Mastering Your Inner Game: Using Imagery

By David R. Kauss, PhD

Even the most physically gifted athletes struggle in competition when they lose control over their thoughts and emotions. Mastering Your Inner Game arms you with the tools to understand, manage, and maximize your mental and emotional forces, factors that often determine whether you're an all-star and or an "also-ran."

Author David Kauss looks at how athletic performance fits into your own life experience. His "total athlete" system takes into account your internal strengths and weaknesses instead of applying a predefined set of mental training exercises.

Much of what is presented in the remainder of this book deals with imagery. Also, the exercises and techniques are best done in a particular type of personal setting, which I will call your Spot. A firm understanding of imagery and of your Spot will enhance your experiences as you go through each of the exercises and techniques presented.

Using Imagery

Imagery is central to your use of most of these techniques. Good imagery skills are not complicated, but they do require a little time and a basic awareness of what is likely to make your images as strong as possible.

Imagery is most simply described as pictures in your mind. We all have the ability to imagine situations or events whether or not they have actually occurred. We can see in our mind's eye "movies" of events; we don't just think thoughts about the event but can actually picture it unfolding, as it happened or could happen, inside the mind.

For example, your mind carries images of the last meal you ate today. You can remember what you ate and that you ate it, but these are thoughts, not imagery. Imagery is more a reliving of the meal in vivid detail, closing your eyes and taking the time to see, feel, and taste it again. Taking time and looking for details are important steps to effective imagery. A 2-second recollection of a meal, song, kiss, or jump shot is a far cry from a 60-second detailed reliving of the same experience. The former might help you think, but the latter will help you feel what the experience was like for you. Therein lies the power of the images.

Most thoughts consist of words; images don't include words. "I hit a home run" is a collection of words that make a thought. A full, real-time reliving of the situation-the score, the field, the pitcher, your friends watching you, any other details of the event itself-played out slowly enough in your mind so that you can feel again what you felt then is the stuff of good imagery.

One good way to enhance your imagery powers and elevate them beyond mere thoughts is to focus on your five physical senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Since we take in about 80 percent of our information about the world through our eyes, it's most important that you visualize your images, encouraging yourself to see them as vividly as possible. A good approach is to ask yourself to study the image in your mind's eye and notice as many details about it as you can, as if someone were going to ask you detailed questions about it later. Once the visual portion of the image is sharp in your mind, see if you can add any of the other senses to deepen the experience of the image.

For example, if you're a hockey player, you might see yourself on the ice as the main part of the imagery experience. You can strengthen the image's power by adding sounds, such as the cheering of the crowd, the slap of the puck against the boards, the cutting hiss of skates on ice. Rinks often have a distinctive smell, and you can focus on this as well. You can involve your sense of touch in reviewing what your skates feel like laced tightly against your feet and ankles, how your pads feel against your body, your gloves and the stick in your hands, and so on. You can feel the chill of the misty air rising off the ice. Even the feel and taste of your mouth guard can be added to enhance the experience. Add to this images of the circumstances of a specific game-scoring that goal; coming from behind that day; the way you fear, respect, or hate that particular opponent-all of these details enrich the imagery experience for you. They make it much more likely that you can become lost inside the image and feel its full power, enhancing your mental preparation for any of the many exercises and techniques described in the remainder of this book.

Imagery can be built around actual past occurrences or events you create entirely in your mind. Some athletes rely heavily on scenes from past successes to build confidence as part of their overall Psych Skill Package. Others mentally view themselves playing that next game or running in an Olympic event many years down the road. Images can be of positive experiences or disasters. Consistent with our theme of mastering one's inner game so as to better meet challenges, some of the best imagery I've seen athletes use involves memories of success in a competition in which they felt dominated early on and were nearly beaten by the opponent. Give yourself the freedom to focus on images in whatever way seems strongest to you. If your imagery sessions leave you feeling kind of "blah," you're not doing it right. Good imagery sessions often make the athlete want to move physically; they make the athlete sweat or start his or her mind and heart racing. Make your images as rich and intense as you can.

Find more information about the book Mastering Your Inner Game by clicking here.

David R. Kauss, PhD, has been practicing psychology since 1978, but he began his psychological consulting work with athletes and coaches--including the UCLA football and baseball teams--four years earlier. In his role as a consultant, Kauss has provided performance-enhancement training to athletes and coaches at the elite and professional levels. He wrote about his early work with athletes in his first book, Peak Performance.

A member of the American Psychological Association, Kauss is also an associate professor of psychology at UCLA. He received his BA from Harvard University and his doctorate in clinical psychology from UCLA.