Research is clear: when we have to compete, we see the event twice.
The first time is when you play out the competition in your mind before the event occurs.
The second time is when you are actually playing the game.
When this happens, you will have the sensation of knowing how events within the game will play themselves out. It will appear that action will slow down and you’ll know what to do as players seem to move in slow motion.
For example, I once visualized myself playing water polo the night before I played the game.
Then, while I was actually competing, the action of the competition felt like it was moving in slow motion. For example, I would receive a pass and think surely the other players will take the ball from me. When I lifted up to throw, no one moved, not even the goalie. I threw the ball toward the goal thinking surely the goalie would block it. The ball slowly went into the goal.
The game ended nine to eight in our favor. I scored four of the nine goals. My highest output of the season.
I asked some of my teammates if they thought the game was unusually slow? No, was the answer. Weird, I thought. Weirder yet, at that moment, I failed to make the connection between my visualizing the game before it was played, and the game itself.
Years later, I did, especially in my work as a management consultant. As part of creating a five year strategic plan for corporations, I would have members of the management team visualize in great detail what the company would look like in five years.
As they did, I would receive accounts from some of those executives, who took the exercise seriously, that they had the sensation of “ this has happened before” or “ of knowing how an event will turn out before it happens.”
After decades of having observed this phenomena, I concluded that those individuals who concentrate on living an event before it happens unconsciously drive events to a predetermined point, and then have a sense that they have experienced this event before.
Why do I share this with you? I want you to understand how great events occur and how individuals are able to fit themselves into it.
I want you to try it. And if you already have, I want you to share it in your comments.