Visualise - Part 2

The Word of Wisdom this week is a continuation of last week’s: visualise. Mental rehearsal of tasks and processes is a powerful way of improving performance, particularly in sport, the arts and situations like interviews or public speaking. It has even been proven to increase muscular strength without exercise! The key is to relax and adopt a positive frame of mind, then to run through the processes you are going to have to perform and imagine them being carried out by you as excellently as you can. Do this over and over again and your mind and body will adapt in line with your thoughts. The important thing is to visualise the processes you are going to perform, not just the successful outcome (that’s just daydreaming and it doesn’t work.) A valuable exercise for an actor, which can be carried out anywhere, anytime, is to visualise and put yourself into states with a different mood. Practice changing the place or time your mind is in, or your emotional state. Try feeling warm on a cold day or wide awake when you’re sleepy: it’s remarkable what you can do. Visualise.