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Hello and welcome to the swim brief. I am Chris DeSantis. I am unfortunately not joined by Joel Rawlings this week. As I have teased a number of times on this podcast, Joel has something very exciting going on. And I hope to have him on, I hope, uh next week. You know, uh it's been it's been a work in progress here, and he's just not quite ready yet. Uh but I promise we have something exciting to announce that I think we'll we'll have some really exciting things for the podcast. So for now, uh today I'm gonna be doing the podcast on my own, but I have made a bigger effort than usual to get a little bit more organized about what it is I'm gonna say today. So hopefully you guys enjoy that. If you can tell a difference in the podcast, uh please give me some feedback. Let me know what you think of the podcast today so I know whether I'm headed in the right direction. So, what I want to talk to you guys today is something uh, again, that's coming up in my coaching. I had a great coaching session with an athlete yesterday, and one of the things we were talking about was visualization. And visualization as a topic is something that uh back in my uh days when I didn't have a podcast and I was mostly writing, I've written about a couple times, um, I have uh talked about quite a bit over the years, and I've continued to think about what role visualization plays in sports. And I just recently had kind of a breakthrough in it, so I thought I would share that with everybody because I know that visualization is something that um has persisted in the athletic world. Um it was very popular when I was coming up as an athlete when I was in my teens, so now 25 years ago, and um it continues to be popular. And I think with uh as with anything, um these various sort of uh uh, for lack of a better term, techniques that we have around sports, you know, they're they are tools that you can use, but you have to understand the broader context in which you're using them. And like I said, I've had a breakthrough um, and part of it was in this conversation yesterday. So I want to talk a little bit about that conversation and then some of my also weave it into some of my own experiences um with visualization. So um I was talking with this athlete yesterday, and we're getting towards the end of uh our conversation, and the athlete told me that they feel actually that they they they asked basically, is it okay for my for me to visualize myself uh doing you know the absolute limit of what I think is possible, you know, like an the 99.9th percentile of my potential. Um, and I said, uh of course it is. But you know, whenever somebody says something like that to me, I get pretty curious. Like I'm thinking, okay, what is going on here? You know, because it seems to me naturally that it is good to, uh, even though I've had my doubts about visualization over the years, that it is good to imagine yourself doing something really, really well. So I wanted to know why this athlete was, you know, feeling conflicted, actually, uh, about doing it. And I realized that even as I was saying that, um I had always also asked myself the same question. You know, when I was getting ready to compete, even as recently as a month ago, you know, I had a, I could picture in my mind the absolute like peak of what I thought I was capable of. And I talked about this actually in my post-race um podcast. And, you know, at the same time, I'm thinking, like, uh, should you be doing that? And so I really wanted to get curious about what is going on here where something that nominally we can acknowledge has a lot of good going for it. Why, why is there this hesitancy? Right, why, why do we find ourselves with this sort of instinctual shying away from it? Um and so I started to ask some questions about it. And I'm I'm gonna get to the breakthrough, I promise. But before we get into that, I want to just talk about the basics of what I'm referring to when I talk about visualization and what why, you know, even though I've had my own conflicts with it over the years, the things that I have kind of always acknowledged are really sort of potential benefits of visualization. Um so, you know, the basics of visualization is is really just um focusing your thoughts on imagining yourself doing something, and imagining yourself doing something that you've never actually done, right? Um many times in the swimming context, what this manifests itself as is we are imagining ourselves swimming races faster than we ever have in our lives. Um and so what this offers for our mind and our body is a pretty important opportunity. It is the opportunity for you to practice, I put that in quote marks, for you to practice something you've never done before. When you think about trying to do anything, I think it's pretty universally accepted that, you know, if you have a lot of reps practicing it, well then it's more likely that you're going to be able to do it automatically. But then we have this whole field of, you know, at the limits of our potential, it's not possible that we've practiced it a lot of times to solidify it in full, like in full reality. So we actually, through our brains, we can kind of create a virtual reality, right? Where we can practice doing something that we've never done before and therefore make it more likely that we're actually going to be able to do the thing. And that's like when you think about that piece of visualization, that is freaking cool. Like, that is really, really cool that you know, we actually have this system within ourselves that we can use for um rehearsing doing something before we've ever done it. And so the the act of doing this practice, just