Imagining Productivity: How To Use The Power of Mental Pictures To Get Success

To imagine is to create, Imagination is the source of everything. Things have manifested through people’s imagination in this world. Aeroplanes became real because a lot of people over the course of history, imagined themselves flying like birds. The power of imagination is truly terrifying. As Napoleon said, “Imagination rules the world”. So how does the power of imagination work for us, in our daily lives? That’s what this article will touch upon.

Before we dive into how we can use the power of imagination for being more productive and successful in life, let’s go over what Mental Pictures are. According to Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho-Cybernetics, Mental Pictures are the "blueprints" used by your Creative Mechanism (your subconscious) to achieve goals. Incidentally, this aligns perfectly with blueprint’s strategic goal setting workflow model, which converts your abstract ambitions into a strategic road-map for guided action towards success. Let’s get back to our topic. Maxwell Maltz says the human brain is a goal-striving machine and Mental Pictures are what guide the brain to achieve goals. Simply, a Mental Picture is a vivid imagination of how to do a task. Here’s a simple example: Say you want to make coffee. Instead of actually making it, you imagine yourself walking in the kitchen, taking instant coffee, pouring it in your cup, adding water and sugar, stirring and finally drinking it. Simple, right? Now, replace making coffee with a task or a goal like learning how to ride a bike. You get to your bike, check the stand, check the gas, start the bike, put it in first gear, slowly loosen the clutch and rotate the accelerator handle (the bike starts to move), slowly take your foot above the ground and start riding it. This picture has to be as vivid and detailed as possible for it to be effective. You need to feel the vibration when the bike starts, the smell of gas, the feeling of your feet lifting off the ground, the feeling of the wind hitting your body as you ride the bike, your body tilting as you turn corners and so on. If you repeat this imagination in your brain daily for 5-10 minutes, I assure you will slowly get better at riding a bike.

Ok, now we know what Mental Pictures are, let’s talk about why they work. It's a rather short and simple reason, honestly. Our sub-conscious brain is very easy to fool. Our sub-conscious brain has a hard time differentiating the real from the imagined. Do you know even thinking about exercise can have some physical benefits on your body? There are many experiments that show how people who use Mental Pictures, see significant improvement on their performance, whether it’s sports, music, gym and so on. These studies showed whenever the brain pictured doing a task, new neurological pathways related to that specific task formed in the brain. Picture hitting that precise piano key or guitar string and the brain will create a pathway for that exact movement, hence improving your accuracy the next time you practice. Here are some simple examples that you can test right now: picture Africa or the North Pole and feel your body temp go up or down, imagine yourselves carrying heavy stuff or playing sports and feel your body getting a bit tired, etc. What we imagine is suddenly having real world changes. And now, we will use this exact principle to boost our productivity and success.

Now, we get to the crux of the article. We know what they are and how they work, now we need to learn how we can use the power of Mental Pictures to boost productivity and maximize success. Let’s go over it point by point:

• Build a productive self-image 

This seems kind of cliché, right? ‘Be optimistic and think positive about yourself.’ I know this sounds wishy-washy but hear me out. This advice is good but sadly the way it is recommended, is not effective. The idea here is to craft a positive self-image in which you are a productive individual, always busy doing some task, any task. The purpose of this Mental Picture is to plant a persona of yourself as someone who does not like to waste time. You are someone who values time, hence always working towards some goal. All you do is think about completing your next task or goal. You do not like to procrastinate and get to work instantly.

The way to do this is to picture the most vivid image about yourself being productive. The way you work, get tired, think, speak, become serious, and so on. The picture must be identical to you in every aspect, only this time you are much more productive and action oriented. You do not procrastinate and get to work right away. Repeat this image in your head a hundred times like a broken record and it will get implanted so deep into your sub-conscious that you will start to become the persona itself. Slowly your sub-conscious brain will mistake this picture for your real personality. Any inconsistency between your current habits and this image will spawn deep feelings of discomfort. What’s more is that your habits will get corrected or modified by your sub-conscious mind to fit and match this “I am a productive individual” narrative. If you try to reject the change or go against it, you will feel the discomfort again. You will literally force yourself to become the image you crafted.

• De-hypnotize failure

Most people are brainwashed by their past failures to such an extent that they always assume they will eventually fail whenever trying something new. We all know this is bad but trust me, this gets worse. Let me give you an example: Have you ever realized that people who constantly say they will mess up, eventually do. Maybe you do it too. I know we all mess up the first time when trying something but I am talking about people who have done it repeatedly. Why? The reason is that they have convinced their sub-conscious brain that an outcome where they are successful is impossible and will never be a reality. They are, by nature, a failure. So their sub-conscious tries everything in its power to manifest a reality in which they always fail. Because to not fail otherwise, is not who they are.

Now, how do we use Mental Pictures to de-hypnotize ourselves to become more successful? Well, we can’t just start with a false reality where we have succeeded in something we haven’t done before. That’s because our sub-conscious brain knows that is not true, so it will reject the image immediately. We must start with something real. Think of the time you did well in a test or ran the fastest or gave a good speech or debated well or performed in front of the whole class, and so on. No matter how small of an accomplishment that is, remember the feeling of success associated with that achievement, especially your confidence and trust in your own abilities. Think of it as vividly as possible and repeat it as much as you can. Slowly, it will help you eradicate the idea of you being a failure and an incompetent person. Your sub-conscious brain will try to flip your identity from a failure to a success, and will no longer try to sabotage your efforts and self-confidence. After some time, you can take it further, by thinking of being successful in things you are trying to do for the first time. Therefore, in this way, a Mental Picture will increase your chances of being successful in other aspects of life.

