Quickie: The Power of Visualization

This is an oldie but goodie. An experiment was done at the University of Chicago. Scientists assembled three groups of people. One group, they had shoot free throws for an hour per day. Another group THOUGHT about shooting free throws for an hour. They had a third group, who did nothing. Although the hands-on group performed the best, it was not by much. The group that had thought about shooting performed almost as well. The actual shooters improved by 24%. But get this.

The people who did not shoot any hoops, and merely thought about it, improved 23%!

If that doesn’t blow your mind, you’re not thinking about it hard enough! This experiment succinctly demonstrates the power of the mind, our ability to improve ourselves (even physically!) through thought alone.

I’m not feeling wordy today, so I’m going to leave it there. It’s all self explanatory. If you want more information, from the actual scientific paper, to podcasts discussing it, search for “free throw experiment.” There is tonnes out there, but, I think the key benefit is self evident.