Recently I listened to an interview1 with a beach volleyball player and Olympic gold medalist Alix Klineman. I was plugging along at work, giving the interview really just half my attention – if even that much – until she described being down in the middle of her first qualifying match for a tournament as a professional beach volleyball player, and what she felt helped her change the course of her performance and ultimately win the match. The key, she said, was visualizing success. I definitely scoffed at the effectiveness of that. It seems more than a little shallow as well as completely pointless to envision winning a tournament, or an Olympic medal ceremony and seeing yourself on the top step of the podium with a gold medal around your neck. It seems to me that there’s no benefit to that.
However, I’ve continued to think about that in the days since I heard that interview, and I think there could be some benefit in that visualization exercise, not just for athletes but for us as Christians. It depends, in my opinion, on what exactly you’re visualizing. Are you envisioning the end result or the goal you have in mind, the situational equivalent of your medal ceremony? That’s probably not going to be super helpful or transformative. A better option might be to picture the steps you’re going to take to get there.2
For a beach volleyball player (which I am not, so what follows is an educated guess), that might be more like picturing the opposition sending the ball over the net, and how one’s body needs to move to meet the ball, the angle at which it should be struck, etc. Repeat that several times with variations in the direction from which the ball is coming, the spin on the ball, etc, and what has actually occurred is practice – though mental rather than physical – of the actual steps that need to be made to perform as desired. It’s really a plan of action, how one will respond in an anticipated situation and to expected stimuli, and if there’s one thing I can get behind, it’s a good, well-considered plan based on some kind of logic and methodology.
For a novice runner, it’s probably not going to be most effective to visualize crossing the finish line at the end of a marathon. It’s a great goal to keep in mind, but that likely won’t be of much help tomorrow morning at 5am when it’s time to get out of bed and run before work. It might be more effective to picture the alarm going off at 5 am, and the desired response to that stimulus: not shutting it off and rolling over for 5 more minutes, but getting up, putting on shoes, and hitting the treadmill. Don’t lose sight of the overall objective; that’s a great thing to picture when it feels like the dead of night and it’s hard to get up. But that can’t be the only thing.
This can be practical for a number of areas, regardless of belief. Want to be a better parent? Great. Admirable goal, one that we all should have. But how are you going to get there? How exactly are you going to parent differently? Instead of envisioning the perfect family, picture your child engaged in a habitual, infuriating behavior – maybe it’s getting out of bed for yet another drink – and envision a different response for yourself – maybe another hug (yes, again) and a gentle reminder that it’s past bedtime instead of a harshly snapped or wearily groaned “Go back to bed!”. The best of intentions rarely carry through in the moment when emotions are high. Rarely will that be the time when you think, “Oh, I wanted to parent differently; now’s a good time for that” without intentional planning. Make a plan for how you’re going to respond, start to set the neural pathways by imagining that response, and that will be the groundwork and foundation for new habits.
I see a great deal of parallels to how we practically handle temptation also. We all have specific sins to which we’re more prone as individuals, and we’re generally quite aware of what those are. (Side note: if you’re not aware of your susceptibilities, there’s no time like the present to ask the Lord to show you.) Not only do we know the specific areas in which we’re likely to be tempted, but we usually know the situations in which we find ourselves most vulnerable. Think about those times, and visualize your response. Make a plan for how you will respond the next time you are faced with that frequent temptation, and practice it mentally.
That habit of mentally practicing different patterns of responses ties in quite nicely with Romans 13:14. In contrast to the ways of the world and those who walk in darkness, we’re exhorted therein to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Proactive and preemptive planning, even through visualization, is one way we can follow through on that. It’s not a guarantee of perfection; there will be times when our plan is recalled a little too late, when we’ve already responded poorly. That’s ok. With the Lord’s help, it’s movement in the right direction, however small.
1The entire interview can be found at Just Women’s Sports
2For a good read on the difference between a goal and a plan, check out this article from Accounting Today.