The Power of Visualization: Winning the Game Before It Begins

There is a powerful story about a Vietnam War prisoner of war named James Nesmeth. During his years in captivity, he didn’t have access to a golf course, a club, or even open space. But every single day, he played a full round of golf entirely in his mind. He visualized every detail: the feel of the grip in his hands, the rhythm of his swing, the sound of the ball leaving the clubface, the shape of each fairway, and the subtle breaks on every green. Hole by hole, round after round, he “played” his favorite course with remarkable precision. When he was finally released, he returned to actual golf, and despite not physically playing for years, he shot a 74

That story sticks with you because it challenges what we believe is possible. It suggests that our brain, when trained with intention, can rehearse success so vividly that performance follows. I was thinking about that last week while watching my 9-year-old son. For years, he has played a game in our house he calls “Little Kid Baseball.” To anyone else, it might look unusual. He’s in a room by himself, completely immersed in an imaginary game. There are invisible pitches, dramatic swings, towering home runs, and slow home run trots around the bases, complete with a point to the heavens. He’s not pretending halfway, he’s all in. And if he notices someone watching, or worse, tries to record it, he immediately shuts it down. “Go away,” he’ll say. This is his world, and it’s serious.

From the outside, it’s easy to dismiss, but if you really watch it, it’s something else entirely. It’s focus. It’s imagination. It’s rehearsal. It’s visualization. As adults, we tend to lose this. Somewhere along the way, we trade imagination for practicality. We stop playing scenarios in our minds and start waiting for real-world conditions to dictate our confidence. But what if we have it backward? What if success doesn’t start with action, but with vision?

Neuroscience gives us a compelling answer. The brain doesn’t fully distinguish between a vividly imagined experience and a real one. When we mentally rehearse a skill or scenario, we activate many of the same neural pathways as we do during actual performance. Over time, those pathways strengthen, the brain adapts, and it prepares. In other words, what we repeatedly picture, we begin to wire ourselves to perform. That doesn’t replace hard work. My son’s success in baseball isn’t coming from “Little Kid Baseball” alone. It’s built on hours of practice, coaching, repetition, and effort. But I don’t think his imagination is irrelevant. I think it’s a multiplier.

Before he steps into the batter’s box in a real game, he’s already been there hundreds of times in his mind. He’s already hit the pitch, already rounded the bases, already succeeded. That matters because confidence often comes from familiarity, and visualization creates familiarity before the moment arrives. This might explain why ideas like vision boards gained so much popularity. At their core, they aren’t about wishful thinking. They’re about intentional focus and repeatedly exposing your mind to a picture of what could be.

The risk, of course, is stopping there. Visualization without action is just daydreaming, but action without vision can feel directionless. The real power is in combining the two. Elite performers across disciplines have understood this for years. Athletes visualize routines before competition, speakers mentally rehearse their delivery, and leaders play out conversations before they happen. They don’t leave performance entirely to chance. They prepare their mind as much as their body.

Maybe the lesson is simpler than we make it. Kids don’t question whether it works. They just do it. They imagine, they rehearse, they believe, and then they step into the real moment already feeling like they’ve been there before. Maybe we need a little more “Little Kid Baseball” in our lives, because sometimes the first step to achieving something is seeing it clearly enough that your brain starts to believe it’s already possible.

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