYI, here’s the music I’ve been using this semester during our visualization exercises:

How Warriors’ James Wiseman is leaving LaMelo hype, rookie setbacks behind him is from The San Francisco Chronicle. How it begins caught my eye:

At least once a day, Warriors center James Wiseman sits in his room as he stares at a notebook with words and images that represent his goals: All-Star. Defensive Player of the Year. NBA champion. MVP. Hall of Famer.

For about 10 minutes, Wiseman imagines his fully realized self, a process of visualization he started a couple of months ago. He’d read that Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan considered it a driving force behind their greatness. Wiseman, who was struggling with the speed and physicality of NBA games, wanted to be an all-time great. He was 19. He had a plan.

“If you look at something every day, you can actually manifest it,” Wiseman said. “You just look at it every day, and that gives you motivation to keep moving toward that certain objective.”

This Two-Minute Morning Practice Will Make Your Day Better is from The Harvard Business Review.

Intriguing Info On How Michael Phelps Uses Visualization, & How I’ll Use It With Students

Here’s an excerpt from Back in action for Warriors, James Wiseman looks ready to deliver:

For about 10 minutes each day, Golden State Warriors center James Wiseman imagines his fully realized self: an agile, skilled big man who vexes defenses, makes annual All-Star appearances and chuckles at people who once labeled him a “bust.”

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