in the same way that actually like fully, you know, um in reality, in reality reality, doing something repeatedly makes it more likely that you can just sort of automatically do it. It makes it more likely that you're able to do it. I think another key important part of visualization is um I talk a lot um in uh my work with athletes and with teams about biases. And, you know, I think we we hear the term bias, and then bias has a negative connotation, but I look at biases quite neutrally and say, you know, if you accept that it's impossible to de-bias your brain, how can you make biases work for you? And specifically, how can you prime uh your mind to look to confirm, like to find evidence to confirm that a outcome that you think is good is is likely to happen. So when you visualize, um, and given that some of the stuff I'm gonna discuss later is not necessarily blocking this process from working, um, when you visualize, you can prime your mind to try to confirm optimistic thoughts that you have, right? So that you've you've imagined an outcome on the other end, that is what you believe more than not is going to happen, and you start looking for evidence that that is right, and that in the the process of doing that also makes it more likely that that outcome is going to come at the other end. Okay, so that's the basics of visualization. Where do we run into problems? And this is what uh I got into the conversation around, which is imagining yourself doing something exceptional while it opens you up to a greater potential outcome, it also is something that puts you at greater emotional risk. So let me explain that a little bit more. So it's you know, uh one of my favorite quotes is you know, there's no free free rides in nature. So, you know, nothing is just a uh a side effect free boost for you. So while it is true that visualization can put you in a mindset that makes the outcome that you want more likely, it is also true that the process of doing that, should you not achieve the outcome that you are imagining and that you are rallying your mind to confirm is what's going to happen, means that if you don't achieve that outcome, you will be hurt a lot more. We hurt a lot more than you would have had you not put um set set your mind to visualizing that outcome. Right? Um and it means that if you're really skilled at imagining great outcomes, even though this is an essential part of achieving something great. I mean, if I were to start to like formulate some of the ingredients for people that are really, really high achieving, I would say, you know, having a really high standard, but also imagining part of part of having a really high standard is imagining yourself doing these things, having the um overwhelming self-belief that that stuff is actually can happen, right? Um so if you're really skilled at imagining great outcomes, then you've suffered a lot of heartbreak in your life. Because um, especially the more you push to the edge of what's possible, even as you doing that makes those outcomes more likely, it doesn't make them more likely, it actually doesn't really make them more likely than that. So you're gonna have moments where it does not happen. The thing that you visualize, the thing that you've imagined, the thing that you have, you know, um worked so hard to confirm is reality and it and is the destination that you're heading to is not gonna happen and it will hit you like a ton of bricks. And as human beings, we are all naturally risk averse. We don't like that kind of pain. Okay, we find ourselves very naturally avoiding being in great emotional pain. We don't we don't um just wake out of wake wake up um you know and get out of bed and say, like, oh man, I really want to be um emotionally devastated today. Okay, so we we want to avoid that. And so that is, I think, what was tripping up the person I was coaching, and what has also tripped me up as well, personally, over the years with visualization is that you you're you're not even aware of it when you're doing it, but but your mind, you know, it's got grooved in the synapses so that you know when you start imagining that amazing outcome, somewhere in the back it goes, don't do it. This is gonna hurt. This or this might hurt, and it's not worth the risk. Right? It's not it's not worth it. I don't want to hurt like that. Okay. And so you can find yourself shutting down visualization, shutting down your own visualization, actually cutting yourself off from the greatest potential that you actually have in order to avoid this risk. So, what do I see as a solution? What what what what advice did I actually come up with for the person I was I was coaching and I was talking to on the phone? I want to share that with all of you because I think you know I think it'll be really useful to you as you think about this and as you interact with athletes and as you try to set goals for yourself and achieve whatever it is you have for yourself that you know is is a big um maybe ambitious outcome. And uh first I'm gonna start by telling you what not to do. The solution to this is to not to override and say, well, I have to vis I have to visualize anyway, because that is what I have to do if I want this outcome. Right. Um I always want to caution people against just for what I describe there as overriding, because while it feels like a quick solution in the moment, it all of the quick solutions to stuff like this um they may have a very, very, very limited short-term utility, but over time the quick solutions uh make you weaker in the long term. Because if you continue to override, that is also what you're doing basically is hey, I know you're anticipating this future pain. Let me apply even more