The Power of Mental Images
It really is possible to think and grow big. When I was training for the Mr Universe title, I had to do something that many people are not even aware of. Of course, I had to train hard, eat sensibly and rest properly – but there was something else that I did and I believe that all of the top athletes do similar. That something was to visualise.
A Forever Thing
I had been visualising from when I was quite young and basically what I did was to imagine the body that I wanted and to see myself already looking like a champion bodybuilder – even when my body was not even close to that level. Over time, I built up an image in my head of what I wanted to look like and if I happened to catch a glimpse of my real self in the mirror, I would quickly look away and replace that image with my imagined body. How does this work?
How it Works
Basically, our brains are really in two parts – the conscious mind (the one that makes instant daily decisions) and the subconscious mind (the one that stores our beliefs and experiences, while influencing the conscious mind). Simply put, if you tell your subconscious mind the same lie many times, it will eventually believe it to be true. Holding the image of a champion bodybuilder meant that I trained like a champion bodybuilder, ate like a champion bodybuilder and rested like a champion bodybuilder. I would close my eyes just before sleeping and visualise the image and I did the same as soon as I woke up each morning.
The Magic of Believing
If you create a vision in your own mind of what you would like to look like – as if you already look that way, you can fake it until you make it! This applies to looking big, looking slim, losing weight and attaining great health.
Another thing that I did was to find a picture of a body builder, one with a body like the one that I craved and I cut the head off with a pair of scissors. I then took a photo of me and stuck my head on the good body. I placed the new image on my fridge and every day, I would walk past it several times. Although I didn’t always look at it directly, my subconscious mind was always seeing it and it was building my mental image into a much stronger belief/vision. It might sound weird, but it works and it definitely helps to stack the deck in one’s favour.
I like my psychology stuff and two books that helped me with this visualisation stuff were Grow Rich While You Sleep (Ben Sweetland) and The Magic of Believing (Claude Bristol).
I found this on YouTube and it helped me a great deal.
