Mental Imagery: 3 Ways Great Parents Actualize the Power of Visualization by Gloria DeGaetano
What do Tiger Woods and Muhammed Ali have in common? Besides being champions in their chosen sport, that is. They both applied mental imagery to achieve their extraordinary success. Woods used mind run-throughs of the perfect golf swing since his pre-teen years. Ali went through the minute details of each fight in his mind’s eye beforehand and even made sure he boasted to himself afterwards, “I am the greatest!”
To become the greatest, it’s a given that today’s top athletes include visualizations as a necessary component in their training regimes. They know that humans have an interesting propensity. Like bees to blossoms, we instinctively follow the predominant images we hold in our heads.
In fact, future rehearsals come quite naturally to most of us. Unfortunately, the inner images we conjure up are usually ones that cause anxiety and worry, spiraling down into even more anxiety and worry! Intentionally shifting our mental imagery to key into our preferred outcomes can change all that because mental imagery works powerfully to shape behaviors and sharpen skills.
Decades of reliable research shows this to be true. But of course, your favorite, top-performing athletes know this first-hand. They see the remarkable results every time they challenge themselves.
Mental imagery can help parents in much the same way it helps athletes. Let’s face it, we’re constantly challenged to flex our parenting muscles. Children continually grow and transition to new stages of growth, keeping us on a daily spin cycle, sometimes even disengaged from who we want to be for them. But with mental imagery beforehand, parents can ease-fully apply signature strengths, even inspiring themselves when in the thick of it.
Use these three mental imagery practices to stay on top of your game:
1. Visualize your child as an adult. This is particularly helpful after a trying day. Imagine meeting your child, now a young adult, for lunch. This person is amazing and you look across the table in awe. Who do you see? What qualities are you admiring? What delightfully surprises you? What are you especially appreciating? Be sure to include deep appreciation for yourself in raising such a magnificent human. Afterwards, consider any present-day decisions you might make that will help your child attain the qualities you respected in that young adult you met for lunch.
2. Rehearse in your mind’s-eye a positive outcome to a potentially contentious situation. Prepare well for a possible toddler melt-down or a belligerent teenage confrontation. A problem situation has occurred before and you want to be as ready as possible. Find a quiet spot to close your eyes and go over how you want to handle the situation. Perhaps in the past there were things that you did (or didn’t do) that worked well for you.
Observe yourself making spot-on correct choices. Rehearse being calm, confident and handling the situation beautifully. Nothing ruffles your feathers. Maybe you recently had read about a new parenting strategy you wanted to try. See yourself successfully doing every step. The details are important here, so take your time with this visualization. You also want to make sure you are envisioning the positive feelings you will experience. Once you have a clear picture in mind and absorbed the feelings of success, you are ready for any curve ball your child may throw.
3. Mentally imagine an ideal day with your child. Take the time to consider this beforehand and save time and energy when you are scrambling to come up activities you might like to do together. Imagine what brings you both a sense of joy and fulfillment. Will you do some individual activities and then come back together to talk about them? Consider what you have done together in the past that impacted your child positively. Imagine yourself at the end of this ideal day, looking back on it, for what are you most grateful?
With regular doses of positive mental imagery, the tough times shape and strengthen us. And pretty soon, challenges morph into opportunities to bring out the best in ourselves and in our children.
Gloria DeGaetano, M.Ed., a visionary thought-leader, birthed parent coaching when forming the Parent Coaching Institute, now a global company offering Parent Coach Certification® for family professionals, coaching services for parents, and specialized programs for companies and organizations. Gloria, an acclaimed educator and author, is an innovator of family support for modern-day parents. Her unique system for helping parents successfully navigate the challenges of our tech-obsessed world is used by thousands of parents worldwide.