Visualizing Your Way to Success

Visualizing Your Way to Success

Lesson:

Full Group (discussion by teacher with student participation)

Explain to students that visualizing success is an important part of making
dreams come true, and that visualization, even without actual practice,
can help improve performance. Visualization can also help students:

• Accelerate progress
• Achieve their goals
• Enhance self-esteem
• Improve confidence
• Relax

Explain that visualization requires using imagination, but that it isn't
difficult. In fact, students most likely already know how to visualize.
They do it every time they imagine their name on a best-selling CD,
every time they picture themselves scoring, every time they imagine
themselves getting a good grade.

Explain that athletes, including Ann and Liv, use visualization all the time.
For instance, skaters see themselves in their minds performing their
entire routines, flawlessly executing every triple axle. Skiers see
themselves flying down the side of the mountain, fearlessly tackling
each bump, quickly making each turn. Ann and Liv, even before they left
their homes, were using visualization to help improve their changes of
success. Ask students what Ann and Liv might have been visualizing as
they prepared for their trip or what they might be visualizing now:

• The wind carrying them 60-100 miles a day

• The cold air on their faces as their strong bodies pull their sleds across the ice

• The hugs from their friends and family when they return to their homes after a successful trek

Grade Levels: K-6
Time: 1-2 class periods
Materials:
• Guided imagery exercise • Paper, scissors, magazines and catalogs, glue<
Objectives:
Students will:
* Understand what visualization is and how they can use it in their own lives to improve performance and manifest their dreams.
* Learn how Ann and Liv use visualization to keep themselves motivated and ensure their success.

Ann relaxing and taking time to visualize her goal - to cross Antarctica.

Ask students to brainstorm how they might use visualization in the following examples:

• Say you've been arguing with your mom or dad every time you're in the
same room, but you want to have a better relationship. What might you
visualize? (See the two of you having a pleasant, five-minute
conversation. Imagine sitting down to dinner with your dad, feeling
yourself smiling and your mom or dad doing the same.)

• Suppose you're about to make a presentation in history class. What might you
visualize? (See yourself string up to the front of the room, pulling
out your notes, delivering your speech with confidence. See your
classmates nodding in agreement, paying attention to what you're
saying, smiling at you and making you feel relaxed, yet confident).

• Ask students to provide their own examples.

Explain that the more students immerse themselves in their visualizations, they
more powerful they will become. Each time they visualize themselves
achieving their dreams, they should imagine new details. For instance,
they can add color, sound, smell and anything else that will make their
dream more real. They can even add touch: feel the smooth cover of
their best-selling book or the weight of the first-place trophy.

Group Exercise

Explain to students that guided imagery exercises are one way to help them
visualize their success. Ask students to think about one thing they
would like to be or do (one of their dreams) sometime during the next
five years. Ask them to get in a comfortable position, either lying or
sitting, and then use the following guided imagery to help them
visualize their dream come true.

-	Begin breathing. With each breath, breathe a bit deeper until your breathing in as much pure, clean, invigorating air as you can. With each inhale, say to yourself "I am." With each exhale, say to yourself "relaxed."
-	As you exhale, let go, feeling your breath leave your body, each time giving in a bit more to gravity. Beginning with your toes and moving up to your scalp, let your muscles be pulled down, deeper and deeper. Feel yourself one with the earth.
-	Now that you're relaxed, think about the one thing you'd like to be or do in the next five years. It might be an object you'd like to have, an event you'd like to attend, a task you'd like to complete, a situation you'd like to improve. Set this dream firmly in your mind.
-	Begin imagining it as if it's actually taking place. If it's an object, feel it in your hands, show it to your friends. If it's an event, see yourself there. What are you wearing? Who are you with? If it's a task, see yourself completing it with ease. If it's a situation, see yourself in that situation exactly as you'd like to be, feeling poised, confident, capable and in control.
-	Add details. See, hear, smell, taste and touch your dream as if it were actually happening. Imagine all the beautiful details and see yourself fully enjoying and appreciating them.
-	Now, with this image firmly in your mind, repeat an affirmation such as "Here I am, making my acceptance speech at the Academy Awards," or "It feels so good to be getting an A on my test."

Group Exercise

Explain to students that another way of visualizing their future success is by
making a DreamPrint, a collage (a collection of words, pictures and
objects) of all the things they wish for.

1. Have students cut out pictures and words and phrases from magazines and catalogs that represent their goals and dreams.

2. Once they have a collection of pictures and words, have students mount them on a sheet of paper or posterboard.

3. Have students display their DreamPrints around the room,
and encourage them to look at them often, imagining their success. Also
encourage them to spend five minutes each day doing something related
to their DreamPrint. Resources:

• Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to
Create What You Want in Your Life by Shakti Gawain (Novato, CA: New
World Library, 1995).

Teachers will assess:

* Student's understanding of visualization and how to use it to enhance their performance and imagine their future success.