• Create synthetic experience

What do I mean by Synthetic Experience? Synthetic means made-up, so these are experiences that are not real. But how can that help us to be more successful? I have already told you that Mental Pictures are blueprints, right? The most descriptive image of us doing something. Whenever we create a Mental Picture, we perform a mental rehearsal i.e. practice doing a task. We think of how to start, fix any mistakes, deal with unexpected problems, focus on the task, what skills to use and so on. We plan every single detail in our head and think about every phrase of the whole process. We complete the task in our head before we do it in the real world. And we all know, “Practice makes perfect.” What’s better is that we now have countless chances to practice and even fix our mistakes, hence increasing our chance of success when doing the real thing. But are made-up experiences any good? Do they even work? Again, remember how I said that many studies show the brain creating neurological pathways when repeatedly practicing a specific task mentally. So these made-up experiences are as effective as the real ones. Just practicing something in our mind can maximize our rate of success. We are building muscle memory with no real consequences of our mistakes. That is the power of Mental Pictures.

• Live the certainty

Certainty? I know it’s a big word. I am using it to refer to an event or a thing that will happen no matter what, meaning it’s inevitable. So where does Mental Pictures come in all of this? Whenever you create a Mental Picture, you imagine completing it over and over again as if it has already happened. But how will it help us be productive? Well, you are essentially fooling your sub-conscious brain that this event has already happened or it is sure to occur. And now your sub-conscious brain will do everything in its power to make sure it does. I know, it sounds strange.

Let me explain this better with an example: You remember that feeling of deep sadness and disappointment when you were looking forward to that get-together plan with your friends, only for a few of them to then cancel the whole plan. Yup, I think this definitely hit the nerve. See, you were so enthusiastic and sure about this plan that you fooled your brain that it would happen. I bet you had even started preparing in advance, right? You would picture what you would wear, where to go, what to do, whom to talk with, and so on. This is what I mean by “Live the certainty". Not only will your sub-conscious brain do everything to make sure it happens, because in your mind it has already happened repeatedly, it will also try its best to avoid any feeling of uncomfortness, sadness, pain or disappointment if it does not happen because human beings avoid pain. The same trick can be used for completing our goals or tasks. We need to create that mental image of us completing that goal or task and repeatedly rehearse it with every single vivid detail. We especially need to capture and amplify that feeling of success and achievement that our sub-conscious brain absolutely fears the possibility of losing it.

• Narrow down the target

I know, I know. Another vague point. But again, it is rather simple. Mental Pictures can help us clear confusion by portraying an accurate picture of what it is that we actually want to achieve. When we perform a mental rehearsal to get the synthetic experience, we get a better picture of what it is that we are working towards i.e. the end result and more importantly if it satisfies us. Remember, a Mental Picture is a complete process i.e. from start to finish, meaning you need to image the part where you obtain success as well. If we think about it a bit more thoroughly, we can only create a working blueprint if we actually know what the target is, i.e. what to achieve. Hence, from the beginning, Mental Pictures can make your desire more clear and accurate. And if the final outcome does not give you the feeling of satisfaction, then you can reassess or even replace your final goal with the desired outcome. I do not think I need to dig deeper into why that is important to increase our chances of success, right?

• Assemble The how

The blueprint that your mental picture is, is also a guide on how you can achieve your goals. Before you set out to complete a task or a goal, you need to have a clear idea of where to begin and what steps to take. Otherwise, you are bound to get lost. Mental pictures create a pathway, a workflow chart for you to follow towards your goals and objectives. Again, we get countless opportunities to rehearse, which means we can identify and correct any flaws in our plan as well as modify our approach each time we hit an impasse. In order to get successful at completing our goal, we must know the most effective and efficient path to take, and for that, a mental picture is the perfect tool.

Let me end this with an example: You have an interview coming and want to practice for it. You picture yourself dressing appropriately, carrying all the necessary documents, reaching the venue on time, and then sitting in the interview. You imagine answering all the possible questions they might ask you. Suddenly, you realize you do not know about a new industry practice that they might ask to test how updated you are. You stop and then start to research and learn about that subject, and then restart your mental rehearsal. This time, you realize you stutter a lot or pause too often. You stop, memorize your answers a bit more and then restart and repeat the practice. With enough mental rehearsal, you will have successfully decoded the how of acing your interview. Plus you also get countless chances to identify your shortcomings and fix that.

Imagination is a tremendous power that we all have. When we start to desire, we start to imagine, especially about how we can fulfill our desires. Hence, imagining yourself being productive and successful in life is also not a strange thing to do. However, this does not mean that we get lost in our imagination and forget to manifest it through our actions. Actions are what turns our ideas into reality. Hence, be sure to always pair one with the other. Before ending this article, I would recommend you to follow the advice I have laid out about using Mental Pictures for your benefit and test the power of your own imagination. I assure you that it will have a positive impact on your overall growth and success in life.