pain right now, or let me apply at least enough pain right now that you will take the action that makes, you know, that that gets you to make the right decision. And ultimately, then, you know, you're just like setting yourself up for a situation where down every path is pain and where you're gonna find yourself very demotivated because if you go back to the natural risk aversion, you know, you're you're gonna go, well, what's the point of this? Everything hurts no matter what I do, pain, right? That's the part where people quit because it feels like a completely hopeless, helpless situation. Okay. So you want to have a process if you believe, based on what I've said, and I I certainly believe it, that um that visualization is good, you want to have a process for wanting to visualize so that you don't have to override, so that you can actually tap into that motivation of I'm going to do this because I believe it is better than what I'm doing. And in doing that, what you'd set up for is first, you give yourself motivation to do the thing you want to do. That's great. You know, in the short term, it works. But it also works more in the long term. Because instead of setting up a scenario where no matter what direction you go in, there is pain, you can actually set up more situations where you say to yourself, I'm doing what I want. I'm getting what I want. Right? And that feels good, and that allows you to actually expand your capacity for what you can find motivation for. So you're actually going to have um greater achievement. You know, like uh God, I'm gonna draw, I'm gonna make a drawing of this sometime. I'm not a visual person, but but I I think that this um this is best like this is best visualized for lack of a better term in a in a podcast about visualization. You know, you're you're actually expanding the borders, you're expanding the the area of your motivation by tapping into actually wanting to do something. And how do I think that you should um get yourself to want to visualize? Well, I think there's really two reasons. And what you want to do is set up for yourself that no matter what the result that is coming, that it can be a positive outcome for you. This is really, really hard. What I'm about to describe is really, really hard. But look, you didn't come and listen to this podcast for easy solutions and magical thinking, right? You want to know what actually works. So here it is. The first is go back to something that I've said repeatedly in this podcast, and that is if you want an ambitious outcome, visualizing it makes that outcome more possible. So I'm going to do this because it makes the outcome I want more possible. That is authentic, that is optimistic, and that's just true. So, you know, instead of saying I have to do this, no, I want to do this because I want to swim, you know, faster than I've ever swam before. And I know that this makes it more likely that that's gonna happen. But very crucially, you also want to have a positive argument for if that doesn't happen. Right? Because I said, like, if you're somebody who does this repeatedly over time, you're gonna have your heart broken a lot. And so you actually have to make a positive argument to yourself about why heartbreak can work for you. So if you do not get the outcome you want, you refer to some of my other podcasts. I talk so much about motivation and the motivation that comes from negative emotional states. These are turning point moments in your life. So you want to actually have the frank and honest conversation with yourself and say, if I do not get the outcome that I want, the absolute gut punch of pain that that will give me will be the starting point for a big change in my life. And that change will make a future great outcome likely. That's really hard. Um I think particularly hard, interestingly enough, for younger athletes, because um I'm finding here as I approach 40 that weirdly, even though I have less time, literally, um I have more patience for stuff. I have more patience to say, yeah, this is gonna take a while, but I'm just gonna chip away at it. Um and young athletes, despite having what seems to us as older people, nearly infinite time, are very impatient, right? They, you know, they don't want to hear like, oh, well, you won't get the outcome, you may not get the outcome you want, but it'll be a part of a process to getting to the outcome you want. Totally understand that. However, um, actually thinking that through logically, like I would challenge that. I would say, how's it working for you to just be impatient and say, I want it, I want it all now, and that's how I think it works. Because the more thoughtful, the more um intelligent the athlete you're coaching, if you really force them to um think about it, then uh they're gonna see they're gonna see how this process works. So that's what I think about visualization. I hope you guys really enjoyed that. Again, please give me some feedback on the podcast. Free not free, you do have to pay for them. Custom made goggles, themagic5.com slash swim brief, Christy underscore coach on Instagram, CD swim coach on Facebook. Um you can get on and and if you're um if you're a master swimmer, if you're somebody that's training for something else, get on and listen to my podcast earlier in the week. Me and Trevor Gray, we're gonna be doing a series. We're talking about how it is we train, um, what it is we're we're doing here as I approach 40. Trevor's 47. Um both try to keep a pretty active lifestyle, and we're gonna get be getting into all aspects of it. And I'm really enjoying doing it. So I hope you guys are enjoying listening to it as well. Um, thank you for listening, and I'll see you again soon.